Is this MQA news a big deal?

Just now stumbled across this release regarding DACs from ESS adding MQA, but I'm not certain if it means there'll likely be many companies offering MQA decoding soon enough. Or if it perhaps means something else. Any thoughts?

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/05/08/1497989/0/en/SABRE-DACs-from-ESS-Technology-to-Int...

hodu05-09-2018 4:51pm

shadorne Details Discussions Posts This discussion Message User 7,467 posts 05-10-2018 at 02:41am Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete All these DACs that sound better with these ridiculously high sample rates and the HF noise included in a 192 KHz file are all likely suffering from linearity issues and poor implementation of brick wall anti-aliasing filters. I don’t think MQA will fix anything on a well made DAC.
shadorne Details Discussions Posts This discussion Message User 7,467 posts 05-12-2018 at 07:36pm Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete Interesting. The MQA version of Fairytales doesn’t sound right to my ears. I don’t have the vinyl to compare. Her vocals sound like she is singing slightly diminished intervals. Very fragile slightly dissonant harmonically thin voice. Piano sounds a bit off too. Apart from that I totally don’t understand all the hooopla?
shadorne Details Discussions Posts This discussion Message User 7,467 posts 05-13-2018 at 02:15pm Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete @craigl59 Good article. MQA is a lossy format which injects a ton of up imaging noise into the high frequencies. If it sounds better then 1) The master audio file used to create the MQA file is better than the other master you are comparing to 2) Your DAC is suffering from poor linearity (very common especially with R-2R) and the inaudible ultra high frequency noise added to an MQA file is helping to randomize your DAC non-linearity.