What are you streaming tonight?

reubent

i too am more of a music guy than an audiophile. I think you’ll be happy if you get Qobuz and the Node 2i.  I started streaming and sold my turntable and records due to an anticipated downsizing, but the access to so much more music has certainly broadened my taste.  I don’t regret the shift. But I certainly would not recommend anyone get rid of their records.
I never used Spotify, but do have to admit the SQ of Qobuz on my system makes me very happy. 

@reubent I prefer Qobuz over Tidal, however if you like your discover weekly on Spotify, Qobuz doesn't have anything like that.  Tidal has a "My Mix" feature where it puts together playlists based on your listening habits. 

I would skip the Node 2i and get a decent streamer to start with.  There are so many "How do I make my Node 2i sound better?" threads...  I went down that path - "I'll just get the Node 2 and see if I like streaming", which led to "I do like streaming, but want it to sound better". 

Depending on your budget look at the TEAC NT-505 (I have this), the Lumin D2, or move higher up the food chain.  Both will do MQA and DSD.  Personally, I don't care much for MQA, not so much in terms of sound quality, but the fact that it's a hyped up gimmicky proprietary format (IMHO).  

@reubent 

Like @big_greg I too prefer Qobuz, sonically Hi-Res is preferable to me over MQA "Masters" -- you can find a lot of discussion on this comparison. A bunch of highly respected makers of DACs don't even support MQA, and explain that they are not going to. That said, sometimes music I am looking for is missing from the Qobuz catalogue, but is available on Tidal.
Where I disagree with @big_greg is that you need something better than Node 2i. In my opinion, you don't. But... Node's internal DAC is indeed very much entry-level. I had used it at first, but then upgraded to RME ADI-2 DAC FS. Now my Node 2i feeds digital signal over optical or coax cable to the RME, and the latter is the sound maker. The solution costs $1,850 in today's list prices, and I don't know why anyone would pay more.

@ghjuvanni I think many people delude themselves into believing that the streamer itself doesn't matter and that adding a DAC to an entry level streamer will give a big improvement in sound quality. Adding a better DAC to the Bluesound can improve sound quality, but will only take it so far. 

In my experience, buying a better streamer/DAC sounded much better than adding a DAC to the Bluesound.

@big_greg I am an electronics engineer turned software engineer. In fact, I played a lot with audio (and image) formats. For folks getting into digital music it makes sense to educate themselves about the basics of digital audio: what is PCM, FLAC, etc. On Wikipedia and elsewhere. I don't want to go into voluminous explanations in this forum. It is the DAC that 'makes' the analog 'music' not the streamer etc. The latter can differ on ergonomics, but if it is not broken, and if if feeds the bytes to the DAC, it doesn't matter what it is. There is a lot of misinformation floating around, created by folks who want to sell some 'better' (and more expensive) equipment. @reubent will need to form his own opinion eventually, based in part on input from folks like us, Reddit forums, and best of all -- personal experience.