Next Best Upgrade for Tidal MQA?

Will try it.
Have it.
Yes.

Am I understanding your post to mean that you would suggest an investment in an M-Scaler over an upgraded preamp, even with a non-Chord DAC (such as my MyTek Liberty)?

I'm not a blind fanboy of MQA, but to my ears, the format is generally a win.  I have found some MQA albums to have weird soundstaging compared to the Redbook version, but that's been rare.

If I have your comment correct, your suggestion is an interesting one for sure.

@richdirector  I have it connected via optical right now and the passthrough is enabled so that the internal DAC in the Node 2i is bypassed.  My MyTek Liberty DAC is MQA-certified.  Regardless, I have read elsewhere that the Note 2i will still only pass through at 96khz.

@paulcreed   Thanks for the suggestions.

@snackeyp  Thanks for the suggestions, although I struggle to believe that the streamer is the single, next-best, upgrade versus the Pre-amp.  As of now, all the Node 2i does is act as a digital source, it is not doing the digital-to-analog conversion.  

I’m generally happy with the sound, but always chasing the cleaner, clearer, better separation, more dynamic, more lifelike...

To answer the question differently, I have a perceived weakness in the Marantz, and then to a lesser extent the DAC, and to an even lesser extent the Streamer... 

I recently went from the A23+ to the A21+ and it was a big jump, so I think there may be headroom in replacing some of the other components.

Suggestions on a tube preamp? Why tube?

https://www.whathifi.com/us/qobuz/review

https://uk.pcmag.com/services-players/127046/qobuz

Both fairly recent reviews that tip toward Tidal as having better sound quality than Qobuz...

@jjss49 yep, will test it out myself, just interesting to see the comments from the “professional” reviewers.

@invalid I am 100% with you - just need to decide what route to take.

I still might mess with a device that cleans up the network though - they are relatively inexpensive.  That Uptone device has a generous return policy - seems like a no brainer to give it a shot.

I should add, any preamp needs to have a home theater bypass

Never had tube gear before.

First blush, looks like the Rogue Audio RP-7 might be worth looking into?

Before buying the KEFs, I nearly pulled the trigger on Wilson Yvette’s, but decided that I didn’t want to risk that expensive gear on my (at the time) 3 and 6 year olds. However, what I loved about the Yvette’s was the soul behind the music. The R11’s are the closest I’ve come to conveying that sound at a risk-worthy price, while also having some other strengths (e.g. the Beastie Boys sounded terrible on the Yvette’s, but great on the R11). The point of that long explanation - maybe a tube preamp can bring a bit more of that soul?

How's the heat on a tubed pre-amp?

@jjss49 

Appreciate the follow-up - what preamp thoughts do you have?

@vinylshadow 

I took his comment to mean, forget about MQA support in your system, try this upscaler instead.

Thanks for all the suggestions - now I’ve got some ideas short and long term.

@calieng: thanks for the feedback. I guess my real question is: is a new streamer really going to make more of a difference than a new preamp?  The wife is only going to let me do so many upgrades at a time :)

@photomax: have not tried Qobuz yet as I've bee generally very happy with Tidal (minus the lack of Metallica)

@jnehma1 @dsnyder0cnn: unfortunately, my system has to do double duty (hifi and home theater) all in an open concept shared living area.  I don't think I have much opportunity for room treatment (there is only the wall behind the speakers and a wall with heavy curtains to the side).  As for room correction, I have run Audyssey, but haven't gotten into the REW/Dirac level of detail.  I have briefly looked at MiniDSP before, how does that integrate with what I've got?

@jnehma1 

I think you're right about the configuration, but would you expect DIRAC to be that much better than Audyssey XT 32?  That's what the Marantz includes, which I believe is (or at least was) the highest level of Audyssey.

That being said, miniDSP's are cheap...

I agree on physical room treatments.  The only ones I would consider is back reflections on the back wall behind the speakers, if they were not obtrusive.  The heavy curtains on the one adjacent wall should be good for absorption, other than that, the space is open for 40 feet in each direction - perhaps that isn't all that bad acoustically-speaking, other than needing to have the oomph to fill the space.

@cycles2 thanks for a completely unhelpful comment based entirely on your subjective view that, regardless of your opinion, is non-responsive to my thread...

@dfansler - thank you very much for the response!

The Brooklyn Bridge was on my list already as an alternative and would make a lot of sense.  This tube preamp concept is new to me and is intriguing.  I didn’t articulate very well what I’m hoping to achieve - I suppose “clearer” is a bad description.  I remember demoing (for fun) some Tannoy Kingdoms that were $80K backed by probably $150K in electronics (I forget now the specifics).  When the dealer played some sample Digital tracks, listening with my eyes closed, I could have honestly said the singer was in the room. It was astonishing.  I want to continue to build toward that experience. The voice was solid, hovering stable in the room, natural, believable...

If a tube preamp gets me a step closer to that, I’m all in.

@cycles2 @fastfreight @jjss49

Thanks all for the comments.

RE: Qobuz - I’m not anti-Qobuz in any way, and I’m not wedded to MQA for all time. I did ensure that my streamer and DAC could properly handle MQA, but would not be the end of the world to switch. That being said, I do enjoy most of the Tidal Masters I listen to and the goal here was to improve the sound quality from
my existing service.

I’ll sign up for Qobuz and provide some feedback when I can, but I have serious doubts that it will blow Tidal MQA out of the water. Could it be better? Sure! But, even if I made the switch, I’d be looking for the next best hardware upgrade, which (again) is the focus here.

I guess I should also add to the list the Manhattan II with Network Card, although that would be a bit of a stretch.

@jji666  Haha, thanks!  It seemed obvious to me that the preamp was the way to go, but wanted the benefit of the forum's collective knowledge and experience.

I think I'm down to 3 options:
(1) Brooklyn Bridge 
(2) Parasound JC2
(3) Prima Luna EVO 400

RE: the Brooklyn Bridge - this would replace my Liberty/Node 2i.  It would be the next step up as far as ESS DAC.  I am also unsure that the Node 2i can pass a 192khz MQA file through to the DAC right now - does anyone know?  I've read in places that it is limited to 96khz, so perhaps I would also benefit from the higher quality MQA unfold with the Brooklyn Bridge vs. other Preamp options?

@snackeyp thanks for the input!

@anzaanimalclinic

Appreciate the suggestions. However, the Innuos Zen Mini is really overkill for my situation. I have no need for a CD ripper or onboard storage. I also have no need for Roon as long as the network streamer can stream Tidal directly. Seems like I would be paying for a lot of features I won’t use and have no present interest in getting into.

Again, I pretty much exclusively stream Tidal (and Tidal MQA when available). I have no digital or physical media collection whatsoever, other than some legacy SACD/DVD-A (that I may sometime deal with later through my Oppo 203).

If the network streamer is the single next best upgrade, I need to find one that is more focused on what I do.

@jnehma1 

Thanks for the suggestion.  Given that the TDAI-1120 would replace my DAC, Streamer, and 2 channel Amp (and I could sell all 3 to mitigate costs) - I started researching the TDAI-3400 (the bigger bigger brother in the series).  Found interesting comments by the OP in this thread:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/lyngdorf-tdai-3400?page=3

OP said he moved on to a MyTek Manhattan II DAC after living with the Lyngdorf for a year. His quote was that the upgrade in sound to the MyTek was “profound” and that a stand alone streamer sounded better.  That gives me a lot of pause.

@jnehma1 thanks for the follow up. It may not be apples to apples, but seems close enough for general discussion purposes. And, to be clear, I was focusing on the 3400 vs Manhattan II, not the 1120 (which I agree would not be fair).

The Manhattan II can include a network card to make it a preamp/DAC/streamer. I’ve been offered a great deal on one that I think I’m going to take. Replaces my DAC, preamp, and streamer in one box. Later, if I want to warm it up further, I can go separate tube amp. Seems to make the most sense to me. If I do pull the trigger I will report back.

@jjss49 @cycles2 and others:

I pulled the trigger on a Mytek Manhattan II with network card.  The folks at Mytek were nice enough to give me a fair trade in on my Liberty + apply another promo to help bring the price down.  I'm probably still within a reasonable burn in period, so there may be more improvements to the sound, but I'm very pleased with the results, AND... I've got to say, Qobuz hi-res is pretty amazing.  I thought I was hearing about all of the detail there was to hear, but some of the hi-res tracks have brought new sounds to songs that I am extremely familiar with and that I did not know existed before.  Doobie Brothers' "Black Water" and Metallica's "Turn the Page" are just a couple of examples.

The Mytek has a great uncolored and natural sound with great separation amongst instruments and singers in harmony.  At times I get that "the singer is in the room" quality, and frequently feel like I'm there at the recording booth.

All in all, I'm very pleased and will (mostly) be standing pat for a while to just sit back an enjoy the music.  I plan to upgrade my speaker cables and some interconnects to Tellurium Q Black II's - will see what that goes, and may also grab a miniDSP so that I can calibrate for the room when using the Mytek as preamp/source.  I'll report back again...

Thanks to everyone for the help and feedback.  Sometime down the road I still may opt to insert a separate preamp... the adventure continues!