From what I have read so far I believe this to be true. In particular this quote… “To me that leaves MQA to functionally just be a type of DRM and licensing fee sponge. I’ve said before and will say again here, MQA is a bad solution to a fictitious problem” Brings this home.
I don’t know the technical nuts and bolts stuff, but I don’t need to. This is not something I will be pursuing.
ROON + Qobuz + locally stored files = a good life.
I’ve had Tidal. I like Tidal…it was great. But if you’re going in with Tidal, you need to go all-in on MQA compatible equipment. When I switched from Tidal to Qobuz, there wasn’t much MQA compatible equipment available. There is more now.
Also, I found that Tidal’s recommendations and featured music leaned very heavy toward new hip hop, pop, etc. While I like that…I like Qobuz’s more neutral approach to new music while also providing equal time to jazz, classical, reissues, etc.
To my ears, I also like Qobuz’s HiRes tracks over Tidal’s MQA tracks. Sounds better to me, idk.
Good info. I like what you said about “to your ears”. No two pair are the same! So if this gives you the best experience based on what you are hearing, then that is what matters. My ears are terrible, so what sounds good to me is probably gonna be worthless to someone else. So there is that!
Seems like Qobuz is getting positive feedback.
Exactly my experience in testing Qobuz and Tidal. Qobuz sounded better to me, in all genres.
Me, I’m still loving this Amazon HD. There is more and more stuff coming out in Ultra HD. And there is actually a noticeable difference! I didn’t think I would be able to detect any diff but I can. I’m still using the USB input on the PC to the SMSL stack but it’s cool, This will more than do for now.
On the headphone solution I have been playing with various input methods such as using my LG V40 like a streamer, using the headphone jack out to the MX-3 via RCA versus connecting via Bluetooth thus no USB. The results were surprising. And fun.