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
When you get a good system you will hear a difference. Right now, you won’t hear any difference between cables either. I saw you got a new Hegel, that’s a start on building a decent system.
Not sure if your equipment is doing all the unfolds for MQA?  Personally I’m happy with Qobuz and won’t let MQA dictate what DAC I can buy.  Tidal can pound sand for all I care. 
How do you discover music on qobuz? I like spotify and tidal artist and track "radio stations". Basically "play more stuff like this". Looks like qobuz has curated playlists. Ie, there're "artist" playlists which is just a bunch of stuff from that one artist. Yet if you go to that artist's page, there is no link to his/her playlist

I haven't had a chance to play with Roon yet.
I have a Bryston BDP Pi being built and it is a Roon endpoint, so I may try Roon for the first time. The Pi is also Qobuz and Tidal ready. It uses the Raspbery Pi processor as does the bigger Bryston BDP 3, so I’ll have to determine whether or not I like streaming at all.