EXOGAL Abandons MQA Development

EXOGAL Audio announced today that they are ceasing development of MQA for inclusion in EXOGAL products.

Said Jeff Haagenstad, CEO of EXOGAL: “We have been evaluating MQA technology and watching the wider MQA ecosystem since early 2016. After much research on the fundamental technology and more importantly on the market demand for MQA, we have reached the decision to cease the pursuit of adding MQA to our products for several reasons:

1. Our products by themselves exceed the performance of our products with the inclusion of MQA,
2. Regardless of the breathless hype by the audio press, actual consumer demand is just not there.
3. Regardless of the announced support from record labels, a suitable base of playable content is not widely available.
4. As for the technical details of our evaluation of the technology vis á vis our own technology, we prefer not to violate our NDA’s with MQA and Meridian.
5. Much like Wadia’s technology before us, EXOGAL technology is already oriented in the time domain and does not suffer from the time-smearing effect which MQA is supposed to eliminate.

Suffice it to say we were never able to achieve the advertised level of performance using the MQA technology and thus it does not meet our standards for inclusion in our products. Many experts outside of our company have articulately made the case against MQA and we see no reason to elaborate or comment on those findings.”

“We will continue to watch the market evolve but for now, we are out of the MQA game.”

About EXOGAL

EXOGAL was founded in 2013 by audio industry veterans who innovated for some of the biggest names in the industry. The founders – Jim Kinne, Larry Jacoby, Jan Larsen and Jeff Haagenstad – came together around a shared vision to create products that are – as our name implies – “out of this galaxy.”

Our design philosophy is to create products that provide for an optimal listening experience in our customers’ everyday lives, not just in the labs under ideal test conditions. Keeping our sourcing and manufacturing close to our Minnesota headquarters shortens design­‐to­‐manufacturing times and allows us to get to market more quickly with bold new products.

All EXOGAL audio products use open protocols and interfaces, which allow you to play your music no matter where you bought it or where the music stream originates.

For more information, please contact info@exogal.com