DAC upgrade or Amplifier

Guys, let's not get carried away with the chase for MQA.  I'm sure the bitrate and quality of MQA is good, but it is not the entire story.  You have to make sure your DAC and analog stages are good as well.  If you can ensure the DAC/analog are up to par, then MQA is a great solution for providing better resolution for streaming audio.

I know everyone is talking about room layout, acoustics, sources and tube preamps and such.  That's great.  I would like to re-iterate the limitation of the amp.  Like blindjim stated, "everything matters".  I 100% agree with this.

I used to own an Adcom 545 amp (100 watts per channel).  It was one of the first steps in my audiophile journey.  I did do some mods to it (blackgate caps, upgraded A/C to D/C diodes, hard-soldering all plug contacts).  The mods definitely improved the sound.  However, in the end, I determined that the amp just did not have the sound quality.  When I bought a Crown CTS 600 (Class AB amp), the sound quality went up drastically.  The Crown was just so much cleaner with much more detail and "separation of instruments".  It really showed that the Adcom was just messy/dirty sounding in comparison. 

While the Crown CTS 600 was an absolute amazing item for the money (less than $200 on the used market), there are definitely amps that are much better.  When I upgraded to Emotiva XPA-1 monoblocks, they showed that the Crown was definitely on the low end of sound quality.  The resolution, strength, punch of the Emotiva was a lot better than the Crown.

The Parasound A23/A21 amps will be much more refined than the Emotiva, which is why I put them on the list above.  The A21 is an awesome amp, but definitely much more expensive at around $1600-1800 used.  The A23 will be around $700-800.

Soundstage is definitely source, but that means not just the DAC, but the digital feed to the DAC, and something you are probably not considering; the preamp. 

The jitter of this feed is critical to achieving good 3-D imaging, in fact more important than the DAC.  Lower the jitter, the more 3-D it will be, the tighter the focus will be.  Both DAC and source feed are important however.  A good DAC will insure good dynamics and a liquid midrange, as well as crisp airy highs.

A poor active preamp can easily kill any chance at 3-D imaging by introducing distortion and compression. I have not heard any preamp less than about $10K that can do a decent job.  Passive preamps, particularly transformer-based, or direct from DAC to amps is a less expensive option.  If you are doing computer audio, using a good playback engine like Amarra, the S/W volume control will add very little distortion compared to a typical preamp.

If you are using an inferior CD player or a cheap computer audio solution like direct from a laptop, this can easily cause a jittery source stream.  For a CD player, there are reclockers that can resample the data and reduce jitter significantly.  For computer audio, there are USB and Network converters that reduce jitter or a good server, like the Antipodes or Aurender.

I would recommend to start with the source and source cabling and reduce the jitter of these first and then look to the preamp and DAC for upgrades.  Don't rely on the DAC to reduce jitter effectively.  99% of them don't.

I've been in the business 16 years and upgraded my own personal system for 30 years.  I have modded a LOT of DACs as well in the past and exhibited at shows for 15 years.  I've had a lot of opportunity to hear the effects that various components have on a system and determined where synergy even makes sense.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

Another option for you if you are interested in doing computer audio, but want to ease into it is the Sony HAP-1EX.  Fairly low jitter and a decent DAC, all for an affordable price.  You can even drive your amps directly, so you save on the preamp and DAC.

I have heard $100K systems at shows driven by the HAP-1EX, and they sounded quite good.

Empirical Audio