Higher End DACs

Erik_squires,
Teac NT-505 dac/streamer. Dual mono AK4497’s, dual toroidal power supplies, fully balanced XLR, dual onboard clocks, full MQA support, great analog output section, upsample to DSD512, Lumin software, etc.... Amazing dac for $2k ("Esoteric-lite" I call it since Teac parent company of Esoteric - poor man’s Esoteric). I love it. Rest of system is Audio Research integrated amp and Spendor D7 and Rel S5 and MIT speaker/IC cables, Audio Art power and sub neutrik cables, Richard Gray power conditioner.

MQA a couple of steps higher than regular Tidal through my main system. I exclusively source Tidal. I have lesser systems (Bluesound, Integra) that fully decode MQA where I can’t really hear difference, but on *my* reference system I certainly can and I would never give that up.

[[granted, my system is different level than this thread deals with, but to me that’s all the more reason to demand MQA support if spending that kind of money as OP is considering -- if it makes huge difference with my $20k system and $2k DAC, why would you spend the $$ OP talking about without that feature, especially if concerned about future-proofness?? Nobody knows where MQA will be in 5 yrs, granted, but why take the chance? At a minimum is it not a feature to completely ignore, as some here seem to want to do. Relevant feature at a minimum, whether OP decides it is necessary or not. I’m just providing my personal experiences as an owner having 3 systems that fully decode MQA and being an exclusive Tidal user -- yes MQA makes huge difference if you have the system quality to resolve those differences -- if you don’t (and two of my three systems do not have that quality), then it doesn’t matter]]

Whether there’s something better than MQA I can’t say and don’t want to start an argument about that. I’m speaking from personal experience and to me it makes a noticeable difference on Tidal (when that is all I’m talking about) if your system is at a certain level of performance. As I said, only my reference system is. My second and third systems are not and I can’t hear MQA difference there, despite having full MQA decode there also (but those are $3k and $2k systems - quality not there to resolve the distinctions, IMO).

If the upstream signal quality is compromised you cannot somehow miraculously correct the shortcomings further downstream,???

 But this is exactly what people are telling ufguy73 he can do with a $35000 streamer/dac. Digital streaming is a whole new ballgame, it’s different from vinyl and CD where your front end piece the TT/cart/arm or CD player is the front end in streaming the front end is a room full of servers sitting hundreds if not thousands of miles away. So if this signal is compromised before it hits your modem how is a mega $$$ streamer going to miraculously fix it any better than a Sonos? If the signal isn’t compromised which means you actually get the signal in digital you either get it or you don’t. Now what that streamer does with it is what matters and until it hits that dac which changes this digital to analog has more to do with not messing up the signal in any way and as long as the dac can do its job the streamer did its job. How easy the user environment is is one of the most important aspects of the streamer that and not degrading the digital signal beyond repair by the dac.

Thanks for the info @kren0006

Do you have any other high resolution sources, or would you say it’s almost all Tidal? I’m wondering if you can compare both to Redbook (44.1 kHz/16 bit) on your DAC.

Thanks,

Erik

erik_squires,
I’m an oddball and really do not. I’m probably the only person on A’gon who went straight from CD’s in the 80’s, 90’s to Tidal streaming in 2019 without ever downloading a digital music file. Skipped the whole Napster/Apple Music/ everything else for last 20 years. Why? I don’t know, to be honest. Kids, work, family, life, who knows? Then I found streaming and game changer -- back in audio in last year in huge way like I hadn’t been since the 90’s.

So long story short, no, I only use Tidal and I’m like a kid in the candy store now with unlimited (to me anyway) access to everything music. I’m sure eventually I’ll add a second service to cover the things I can’t get on Tidal but I can’t see ever going vinyl or hi-res downloads just too big a rabbit hole cash wise for me today. Maybe in 10-20 years when my kids are grown and I’m retired and have unlimited time and more $$.