Onkyo Inks Hi-Res Music Deals With Labels

And just like that Onkyo is well on its way to become one of the largest sources of high resolution music out there, with a library totaling more than 16,000 MQA tracks.

Which you can view here.

MQA stands for the Master Quality Authenticated format, which is pretty much the best sounding music you can get your hands on these days. This hi-res audio format is ideal for owners of AV receivers and audiophiles that want access to the best of the best.

As Daniel Escobar, business development manager for Onkyo Music put it:

“Embracing high quality audio has become more practical as storage and bandwidth are no longer an issue, and hi-res devices — using new technologies such as MQA — are becoming more affordable by the day. Our ultimate aim is to create a seamless hi-res ecosystem, together with Onkyo consumer electronics, and provide the best music experience to our customers.”

This latest partnership has the company signing agreements with three influential Japanese music labels to distribute their music encoded in the MQA format.

Content from F.I.X Records, Mages (5pb Records), and Falcom will be available exclusively from Onkyo Music in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, though US availability will actually be announced at a later date.

In addition to this, Onkyo has also set in motion plans to improve content discovery on its website, with this handy list of changes announced:

• An updated interface that’s cleaner, faster, and easier to use
• Improved layout logic that caters to visitors seeking hi-res content
• Breadcrumbs integration for improved site navigation
• New Suggest as You Type (SAYT) functionality
• Highlighting when MQA content is an available option
• Better filtering and sorting across sections
• Clear identification of albums and singles on artist pages

In addition to these thousands of MQA tracks, Onkyo Music also provides access to hundreds of thousands of his-rese tracks encoded in 44.1 to 192-kHz/24-bit, to go with millions of CD-quality 16-bit FLAC tracks.

The company also recently announced Dolby Vision updates for its AV receivers.