If you can swing it I would just go straight to the Blue sound node (updating my prior post here). Although, do check to see how many titles are available in MQA in the genre you listen to.
I am not moving to MQA quite yet because I don’t know if any of the stuff I like will be in MQA, ever. But I feel like MQA is not going away and if you are starting from scratch it would be smart to give yourself that option.
If you have to save money, IMHO invest in speakers and MQA streaming and go with a vintage serviced receiver for a couple hundred in the interim.
Right now, I use chromecast to stream tidal hifi into my yamaha as2100 amp and totem forest speakers. For a while, I used the analog out of the CC and it was fine I guess (I didn’t know any better at the time). Recently I bought a schiit modi multibit and ifi purifier and it was better, even to me, the ultimate skeptic.
If I had to do it all over I would have gone with the bluesound from the get go and then I would have MQA right now for basically the same price as my chromecast/dac setup.
I will be selling the schitt/ifi setup soon here and upgrading to a lumin d1 which will solve all my problems in one go. But they are a lot more.
If you find you want to stream other things in the future that are not in the bluesound app, just buy a chromecast for that if you really need to, they are cheap as chips.
I have not heard the Elac F6, but I read many great things.
I have heard the Cambridge audio aero 2 bookshelves and they were phenomenal for their price. Not harsh at all and bass to 40hz. Would be hard to be disappointed with those I would say...if you need bookshelves. Tad large though and more on the forgiving side rather than the detailed side.
My musical tastes lean towards electronic, jazz and folk (i.e. four tet, caribou, rural alberta advantage, boards of canada, go go penguin, the bad plus, neutral milk hotel, bon iver, rival consoles, nils frahm), to put my ears in perspective here. Although, this, of course, does not matter as you should obviously listen with your own :).
I am not moving to MQA quite yet because I don’t know if any of the stuff I like will be in MQA, ever. But I feel like MQA is not going away and if you are starting from scratch it would be smart to give yourself that option.
If you have to save money, IMHO invest in speakers and MQA streaming and go with a vintage serviced receiver for a couple hundred in the interim.
Right now, I use chromecast to stream tidal hifi into my yamaha as2100 amp and totem forest speakers. For a while, I used the analog out of the CC and it was fine I guess (I didn’t know any better at the time). Recently I bought a schiit modi multibit and ifi purifier and it was better, even to me, the ultimate skeptic.
If I had to do it all over I would have gone with the bluesound from the get go and then I would have MQA right now for basically the same price as my chromecast/dac setup.
I will be selling the schitt/ifi setup soon here and upgrading to a lumin d1 which will solve all my problems in one go. But they are a lot more.
If you find you want to stream other things in the future that are not in the bluesound app, just buy a chromecast for that if you really need to, they are cheap as chips.
I have not heard the Elac F6, but I read many great things.
I have heard the Cambridge audio aero 2 bookshelves and they were phenomenal for their price. Not harsh at all and bass to 40hz. Would be hard to be disappointed with those I would say...if you need bookshelves. Tad large though and more on the forgiving side rather than the detailed side.
My musical tastes lean towards electronic, jazz and folk (i.e. four tet, caribou, rural alberta advantage, boards of canada, go go penguin, the bad plus, neutral milk hotel, bon iver, rival consoles, nils frahm), to put my ears in perspective here. Although, this, of course, does not matter as you should obviously listen with your own :).