Leahy,
If I were you, I'd hold off making a move to a new DAC for a few months.
The main reason is that it looks like MQA is getting some positive traction in the marketplace. Tidal started streaming "Masters" from Warner Music about two months ago, they have about 1000 titles available on their app.
A few weeks ago Universal Music signed on to a multi-year agreement to provide MQA (Beatles, Stones, U2, Lady Gaga, etc etc).
Only a few DAC manufacturers have taken "the plunge" and incorporated "end-to-end" MQA decoding into their hardware. I suspect that, with Universal Music joining the MQA world, more will need to take that "plunge" in the near future.
MQA is not very well understood. It has two main benefits, #1) delivering high res files in a small package and #2) "de-blurring", reducing the "pre-ringing" ("digital sound"). Though #1 can be done in software, to me, the real sonic benefit of MQA is #2 and the only way to get that is to have a DAC that does "end-to-end" decoding.
If I were you, I'd hold off making a move to a new DAC for a few months.
The main reason is that it looks like MQA is getting some positive traction in the marketplace. Tidal started streaming "Masters" from Warner Music about two months ago, they have about 1000 titles available on their app.
A few weeks ago Universal Music signed on to a multi-year agreement to provide MQA (Beatles, Stones, U2, Lady Gaga, etc etc).
Only a few DAC manufacturers have taken "the plunge" and incorporated "end-to-end" MQA decoding into their hardware. I suspect that, with Universal Music joining the MQA world, more will need to take that "plunge" in the near future.
MQA is not very well understood. It has two main benefits, #1) delivering high res files in a small package and #2) "de-blurring", reducing the "pre-ringing" ("digital sound"). Though #1 can be done in software, to me, the real sonic benefit of MQA is #2 and the only way to get that is to have a DAC that does "end-to-end" decoding.