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New to Digital

I am a novice with digital music, and would like some advice on some digital options that are not cost prohibitive.

I have a Yamaha A-S701 amp, a Yamaha 
YBA-11 Bluetooth Wireless Audio Receiver, and ADS L9e monitor speakers.

I currently just use Amazon Music from my iPhone Bluetooth. I believe that I can do better with sound quality, and am interested in your  thoughts.

patricknataliekevin

Showing 3 responses by lalitk

lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,634 posts
 
@patricknataliekevin,

Actually Amazon Prime and Spotify Premium has the same streaming resolution at 320kbps.  

Tidal will give you the best available streaming quality at 16bit/44.1khz. And MQA resolution upto 32bit/192khz but you need MQA compatible DAC to hear the full resolution.  
lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,634 posts
 
+1, Mytek Brooklyn DAC. At $1275, it’s a steal. 

Another inexpensive alternative is Blusound Node 2 for $550. The Node 2 will stream from Tidal, Deezer, Spotify and has an very nice internal fully compatible MQA DAC. 
lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,634 posts
 
I don’t have any experience with PCM 5102 DAC chip. The Node 2 uses the Burr-Brown PCM 5122 chip and I can say from my experience that SQ is quite exemplary given its asking price. 

Others have reported here that Node 2 does sound better with high quality external DAC like Brooklyn or Ayre Codex. 

Check out this review for better prospective on Node 2,

https://darko.audio/2018/01/further-travels-with-the-bluesound-node-2/

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