Essential Products, the company that Android co-founder Andy Rubin started a year ago, will build Master Quality Authenticated audio capability into its smartphone, said Essential and MQA in a joint announcement Thursday. Essential customers will be able to stream MQA music via the Tidal platform by downloading the Android app from Google Play, they said. Tidal “is constantly adding more master-quality music, allowing fans to hear the sound of the original recording,” they said. With the collaboration, the goal “is to deliver the best audio quality to as many music fans as possible,” they said.

McIntosh Labs, scheduled to exhibit next month at the ill-fated Los Angeles Audio Show (see 1805070037), won’t jump to the Home Entertainment Show in Irvine June 1-3 as an alternative, Marketing Coordinator Mark Christensen emailed us Tuesday. “There simply is not time for us to get everything prepared from a logistical and pre-show planning standpoint.” The high-end audiophile company was “surprised” at last week’s announcement that the LAAS was canceled, “but it was not a complete shock as we too were experiencing some of the same communication issues others have reported regarding show logistics,” he said. The experience didn’t sour McIntosh on the idea, though, Christensen said, calling Los Angeles an important market for the clientele and its location favorable for bringing in outside attendees. “Hopefully 2019 will turn out better,” he said. Meanwhile, Maurice Jung, president of The Home Entertainment Show, wouldn’t tell us how many companies have shifted from LAAS to T.H.E. Show “until they have signed and paid” but “it has been helpful,” he emailed. He called T.H.E. Show “resilient,” saying it will go on “for many years.” The luxury goods event covers several categories, including luxury cars.

Following the debut of the MQA Live in Austin earlier this year (see 1803190030), MQA will demonstrate the real-time encoding technology via several partners at this week's High End show in Munich, it said Monday. The performance, by the London-based Misha Mullov-Abbado Group, is scheduled to be streamed live Friday at 10:30 a.m. EDT. MQA Live streams music from “wherever and whenever” artists are performing, allowing fans to listen to a concert, in real time, in its original quality “as if they were standing in the venue,” said the company when it launched. Additional MQA updates: Hegel Music Systems and Lyngdorf Audio said they will integrate MQA in future products; LG incorporated MQA in the G7 ThinQ smartphone; ESS Technology said it will launch versions of its Sabre Mobile digital-to-analog converters and headphone systems with integrated MQA rendering; and networked audio platform Roon last week released its V1.5 software that supports and decodes MQA files and streams, said MQA.

McIntosh is replacing the MCT450 optical disc transport with the MCT500 ($4,500), it said Thursday. The unit has four digital outputs: industry-standard balanced, coax and optical outputs and a proprietary MCT connector that can be paired with any product that has standard digital inputs and a digital-to-analog convertor, said the company. The MCT500 plays common disc types: Super Audio CD, CD, CD-R/RW and DVD-R, it said. File formats such as AAC, AIFF, ALAC, DSD (up to DSD128), FLAC, MP3, WAV (up to 24-bit/192kHz) and WMA can be played from user-generated CD or DVD data discs and USB flash drives, McIntosh said. Shipping will begin this month.

Danish high-end audio company Dali is demonstrating its BluOS-based Callisto line of wireless loudspeakers with Lenbrook’s Bluesound wireless high-res multiroom players and Nad electronics at CES. Dali launched the Callisto line at IFA in September. It includes active bookshelf and tower speakers that connect to a Dali sound hub with Bluetooth AptX HD and can be upgraded with an optional module running the BluOS distributed audio and music management operating system. The BluOS platform allows Callisto to connect to a home’s Wi-Fi network and stream Hi Res Audio at bit rates up to 24/192 kHz, Lenbrook said. Demos are in Suite 29-236 at the Venetian high-end audio exhibit area.

Styx lead vocalist and guitarist Tommy Shaw and engineer/producer Will Evankovich are to discuss the recording of Styx’s 16th studio album, The Mission, at the Hi-Res Pavilion (booth #14735) at 2 p.m., Jan. 9, during CES. The album was recorded in 5.1-channel hi-res audio, said Universal Music Group.

Hi-res multiroom audio brand Bluesound will be part of the Digital Entertainment Group’s Stream the Studio campaign, at the Hi-Res Audio pavilion, booth #14735, at CES, Bluesound said Tuesday. The booth will feature a dozen premium CE brands, an automotive OEM displaying a hi-res audio system, two companies with mobile devices, music streaming and digital service providers. A studio stage will have live presentations, it said.

Asahi Kasei Microdevices announced an upgrade to its AK4490EQ digital-to-analog converter. The 32-bit AK4493EQ, due in January, optimizes circuit design and is compatible with hi-res audio sound sources up to 22.4 MHz Direct Stream Digital, it said. The company will demo the DAC at CES.

A firmware update made the Oppo UDP-205 universal disc player the first Blu-ray Disc player to support the Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) codec, said MQA Tuesday. When a user navigates through music files using the UDP-205’s app, the player will be able to identify and decode files encoded with MQA, said the company. Oppo is also working on MQA-CD support and is adding MQA decoding to its USB digital-to-audio converter and coaxial/optical inputs, said MQA.

British hi-fi company iFi Audio, which specializes in high-end digital-to-analog converters and portable listening accessories, is the latest to join the ranks of Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) supporters with its new Nano iDSD Black Label battery-powered portable DAC and headphone amplifier. The Nano Black Label, priced at 199 pounds ($262), supports PCM up to 32 bit/384 kHz and quad-rate Direct Stream Digital at 256 times the CD sampling rate, with dual-mono analog amplification and hi-res certification by the Japan Audio Society. Battery life is 10 hours on a single charge, with no drain on an iPhone or Android smartphone when connected by standard “OTG” USB A-type cables, said iFi Audio. The Nano is ready as sold to play MQA content streamed from Tidal, confirmed MQA representatives on hand for a London launch event last week. The Nano Black Label also incorporates the same technology that's used in Ear Buddy, iFi’s recently launched small plug-and-play socket device that attenuates the output of a music portable without losing resolution. The company says it designed Ear Buddy because modern music portables typically have a digital volume control that loses two bits of audio resolution when controlling volume. For example, 16-bit CD resolution is reduced to 14 bits when the digital volume control is set at 60 percent for comfortable listening, it said. Ear Buddy costs 20 pounds ($26) and attenuates the output by 15 dB, allowing digital control to be set at full volume. The Nano Black Label has two headphone outputs, one with the Ear Buddy-style attenuation built in and one without. The Nano has an analog volume control, so the user can set the mobile digital volume on 100 percent and manually adjust listening volume level in the analogue domain, without losing bits.