2. digital
  3. 168212-153106

"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 naseltzer

naseltzer
7 posts
 

Ignore the anti-MQA jihadists. It sounds fantastic. I’ve blind tested it--with repeated trials, the proper way--with dozens of tracks. In most cases it sounds equal to or better than Qobuz. People just don’t like it because it’s closed source and technically lossy (it doesn’t lose anything that matters, while preserving some sonic information that is normally lost in conventional PCM). When people talk about FLAC being "lossless", it only refers to the preservation of the PCM data itself. But what really must be preserved is the original sound. MQA does a better job at this.

But haters are gonna hate and they’re going to hear whatever they expect to hear.

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