New to Digital


I am a novice with digital music, and would like some advice on some digital options that are not cost prohibitive.

I have a Yamaha A-S701 amp, a Yamaha 
YBA-11 Bluetooth Wireless Audio Receiver, and ADS L9e monitor speakers.

I currently just use Amazon Music from my iPhone Bluetooth. I believe that I can do better with sound quality, and am interested in your  thoughts.

patricknataliekevin
Patrick,
I have a Mytek Brooklyn DAC for MQA, it's a very good unit for non-MQA as well.  They have recently replaced that with a Brooklyn DAC+, which has a few small improvements, including an upgrade to a little better ESS DAC chipset.  I think the DAC+ goes for $2150 (new).  You can probably snag a gently used original Brooklyn for much less, if your budget won't accomodate a DAC+.  I see one on the U.S. Audio Mart for $1275 today.
This unit has a wonderful headphone amp, built in phono stage and is a joy to listen to.
+1, Mytek Brooklyn DAC. At $1275, it’s a steal. 

Another inexpensive alternative is Blusound Node 2 for $550. The Node 2 will stream from Tidal, Deezer, Spotify and has an very nice internal fully compatible MQA DAC. 
Thank you for the input.
One additional question... The Yamaha A-S 701 has 24-Bit/192 K Hz courtesy of a Burr-Brown PCM 5102 DAC.

That is honesty “Greek” to me, but wondered how that built-in DAC would compare to the DAC’s you’ve mentioned 
I don’t have any experience with PCM 5102 DAC chip. The Node 2 uses the Burr-Brown PCM 5122 chip and I can say from my experience that SQ is quite exemplary given its asking price. 

Others have reported here that Node 2 does sound better with high quality external DAC like Brooklyn or Ayre Codex. 

Check out this review for better prospective on Node 2,

https://darko.audio/2018/01/further-travels-with-the-bluesound-node-2/

The Yamaha is an excellent amplifier, and that includes the inbuilt DAC. Hence I fully agree with the suggestion to get a Chromecast Audio and use its optical digital output into your Yamaha. See here for a serious review with measurement data: http://archimago.blogspot.nl/2016/02/measurements-google-chromecast-audio_27.html Without spending a real fortune, it is hard to imagine you can improve on this, unless your listening room is huge and your speakers very inefficient. I use one a seriously revealing system and I am perfectly happy. It will be much better than the bluetooth connection.
The sound quality of MQA is controversial. I think there are legitimate arguments for the view that it is in fact worse, and not better than ordinary 16/44 redbook cd quality. In the US Tidal and in Europe Qobuz will give you a streaming source for 16/44 quality, and I would not worry about it: there is enough research to support the view that lossless 16/44 is as good as you need for a perfect signal. In fact, there are good arguments that even the lossy 320 kbs Spotify stream is indistuinguisable from full red book CD. I am not sure - I thought it sounded better on informal listening, but proper comparative blind listening tests suggest few if any people can really hear a difference (I could not under such controled conditions). Anyway, I would never spend a penny on MQA.
If you ever consider spending serious money, I would suggest looking into modern speakers like the Harbeth M30.1. Your speakers are about thirty years old, and that is old - speakers do degrade with age. Also, speaker technology has improved considerably. Speakers make a real difference. But for now, enjoy the digital age.