Higher End DACs

@david_ten 

thanks for giving me an oasis in the deluge of off-topic replies since I last checked in!

could you share a little more behind your thought process of not considering MQA limitations in your decisioning?  Is it the relative lack of content?  The uncertainty about its scalable future?  The inconsistency of its advancement over other high resolution formats?

thank you!

ufguy73 thanks for starting this really interesting thread
I believe two pages ago you were thinking in the $15k range for DAC, if still so, have you considered the Simaudio 780d v2?  It handles virtually all formats including MQA and does have a streamer built in to get up and running and bypass if you like (it is really 90% DAC). Not sure compatibility with Mac but there is a dealer in the bay area that carries both lines.  
Anyway, thanks for sharing your journey with us.

@ufguy73 I stream both Tidal and Qobuz. My current DAC does not decode the second MQA ’unfold.’

I listen, daily, to a number of MQA tracks where Roon performs the first unfold... HOWEVER, I AM NOT picky in terms of preferring MQA coded over non-MQA files in Tidal  OR  where Tidal offers MQA and a higher resolution via the first unfold over a "lower resolution" file via Qobuz.

My answer, at the simplest level: nice to have but far from necessary. That, again, is from a daily listening perspective.

It is a total non-factor in terms of component choice as there are far more important considerations (for me).

This may serve as an analogy, though not a perfect one:

I’m car shopping. For me, it would be akin to rejecting a choice in a car because I’m looking for a specific tread pattern and that car’s stock tires don’t offer it.

@david_ten 

thanks for the real world check on format and usage - appreciate it!

@audiotroy 

Sorry, i missed one of your recent replies.  Thank you for your reminder about T+A intention for the MQA update.

just out of curiosity - have they definitively confirmed it is coming?  Another poster I think had provided an email reply from them that I thought made it sound more vague (I will have to look back and see).

also, a general question - are software updates always limited to the first MQA unfold only and if you want the subsequent full MQA unfolding it would require a hardware upgrade? Or does the ability of a software upgrade to give a full MQA compatibility depend on the DAC implementation?

Does T+A’s implementation allow for full MQA thru just a software upgrade?

Thanks for righting the ship folks. And +1 on the Star trek reference kren.