Flac may be the easiest to work with, however it's not necessarily the best sounding. Digital is funny in that it always depends on your unique situation. The problem I see in this thread is that you have posters who have systems from mi fi up to higher end hi fi. The more resolving your system the better your source better be. Someone mentioned poor recordings and that's a huge problem with hifi. There are many recordings that I love, but I will only stream them when in the car. Not a big deal as there is so much much on Tidal that I never get bored.
As for streaming, Tidal is not the only service in town anymore. Spotify just announced they will go to a premium/CD quality and Pandora should be next. As for MQA, many folks just blindly say it's better than CD's or even high res, but that's not always the case. It completely depends on what you are playing it on. I'm still not 100% sold on it in my system and with my ears. I do like much of what it does. I was able to hear it a couple of years ago when Meridian reps had demo tracks and a local store I go to asked me to come audition. I was impressed, but I don't feel it sounds as good as most of my high res recordings and it's also not better than my redbook recordings that I have on a special file where I put the top recorded tracks/albums. The other thing is that you can't make a blanket statement about a DAC having MQA decoding as a better sounding DAC as one that won't have it.
Implementation is the most important part of a DAC. My Ayre QX5/Twenty so far has crushed all the MQA DAC's I've had in the house to listen to. Ayre uses minimal filtering as does Empirical Audio (my former DAC that I also liked better than the MQA DAC's I've had in. Do I think MQA will make it for the long haul? Not sure. I've been through everything from all kinds of tape to vinyl to CD to LaserDisc to the Betamax/VCR fights to mini discs to ............
There will always be new mediums and honestly there are enough big companies who don't want to pay licensing fees to the MQA folks, that it will hold them back a bit. I do like it on my Mac playing through my AudioQuest Dragonfly Red via my Noble Savant IEM's. I still need to get a jitterbug though, lol.
The Bluesound/NAD engineered products are outstanding for many of the systems folks posting on this thread have. It gives you a simple all in one and expandable solution. I have many of my friends who ask advice, getting them. The build and SQ are quite good for the price range and it will be MQA if it's not already.
I don't see CD's becoming like Vinyl. There is something totally different about vinyl and honestly, it still sounds better than CD's and you can get a cheap rig and decent cartridge and get sound that in digital you have to pay well over 3k total to equal. If you don't believe me, take a full day and go to a store that has high end gear. Set up a TT/Cart that retails for about 500. Then start playing the same album in digital on the most expensive set up they may have and truly listen. CD's certainly have less surface noise if you don't use a great record cleaner (I built an ultrasonic cleaner and I use the top AQ carbon brush and I have very very very little surface noise and nearly a pop when playing vinyl. I'm selling my vinyl rig and phono stage, cleaner and albums because I have MS and it's a bitch for me to get up to change sides, but I'm going to miss my vinyl and I do have a great sounding digital set up that's only getting better, but it's not cheap.
There are so many digital products that take care of one to all the functions from streaming to storing music to having a built in DAC to being wireless. Some concentrate more on the SQ and others on ease of use. If I had to put a great system together for a hifi rig that was a great value, I'd get a Codex DAC by Ayre (to my ears and many others the best value in digital at 1800 list), then I'd pair it with the small Melco used as a server/storage unit. I'd also get an optical drive to rip all CD's into the Melco as it has built in ripping software and it's a breeze to rip to it's internal drives. $3600 USD list. Then you need a nice AudioQuest USB cable as the Codex can't go ethernet, which I feel is the best output on the Melco. You are at 4000 list. Different countries will offer different choices too.
Those are my thoughts and I'm sure many will disagree. Fun thread and interesting to see what others around the world are enjoying.
