The best part about MQA bankruptcy..

Pulled out a treasure trove of CD-Rs that were recordings of live concerts in peoples homes. Pioneer BDP-09fd playing into Devialet Expert Pro 220 (this time as preamp (not DAC) then out to tube amp. I love Qobuz, and for certain music Apple Music. Great sound quality, BUT, not on the level of what i heard on the CD-R. The sense of palpability, music and soundstage extending all over, was just greater and more easily produced with the CD. There is also another level of resolution, even though Qobuz generally sounds great.

My feeling is that streaming services equals xcllnt sound and super convenience.

CD equals even better sound with a bit less convenience because the library is limited..

Vinyl equals the possibility of the state of the art sound, but with a good deal of inconvenience, primarily because it can be a bit of a pain in the arse to keep the deck, tonearm, cartidge and LPs in optimal playing condition.

Feel free to correct me if I am off base.

4afsanakhan:

Have you tried to equal cd with uncompressed files on another source?  It's not easy, because sources probably only get noisier and more complex after a cd reader.  If you can get it going, more confidence about the reading than scratchable disks, better playlists, and then higher res await.  But good luck keeping it that quiet.

A bankruptcy isn't necessarily the end and it certainly isn't going to stop a hit like Tidal.

MQA is very good from my experience with a MSB DAC.

FTR: I have an early MQA capable DAC and I ended up turning it off early on. I couldn’t hear a benefit and my DAC forced me to stick to apodizing filters which I didn’t like as much as other choices.

From a pure sound quality perspective I’ve just never heard a reason to use it, and from a bandwidth savings perspective it’s the 21st Century and even in the US we don’t need it.