Next Best Upgrade for Tidal MQA?

@bruxesq Actually my reply was spot on to your request to improve the sound quality of your system.  I was a TIDA user for 2 years and thought MQA was terrific until I heard the same tracks in hi-rez on Qobuz.  That's why so many of us ex-TIDAL users switched from TIDAL to Qobuz and aren't switching back.  It's not subjective, hi-rez just sounds better than MQA.  Besides I think you replied that TIDAL doesn't contain Metallica titles.  Qobuz has an extensive Metallica collection, most in hi-rez.
Seems like the real issue is you want to do some kind of system upgrade, which bites all of us from time to time.  An upgrade to a Mytek Brooklyn Bridge isn't a significant upgrade.  I'm afraid you're going to have to spend approx $10k for a Lumin X1 or a pre-owned dCS Bartok to experience a jaw dropping upgrade.

Hi bruxesq,,  Based on your:

I’m generally happy with the sound, but always chasing the cleaner, clearer, better separation, more dynamic, more lifelike

...

comments is sounds more like my taste and that is not tube gear.  I think tube gear is better than bad SS stuff, but some SS stuff is sooo good in all the things you mention.

I think the Parasound is good and I have heard it. I had PS Audio gear which is hybrid tube.  Nice and warm and sweet.
But to me any AudiNet Preamp, sounds much better.  I started with the Pre 1 G3 and it was a big improvement in clarity, soundstage, definition. Used for 4000 easy GTT Audio...now I moved up to the Pre G2 and oh my...but much more.  No one will ever agree, tubes or SS. It is a preference.  I prefer clear and detailed but not harsh or fatiguing.

@bruxesq

i will chime in here, briefly with my 2 cents

imho qobuz is worth a trial - i believe they give 30 day free

tidal masters is excellent, know you have made investment in mqa via the mytek, i can easily live with it and be quite happy if quboz did not exist

but many audiophiles do prefer quboz (i would say a majority, like maybe 60-70% if i were to estimate) - to me it has a slightly more ’solid’ sound than tidal - tidal is a tiny bit more phasey/processed in direct comparison

so as you pursue better sound and system improvement i think it is worth a listen on your part (AFTER you get that proper linestage in... :) )

@cycles2 @fastfreight @jjss49

Thanks all for the comments.

RE: Qobuz - I’m not anti-Qobuz in any way, and I’m not wedded to MQA for all time. I did ensure that my streamer and DAC could properly handle MQA, but would not be the end of the world to switch. That being said, I do enjoy most of the Tidal Masters I listen to and the goal here was to improve the sound quality from
my existing service.

I’ll sign up for Qobuz and provide some feedback when I can, but I have serious doubts that it will blow Tidal MQA out of the water. Could it be better? Sure! But, even if I made the switch, I’d be looking for the next best hardware upgrade, which (again) is the focus here.

https://www.whathifi.com/us/qobuz/review

https://uk.pcmag.com/services-players/127046/qobuz

Both fairly recent reviews that tip toward Tidal as having better sound quality than Qobuz...