This gives DTS-HD MA a lossy "core" able to be played back by devices that cannot decode the more complex lossless audio.

DTS-HD MA's primary application is audio storage and playback for Blu-ray media; it competes in this respect with Dolby TrueHD, another lossless surround format.

This is the reason for the bifurcated nature of a DTS-HD MA audio stream; DTS CA, unlike its MA extension, is mandatory, so a player that is not MA-capable can automatically default to an MA-encoded disc's base DTS stream and simply ignore the supplementary data.

[4] Alternatively, even if a player is MA-capable, the base stream may be needed for backward compatibility with an older AV receiver (for example, one manufactured during the DVD era).

A setup using S/PDIF audio may output DTS-HD MA as either lossy DTS (which S/PDIF can carry) or downmixed stereo PCM.