@bill_peloquin Its hard to go wrong with an Innuos Zenith mk3…but its street price used in $3.5-$4k used.
streaming and audiophile stereo
I have heard it said that an audio system is only as good as its weakest link. I want to complete a system that will give me access to lots of music by Tidal and Roon, and I want the music played through some true audiophile components. I am used to tube preamps, and will probably go that way again, though ss remains a possibility. The speakers I intend to use are very efficient - 20 watts of amplification would be ample. Here's my question: in such a system, how important, and how variable, are the audio qualities of the digital source component - the streamer - at the front end? If it does MQA does that alone mean it is the highest quality audio possible at this end of the system? Or do some that accommodate MQA provide better sound than others that also accommodate MQA? I see lots of reviews of features of these components, but not much about their individual sonic qualities. Leaving aside features and convenience, are some better sounding than others and would this depend entirely on the DAC used?
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The only thing I can come up with is that tidal is actually using more bandwidth than qobuz. There is no other reason that qobuz could play 24/96 while rarely dropping out compared to the dropping out 4-5 times in the middle of a track like tidal does.. maybe t-mobile hates tidal and not qobuz? Except it happens on Starlink and the local wireless isp also.. Although I do subjectively “hear” tidal as sounding better, full unfold with dac, when it works, than normal “hires” (ie 24/96) qobuz, I am about ready to cancel tidal since I cannot get through an entire track without 4-5, 10-45 second “breaks” in the track. I have sent tidal support emails, but not heard anything back yet. PS.. I purchased a t-mobile 5g hotspot device and a separate 100gb/month service SOLELY for audio streaming as the other two were dropping tidal. Nothing else is on that t-mobile 5g network. Still drops..
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I’m with you, there. I’d long ignored streaming, for the most part (had an original Bluesound node but rarely used a streaming service; I used it for in-house streaming from a NAS). I got the latest Node and was disappointed, so I decided to look for a standalone (i.e. nothing but) streamer. (note: I was in the process of trialing Tidal and Qobuz, and also didn’t like the BlueOS interface on my PC) I found the Ifi Zen Stream (https://ifi-audio.com/products/zen-stream/) and haven’t considered anything else since. My goal was a streamer that worked well with Roon and Qobuz, and I’ve had no issues with it. I want to minimize any artifacts/colorizations in streamer and DAC, and this feels like it’s working. |
- 57 posts total