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Tidal MQA vs Qobuz hi-res

My brief experience.. for posterity.

Comparing Tidal MQA to Qobuz hi-res, you -will- hear degredation/loss in the high frequencies (violins in an orchestra etc) on MQA... assuming you have reasonably resolving equipment. For me, that’s Macbook USB to a $150 Audio Engine D1 DAC going to a $600 used Parasound A23 going to used $600 Kef LS50’s, $100 Transparent speaker cables and cheap USB and RCA cables.

The Audio Engine is surprisingly good for it’s price BTW. Over the years, trying different DACs in audio stores when I had an opportunity, I feel like you’d need to spend close to $1,000 to get something significantly better.

The A23 and LS50’s are really good too for today’s used prices. New, they would’ve been $2,500 a few years go

bataras

Showing 1 response by cycles2

cycles2
209 posts
 
@bataras 
Perhaps we listen to different genres of music but I find Qobuz has more HiRez titles than TIDAL has MQA.  I find the UI's of TIDAL and Qobuz to be similar, perhaps that's because of the integration with a dCS Rossini streamer. 

And the comparison of sound quality between HiRez and MQA is not close wit HiRez being the better.  HiRez titles also are more portable than MQA as you can Bluetooth HiRez from a phone to a car or other audio systems.   

I used TIDAL for a couple years before switching to Qobuz and to me Qobuz is a better option and costs $5 less per month.
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