Imagination’s Caskeid Wireless Audio Platform to Support Meridian’s MQA Technology

January 6 2015, 05:00
Imagination Technologies announced at the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that its Caskeid wireless audio IP platform is set to be the first multiroom streaming solution to support Master Quality Authenticated (MQA), the technology developed by Bob Stuart, founder of Meridian Audio.
 
Adding MQA support to Imagination's Caskeid wireless audio platform will enable licensees of the Caskeid family of technologies to develop wireless multiroom and multi-channel speakers that offer their customers the benefit of high-resolution audio experience throughout their homes. Imagination says its Caskeid platform’s class-leading sub 20-µs synchronization technology is “uniquely capable of delivering MQA’s intended studio quality audio in a wireless multiroom or multi-channel environment.”

Caskeid licensees and partners include Frontier Silicon, Media-Saturn Group, Onkyo, Pure, and Meridian Audio with more to be announced. “MQA is the result of years of work in a bid to elevate sound quality whilst ensuring convenience for the customer,” says Bob Stuart, Meridian Audio chairman and co-founder. “The news that Imagination’s Caskeid wireless audio platform, which is the only wireless multiroom synchronization technology out there that truly offers a platform for high-quality audio, is to support MQA is very exciting as this will enable us and others to achieve the best audio reproduction in the wireless sphere whilst retaining the purity of the original source material.”

“Integrating Meridian’s MQA technology will elevate the listening experience and bring audio quality back to the center stage enabling music fans to hear content as the artist originally created,” says Hossein Yassaie, CEO, Imagination. “We are delighted to be working with a company with such a respected audio heritage as Meridian to drive this agenda.”

MQA, announced in December 2014, uses a completely new sampling method that can resolve the finest nuances and important timing information delivering them to the audio player. MQA also uses innovative coding to build a file or stream which also delivers sophisticated metadata and can be delivered inside any lossless container, e.g. as ALAC, FLAC, or WAV. Unlike the huge files from super-high-sample-rate systems, the MQA file is extremely efficiently encoded and yet it contains and protects all the sound of the original. More about MQA here.

Caskeid is Imagination’s wireless audio IP platform, a collection of hardware and software technologies that deliver efficient and accurate wireless multiroom and multi-channel audio. Specifically, the Caskeid platform integrates advanced quality audio processing, wireless connectivity and synchronization. It also incorporates effective low latency (for instant response across the system), intelligent management and configuration of the speaker system and a gateway to over-the-air cloud management and maintenance.

Imagination also confirms it will be working closely with the 7digital digital music platform, also an MQA supporter, to ensure its licensees have access to a rich catalog of MQA encapsulated tracks that can be streamed to Caskeid-enabled speakers.
www.imgtec.com | www.caskeid.com
www.meridian-audio.com
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