When Lenbrook Media Group (LMG) was announced, the declared goal was to effectively enable the commercialization and development of Lenbrook's content management solutions, as well as pursue new licensing opportunities. With the existing BluOS software technologies and content management platform at its core, the new business unit could also oversee the growth of content encoding solutions using the valuable set of technologies that resulted from the MQA acquisition, and particularly its exciting new SCL6 codec.
With this strategy in mind, Lenbrook now essentially created two market fronts, with BluOS and its high resolution multiroom audio distribution platform on one side, and on the other the newly created MQA Labs. This new entity addresses the important opportunities for the MQA family of audio encoding technologies, some of which are already used by hardware manufacturers, streaming services, broadcasters, and music creators. Under MQA Labs there is also now a dedicated team, focused on the different solutions and targeting specific applications and players in the music supply chain.
The first solution is now called AIRIA by MQA Labs (also known by its technical name, SCL6), an adaptive codec that delivers high resolution audio while seamlessly scaling from full lossless to very lossy rates, as required by variable wireless network conditions and mobile applications. FOQUS by MQA Labs is the second solution and represents an innovative approach for analog to digital conversion. This was essentially the core of the technology package that MQA successfully sold to record labels, archives, studios and mastering facilities globally to deal with time smear or time domain distortion.
"The digitization of an analog signal introduces a range of imperfections to the resulting audio file. One of the most common and critical is something often referred to as time smearing - when the resolution of two sounds is reduced because their timing is incorrectly reproduced within the digital file," explains Greg Stidsen, Chief Technology Officer at Lenbrook. "MQA Labs’ team are experts in time-domain audio improvements, having invented many of the techniques to avoid or eliminate such audio defects."
Finally, there's QRONO by MQA Labs, which combines a variety of audio processing enhancements for playback devices, many of which have been already successfully licensed to manufacturers. This set of technologies similarly deal with time domain distortions, but addressing the conversion from digital back to analog instead.
Lenbrook says that these technologies are all expected to debut in a variety of licensee products before the end of calendar 2025. And the company reinforces that all these solutions are independent of the original MQA codec, meaning that they neither require nor result in MQA encoded files. In fact, Lenbrook also confirms that "the original MQA codec will continue as a product family within the MQA Labs portfolio, and work is being done to further enhance the product family, including tools for musicians and recording engineers to offer them more control over the way their recordings sound." Licensing and support of the MQA rendering codec, as well as encoding of new MQA materials, continues as normal.
Gordon Simmonds, CEO of The Lenbrook Group, LMG’s parent corporation, reflected on the initial decision to acquire the assets of MQA. "These developments confirm our instincts around this team and the value of the IP. While the choice and accessibility of MQA content remains a priority for us, this was never about a single codec," he says.
The Adaptive Codec
Probably the most exciting solution that MQA Labs is now bringing to market is the result of what was previously known by its technical name, SCL6. This is the new codec that audioXpress had the opportunity to preview at CES 2023, and which is able to seamlessly ensure the best resolution possible regardless of bandwidth availability. Now named AIRIA by MQA Labs, the codec was developed to transform audio across wireless connections.
As the company demonstrated to select guests at High End 2024 in Munich, LMG successfully completed pilots for use as a distribution codec - perfect for streaming services, and allowing dramatic operational savings and reliability. The application of this codec into music streaming services enables removing today's fixed "thresholds" and tiers that are conditioned to lossless CD quality at best, enabling much higher quality levels when streaming high resolution audio material, even under the most difficult network conditions. As reported, early response from the industry around these new products has been positive.
"We are inspired by the reactions of our partners who are incorporating these technologies into their products," explains Mike Jbara, Vice President & GM of LMG. "This is a milestone moment for us. We are committed to receiving and applying feedback from the market in how we apply our technologies and ensuring they are more flexible and accessible throughout the music supply chain."
As an organization, MQA Labs now combines a team of experts in music production, acoustics research, and audio engineering, including those responsible for the pioneering work that comprises its rich portfolio of patents and research. A wholly owned subsidiary within the Lenbrook Group of Companies, the Lenbrook Media Group invests in and commercializes technologies and platforms that capture, package, and deliver digital audio in residential and commercial applications.
www.MQALabs.com
www.lenbrookmediagroup.com
