Using streaming as a main source ---DSD, FLAC, MQA Streamers and DACS

Streaming need be no more difficult than the rest of your system. You simply need the highest quality streamer and DAC you can afford. Do your research about the quality and sound characteristics of each. The value of each should be about the same as your preamp, or amp.

First on format. The most important thing about the sound quality from your system is your equipment. Period. 99+% of the sound quality is determined by your equipment not the format. once you get really high quality sound you can join in the fray about how x sounds like Sh!t and Y sounds fantastic… which probably is going to be splitting hairs if you have good equipment.

Most high quality streamers will support them all or all minus one. Your source will determine what formats are available. Qobuz is most widely regarded as the highest sound quality. They have high a million high resolution albums and a couple million more at red book CD resolution. Forget ripping, file storage unles you like fiddling around. That is so ten years ago. I have a bunch of stored files only because I have stayed on the leading edge of digital since it’s inception.

MQA is not trash, on a good system it sounds great… I used to listen to Tidal (they have MQA)… but Qobuz is better (by a small but noticeable margin) and they have lots of higher resolution albums.

Get a dedicated streamer… not a PC. Typically even a budget Bluesound streamer sounds much much better. The PC route is all sorts of work and hassle and unless you want to make playing around with PCs and routers your hobby… don’t do it.

If you don’t have a Ethernet connection near you, don’t worry. Get a cheap wifi extender for $59, plug it in next to your system and an Ethernet cable into that, and done. I have and know of many $150K systems running this way.

For a streamer, unless your budget will not permit it, look at Aurender… this is all they do and produce some of the best on the market… I have two. My systems are shown under my ID.

If you need a budget DAC… look at Schiit Yggdrasil… outstanding performance for a low cost.

read what @ghdprentice wrote above. All true, IMO. +1

To what he wrote I would add:

Tidal, has a wider music selection than Quboz. MQA is a bit of marketeering nonsense (it IS lossy, and MQA is a solution to a problem better solved by bandwidth), but it’s not trash.

Aurender makes great gear, but it doesn’t support Roon (if you care, some day); you’re locked into their software. I’d suggest Lumin as a possible alternative.

Is MQA important to you? Myself and many others have rejected this Lossy format for many reasons but I prefer lossless playback because I can hear the difference on my system. Is ROON important to you? Many of us use that for varying reasons. I am a big fan. The purchase process should not be a nightmare for you and the best advice I read in this thread is find a dealer who communicates with you satisfactorily and that’s the way to go through a dealer purchase.

When I had hardware capable of MQA decoding (hardware which went belly up a mere couple days after the warranty expired🤣), I had already decided that I enjoyed the fidelity I got from non-MQA capable Qobuz more than I got from the MQA capable Tidal. In other words, sure MQA was okay, but it didn't make enough of a difference to keep me wedded to the format.

Streaming need be no more difficult than the rest of your system. You simply need the highest quality streamer and DAC you can afford. 

It's not a matter of cost. It's just I like to use streaming. The recommendation system on Tidal is great -- Qobuz not so much. My budget would be around 6,000-7,000k USD so Aurender / Innous are my likely choices for a streamer. I can use ethernet but for starters I'm been using a WiiM-Mini over wifi (I'm testing out options).  Right now I have a basic set up - Rega amp with a built in 24/192 DAC that I'll use. My next updates will be a: 

- Streamer. I'm looking at Innous / Aurender / Auralic. Ideally there would be a high end blue sound streamer or a high end Sonos streamer but neither of those seem likely in the short term. (The play everywhere feature of those platforms is great). Those platforms seem to have the best apps out there - and best integrations. 

- DAC. Sort of unknown at the moment. I like the reviews of the Denafrips DACs and PS Audio do a nice DAC but I'd need to demo them. Sadly more and more brands are becoming online distribution only so trial equipment is getting harder and harder to find - especially at my budget.

I have a good local dealer but like all dealers their range is limited to the brands they work with.

What I'm really wondering is -- should I spend my 7k on a set up which would set me up for the next 10 years or do I wait, spending perhaps half that now, and wait to see where the market goes.

I'm not going to buy anything for 3-6 months -- I want to upgrade my speakers first (again a lot of brands with great reviews are moving to an online direct model).