Even though it’s Labour Day around the world, and we’re all supposed to be doing our level best to avoid work like the plague, I felt compelled to bring you news that digital-music juggernaut MQA has announced yet another partnership, this time with streaming heavyweight Deezer. The agreement promises to significantly expand MQA’s global reach, and put MQA into the earbuds of millions of 20-somethings who’ve probably never heard of it before. Having firmly landed on the positive side of the fence some time ago for MQA’s proprietary music-software codecs I see this as a boost for the audiophile world, and music lovers in general. More people realizing that music can sound better than compressed Mp3s is always a good thing. Tidal beware though, with this announcement there’s another high-res streaming service on the block. Cue Rocky theme.
–Rafe Arnott
MQA press release below:
London, September 4, 2017 – Following major partnership unveilings at the IFA technology show in Berlin, MQA is announcing a key new agreement with global music streaming platform Deezer, which will significantly expand MQA’s music offering and audience reach.
The deal will enable MQA’s technology to be integrated into Deezer’s platform, as well as across the service’s ecosystem of hardware partners and connected devices. While MQA’s commercial roll-out is still in its early stages, both companies already share several partners, including leading audio brands such as Bluesound, LG, Onkyo, MOON by Simaudio and Sony.
In addition to its signature feature, Flow – your personal soundtrack that uses smart data and algorithms, along with personal recommendations to play the tracks you want to hear – Deezer’s music streaming service boasts over 43 million songs, is live in 185 countries, and has more than 12 million active users across the globe.
MQA, the award-winning music technology, perfectly captures and reproduces the sound of the original studio recording in a file that’s small enough to stream. Over the last 15 months, MQA has been concluding deals with all three major record labels, as well as Merlin on behalf of the independent label community.
Mike Jbara, CEO of MQA, commented, “This partnership has great synergy as we already work closely with several of Deezer’s hardware partners. We’re looking forward to a close collaboration.”
Newly announced for CEDIA 2017 are two new MQA hardware partnerships: Norwegian audio manufacturer, Electrocompaniet, and 55 year-old family-owned hifi electronics
company Rotel. Electrocompaniet plans to integrate MQA into its high-end and custom
installation lines, with several products slated to be MQA-ready by end of 2017. Rotel
plan to launch their first MQA-integrated hardware in mid 2018.
