Next Best Upgrade for Tidal MQA?

@jnehma1 thanks for the follow up. It may not be apples to apples, but seems close enough for general discussion purposes. And, to be clear, I was focusing on the 3400 vs Manhattan II, not the 1120 (which I agree would not be fair).

The Manhattan II can include a network card to make it a preamp/DAC/streamer. I’ve been offered a great deal on one that I think I’m going to take. Replaces my DAC, preamp, and streamer in one box. Later, if I want to warm it up further, I can go separate tube amp. Seems to make the most sense to me. If I do pull the trigger I will report back.

@jjss49 @cycles2 and others:

I pulled the trigger on a Mytek Manhattan II with network card.  The folks at Mytek were nice enough to give me a fair trade in on my Liberty + apply another promo to help bring the price down.  I'm probably still within a reasonable burn in period, so there may be more improvements to the sound, but I'm very pleased with the results, AND... I've got to say, Qobuz hi-res is pretty amazing.  I thought I was hearing about all of the detail there was to hear, but some of the hi-res tracks have brought new sounds to songs that I am extremely familiar with and that I did not know existed before.  Doobie Brothers' "Black Water" and Metallica's "Turn the Page" are just a couple of examples.

The Mytek has a great uncolored and natural sound with great separation amongst instruments and singers in harmony.  At times I get that "the singer is in the room" quality, and frequently feel like I'm there at the recording booth.

All in all, I'm very pleased and will (mostly) be standing pat for a while to just sit back an enjoy the music.  I plan to upgrade my speaker cables and some interconnects to Tellurium Q Black II's - will see what that goes, and may also grab a miniDSP so that I can calibrate for the room when using the Mytek as preamp/source.  I'll report back again...

Thanks to everyone for the help and feedback.  Sometime down the road I still may opt to insert a separate preamp... the adventure continues!

@bruxesq

glad you found a unit you like and it could be done without the hassle of selling off a used unit

mytek's strength is definitely their excellent resolution/transparency

enjoy!!!