MQA is Legit!

I am a longtime, longtime audio enthusiast who bought a Mytek Brooklyn Bridge and is now almost three days into the modern streaming, outboard DAC era(!).  The only MQA I've listened to is from Tidal and I gotta say that though I prefer having the MQA button pushed over not having it pushed, it really doesn't sound all that much better to me.  A little more dimensionality and space?  Perhaps.  A more satisfying EQ?  Yeah, I guess so.  As for Tidal and streaming, it sounds perfectly acceptable and I love the amazing selection of music I can instantly access, but it  ain't sonically sending me to heaven.

I have to say, though, that I truly love what I hear when I listen to my Sony SACD player through the Brooklyn.  I've got the SACD player hooked up so that I can either listen to SACDs/CDs in Red Book Digital via the Brooklyn or in SACD via the Sony, and I gotta say that the Brooklyn feed consistently sounds more convincing.  Right now I'm listening to a old Erato CD via the Sony Mytek combo that is giving my admittedly aged SOTA/Alphason/Lyra/Moon analog rig a serious run for its money. 

I decided to swing for an MQA-enabled DAC because MQA was developed by Meridian -- the once-monikered Boothroyd-Stuart bunch whose powered speaker system (I can’t recall the model) sent me into fits of audio ecstasy when I auditioned it at a Paris Audio salon in L.A., who knows when. It was the first time I’d ever heard 3D sound-staging from a high-fi. It gave me the shakes. I couldn’t afford the beasts but it propelled me along the high-end path. I figured that anything from those dudes was worth a try.
Bottom line, though, MQA or no MQA, I’m happy with the Mytek...even if this stone age dude has his share of trouble with the way you operate it.