I'm late to the party with this post but have a question for tellefsen. I am interested in ripping my vinyl and own a PS Audio NuWave Phono Converter using VinylStudio. VinylStudio states you can't edit the DSD files other than split the tracks. To edit the files to reduce surface noise from scratches you need to convert the file to PCM. Do you have expereience with that format and how it sounds? I have some albums that are in bad shape but cannot buy better copies. For those albums the PCM conversion opion seems to be a good way to go. Do you have any thoughts on this?
MQA vs. ripped vs. vinyl vs. hi res
Just curious what other people think about the sound quality (SQ) of Tidal MQA vs. cd's that you have ripped (cd or DSD) or the same music you have on vinyl. It has been all over the map for me. IMO, there isn't a favorite medium or a medium that ALWAYS wins out over the others, DSD might be more favorable to me. When MQA is very good, I prefer it over vinyl. There are many many cases where vinyl is superior over anything, and there are times when my ripped sounds better (ripped by using MAX or XLD using higher bit rates).