Lenbrook Media Group Unveils MQA Labs and Exciting Plans for IP Portfolio

The newly formed Lenbrook Media Group (LMG), a business unit created on the aftermath of the MQA acquisition in the autumn of 2023, has announced the creation of MQA Labs with a mission to advance the distribution of high resolution audio with a suite of audio processing enhancement, conversion and encoding products for the music supply chain. Its three core solutions now include AIRIA by MQA Labs, essentially the SCL6 adaptive hi-res audio codec; FOQUS by MQA Labs, addressing analog-to-digital conversion; and QRONO by MQA Labs, audio processing enhancements for playback devices.

The Lenbrook Group of Companies, owner of NAD Electronics, PSB Speakers, Bluesound, and the renowned BluOS hi-res multiroom platform, has created a new business unit, Lenbrook Media Group. The mission is to more effectively enable the commercialization and development of Lenbrook's content management solutions, as well as pursue new licensing opportunities. With the BluOS content management platform at its core, this group will also oversee the growth of content encoding solutions MQA and SCL6, which Lenbrook acquired in the autumn of 2023.

Lenbrook Corp., the privately-owned Canadian audio company that owns NAD Electronics, PSB Speakers, Bluesound, Bluesound Professional, and BluOS, has acquired the assets of UK-based company MQA. The deal adds significant audio patents and codecs to Lenbrook’s IP portfolio, including MQA's high-resolution audio encoding and the latest SCL6 Scalable Codec for wireless audio applications, which is implemented in the upcoming line of PSB headphones and earbuds.

The Case of the SCL6 Scalable Codec. How Much Do You Want Hi-Res Audio? The candidates to become high-quality optional codecs for Bluetooth LE Audio are starting to line up. And SCL6 is leading the charge. This new scalable codec created by MQA was one of the best demonstrations at CES 2023, and is one of the most promising solutions for high-quality wireless audio. Yes, I said MQA.

PSB Speakers, together with hearables start-up Sonical and audio codecs specialists MQA, announced a partnership that intends to define a new category of high-resolution audio headphones. The collaboration is aimed at creating true hifi headphones and smart earbuds, combining MQA's SCL6 high resolution wireless audio transmission and Sonical’s CosmOS platform. Planned for release under the PSB Speakers brand by Q1 2024, the resulting products will be the first headphones to feature Sonical’s ear computing platform, enabling a variety of apps and software upgrades.

Japan Audio Society (JAS), the internationally respected audio research organization, has certified MQA's new SCL6 scalable codec for use with its Hi-Res Audio Wireless logo. This new codec carries the technical name of SCL6 and is coming to market as MQair. In the announcement, JAS confirmed that both the new SCL6 (MQA) and LC3plus (Fraunhofer IIS) codecs will receive this new level of certification, created specifically for wireless audio, and expanding the existing Hi-Res Audio certification.