Audio Video News

Astell&Kern has announced a firmware update that adds MQA support to three of its portable hi-res music players.

The update is now available for A&K’s SP1000M, SE100, and SR15 players and was made available for the SP1000 last month.

The idea behind MQA technology, which stands for Master Quality Authenticated, is to package high-resolution master recordings in a standard-resolution file size that can be easily downloaded and streamed.

Players with MQA support have a built-in decoder that unfolds MQA-encoded files in their original resolution. Playback is supported via downloaded MQA files and through the embedded Tidal app, which enables the streaming of “master quality” audio via Tidal Masters.

Instructions on updating firmware are available here.

Astell&Kern said MQA support for other products will be announced at a later date.

For more information, visit us.astellnkern.com. For more on MQA, visit mqa.co.uk.