Is this MQA news a big deal?

I wouldn't spend more than $500 on a dac without MQA. $7000 on a dac without MQA is foolish IMO. You might not like MQA right now (with the right equipment, it can sound fantastic), but if they make future improvements and then you want it, your $7000 is wasted. If you bought a dac that supports it now, its your choice to use MQA or not.

LOL,.

+1 ptss! MQA is the GREAT AUDIO SWINDLE of today! And you are right about today's pop music - most of it is just DRECK!

@erik_squires .  How do you intend to playback without the decoding??

I don’t think MQA is going to be the end for music...For those who think the recording industry is not buying into MQA I posted this a few months back.
I am pretty sure the following audio companies have agreements in place to implement MQA into their current or upcoming hardware.

Audioquest (Dragonfly)
Aurender (A10)
Auralic (maybe???)
Bel Canto
Bluesound (Node, Vault series and Soundbar)
NAD (M12, M50, M32, C 390DD, M502...)
Brinkmann
CanEVER
Cocktail Audio (X35)
dCS
Esoteric
IAG
Krell (Vanguard)
Mark Levinson ( No519)
LG (LG.V30 smartphone)
Lumin
Meridian (many products)
MOON by Simaudio
MSB
Mytek
Onkyo
Pioneer (XDP-100R)
PS Audio ( PS Audio DirectStream)
Pro-Ject ( now owner of Musical Fidelity)
Sony (NW ZX300 and NW-A40)
Teac
Technics ( SU-G30)
Wapax

Nevertheless, so many more companies are not going the MQA route.

There are so many formats to choose from and vinyl has made such a come back, I don’t see the problem. Artists will contine to find ways to use computers and the internet to create and distribute their music and with the ever increasing wide bandwidth for streaming hi-res files, I don’t see MQA causing the sky to fall.