"Need" Roon, Bluesound Node, or or other streamer?


I am thinking about adding a streamer, and have hopelessly confused myself, and hoping you all can straighten me out with some advice/options here.

All I want to do is stream my Tidal with MQA quality, Quboz, new Apple tier, Amazon, and my ripped CDs, all with as much sound quality as possible (with a budget of $1200 maxish).   Integrated playlist capability, and ideally with full MQA for the Tidal (but low priority in the scheme of things).   I do not need wireless, multizone, etc. 

Currently my Macbook Pro is the "streamer" using Tidal, Quboz & Apple supplied apps.  I USB out to my DAC.

-- If I buy the Bluesound Node, I lose full MQA if I connect my external DAC.  They tell me I have to use their internal DAC.  Otherwise I can connect my external at a lower "quality".  Yet, many people here trash their DAC...
-- Trial of Audirvana Studio is a train wreck so far... 

 Questions: For my situation, in you all's opinion:

  • Buy the Node, and call it a day? I could switch between Internal Node Dac for MQA and external DAC...
  • Buy a Cambridge or other streamer and call it a day? Are they worth the extra $$ especially if I would ideally like to stick with my external DAC?
  • Buy into Roon solution and either build a NUC server or go Little Green or Nucleus?  OR use one of my old Mac laptops maybe?
  • What the hell is the difference between Roon and the Bluesound Node anyway?

Sorry, all over the place here, but evidence of my frustration...

Any advice is greatly appreciated!






bogbeat

Showing 1 response by mahler123

I am also in the camp that MQA isn’t worth stressing over.  If you buy the Node then you do have to use its DAC for MQA.  The DAC in the Node isn’t unlistenable, but it’s a rare person in  these forums that prefers it to their external DACs.  Fwiw, the Node DAC has recently been upgraded, and I haven’t heard it, though I have only seen 1 user in Agon say it was a significant upgrade.
   Roon is a software application that organizes all of your music files, both on hard drives and streaming services, and also attempts to improve Sound Quality.  The previous sentence is as pithy as I can get describing it.  In some respects it resembles Audirvana Plus, which you seem to have had an unhappy experience with.  I suggest that you Google or You Tube Roon as there is a lot more to it, and Roon users here may have much more to add.  Roon is a large and complicated program that doesn’t always run well on computers and streamers, so Roon started manufacturing hardware, essentially dedicated streamers customized to run their software