Jake Isaac and his band performed from London's Rocket Studios making this the first time a live performance has been streamed in real time using MQA's technology.

The performance was listened to live in an Austin home on a variety of devices to recreate everyday listening environments.

MQA Live enables music fans to connect in studio quality to their favourite artists, wherever and whenever the artists are performing.

Mike Jbara, MQA CEO, told StereoNET:
 
MQA Live offers fans the authenticated sound direct from the venue, so conveniently that it can fit into their everyday lifestyle, wherever they are and however they chose to listen. The home environment in Austin, with a variety of playback devices, was a great way to experience Jake’s special performance, and excited those in attendance to imagine a new age of social and appointment listening.

Fans can listen to a live concert in its original quality as if they were standing in the venue. MQA Live offers access to gigs across different countries and time zones for loyal fans, as well as opening up concerts to new audiences.

MQA Live streams audio only. Recent research shows that 95% of YouTube and Vevo users listen to music without watching the video (Midia Research) and 87% people listen to music on the radio (IFPI: Connecting With Music), supporting the fact that a high-quality audio-only experience fits into the lifestyle of music fans.

It also dramatically reduces the expenses associated with video production and broadcasting, making it something that can be offered for every show and every artist in every venue.

Jake Isaac, singer-songwriter and musician, added:

I feel really lucky to have been part of the first MQA Live experience. After the performance, the MQA team played the recording of the live stream back for me and I was blown away with how powerful it felt.

How it works

MQA has applied its tech to make a real-time encoder. This connects easily to the audio system of the live gig and can feed the stream into the chosen delivery platform of promoters and venue owners.

The only additional equipment required is MQA's live encoder box at the venue to encode the performance. This keeps production costs low, while the MQA encoding process preserves audio quality and addresses bandwidth issues. MQA music will stream and playback on any device, although for optimum results and the full MQA ‘unfold’ process, an MQA compatible DAC is required from the growing number of hardware partners.

No further details have been released as to when MQA Live will become widely available, or whether it will be integrated with Tidal as MQA has.

Originally published as MQA launches new live music platform.