So, it really depends on the dac. Sometimes with like a topping d10 or something, it is very hard to tell the difference between windows directsound and asio/wasapi. With higher end dacs it can sometimes make a difference. Typically you can tell the output is more accurate. For me, a good place to tell is the spatial information, and asio and wasapi can sometimes allow for better spatial ability. This mainly comes down to bit perfect playback, devoting more system resources to audio playback, and also it depends but the dac may respond better to it’s asio/wasapi driver. There’s more I am forgetting but I’m in a meeting rn lol
I’ll buy there’s improved spatial presentation. To my ear, that’s the biggest difference between Redbook 16/44.1 and 96/24. I am curious on how to devise an A/B test here. If you have ideas on how to set up an A/B using 1 computer sending signal to the same input on the same dac, I’m all ears (pun fully intended)
Hmm you could use coax and get a rca switcher for a coax signal from 2 identical PC’s with one on direct sound and one on asio. Personally I have macros that I can quickly switch my dac from directsound and asio so I can go back and forth
Post back in a few days and let me know how you are enjoying Qobuz. I tried it last year, the quality was good but the AI was piss poor, there were no good suggestions/recommendations being made and eventually I went over to Tidal because i preferred the interface. At the current price I really want to switch back over to Qobuz but if the AI hasn’t improved And making better recommendations meh, maybe. Can we still purchase hi-res files from them? That option was real nice.
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Yes you can purchase (Hi-Rez) albums for reduced price if you are a subscriber.
This is very good imo too!
And of course they don’t use MQA.
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Qobuz is awesome. best sound and i love the way it uses Aiso. even shows it in its menu. I hate though that i cant move songs up and down in teh playlists i make. Also it doesnt have vary good new music and artist discovery. but there is something there. everything else seems fine
I posted a review of the various music streaming services here:
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Just a friendly reminder that streaming doesn’t pay artists much and this is especially tough for artists who aren’t well known or very popular…
That said I have a decent flac collection and recently started using my laptop as my source. Any recommendations on program’s for playback and organization?
I also have tidal to supplement my collection and explore new music… I’m happy with it.
If you want some free easy tagging, mp3tag works great. I really like dbpoweramp but that one isn’t free
I really love foobar lol
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I use spotify premium and generally purchase my FLAC from hdtracks.com. I have a Cayin N3 DAP, but am becoming more fascinated with MQA and DSD, but dont know a thing about either format…want to expand my horizons.
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Personally I think a regular 44.1 16 bit flac sounds better than mqa imo
I really like MQA. There’s something so natural sounding about it. I imagine the MQA filter is doing something similar to the sound that Chord’s filters are doing. It’s greatly based on correcting timing errors. Pretty fascinating stuff, imo.
I really need a crash course with something like MQA & DSD for dummies, lol.
RZA begs to differ
Maybe chord has got it down, but every mqa setup I have heard so far sound pretty lifeless imo compared to a true lossless file (same master of course)
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Living in Denmark Qobuz is not an option (I can use software to act like I am in the US, but that doesn’t help my DAP); Tidal is… well not that userfriendly and as we have a familly sub for Spotify, that is the one I use the most.
Spotify has a wast catalouge and the quality is okay. And then ofc my own flac collection as well.
[quote=“donjklassen, post:103, topic:1598”]
Just a friendly reminder that streaming doesn’t pay artists much and this is especially tough for artists who aren’t well known or very popular…
[/quote
Napster - one of the first online music platforms, is one of the best providers in the industry. With its impressive payment of $ 16.82 for 1000 streams, the company paid royalties for its artists with 70% of the subscription profits.
Apple Music - Apple product users quickly become paid subscribers. This makes the actors’ profits of $ 7.83 for 1,000 streams possible.
Amazon - the online shop giant also offers its musicians good conditions starting at $ 7.40 per 1000 streams. Thanks to Amazon Prime’s 30 million subscribers, the platform has yet to expand its listening streaming experience.
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Isn’t RZA still busy with his Wu-Tang Financial portfolios? 
That is great information btw, was completely unaware of the actual amounts.
Definitely the fact that they’re remasters plays a huge part in SQ.
Yeah that would make a fairly large difference, I would rather listen to a better master on mqa vs a not as good one on regular lossless, but with the same master, the lossless file tends to pull ahead for me
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