The graph in the background is an information plot (Shannon diagram). One thing it shows is that the peak information content of the music is about 1/6 of the 4.6Mbps single channel capacity at 192/24.
That fact speaks to efficiency, not to quality improvement. It illustrates that the channel moves much more 'data' than '(relevant) information'. Resolving that conundrum is a matter of lossless compression, which MQA achieves between encoder and decoder.
The headline to emphasise the result is not about efficiency, it's about the system end-to-end (i.e. analogue-through-digital-through-analogue) temporal blur or time-smear.
The inset upper right shows the impulse response of the entire chain (not just a converter), comparing MQA to a high-performance studio ADC/DAC at 192/24 delivering the output of a microphone feed. We can quantify this in a number of ways:
- Uncertainty of leading edge: MQA = 4us compared to 250us
- Total impulse duration: MQA = 50us compared to 500us
- MQA has no post-ring
- Perceptual smear (relating to the perceived envelope and loudness) MQA at under 10us is at least 10x better.
This is a quality improvement in temporal resolution; the headline of 10x is conservative and we hear the result.
And it can be transmitted at a lower data rate, but that's efficiency gain in part from the end-end nature of the coding and the other innovations.
The problem comes if the graph is taken out of context without the words I was using the the time.
Bob