Is MQA worth it? Lots of views and impressions. Frankly I was on the fence myself. I prefer LP's, like the sound, the whole process of choosing, cleaning, putting on the TT and relaxing back to listen.
A few years back I was playing with a SONOS, streaming it to an very old Quad CD player as the DAC, sounded better than the SONOS, but it wasn't great. SONOS couldn't handle MQA either. In Stereophile, I read about the MYTEK Brooklyn and it sounded like a good DAC for the cost. I found a demo one at discount and installed it, now using the CD player as a transport and indeed it was an improvement. For the SONOS, frankly nothing can improve that it seems.
A while later I started experimenting with TIDAL through a computer (a second hand BAETIS Audio Prodigy that I came across) to the MYTEK and using the MYTEK to do the MQA unfolding. That was quite a jump. I was now using JRiver to feed my ripped CD's, some high res music I had acquired, and Tidal to stream. Not a bad sound. I however found Tidal at that stage to have a most irritating front end. About this time, I found a (second hand) BAETIS Audio Reference pc at a reasonable price, and using their AES connection to the MYTEK, this was yet another step up in my appreciation of the sound. Now I was playing less and less LP's and more TIDAL streaming. the cherry on the top though was when a friend introduced me to ROON. This integrates my stored digital music and TIDAL with a much improved (to me at least) user interface.
I've played with listening to CD's/rips/downloads/streaming at CD quality and MQA. I have not played a CD in over a year, I listen to records regularly, but the bulk of my enjoyable listening comes from TIDAL and preferably the MQA encoded content. My experience is that its just more satisfying than the non MQA coded material. Notably my enjoyment of music drops when ROON radio takes me to CD quality tracks.
My friend who introduced me to ROON has strong opinions and prefers his high resolution digital purchases. He find that MQA looses something, and gives the sound a "rounded edge". I don't know. Maybe my ears are tired and can't hear it, but I miss that nuance!
I appreciate the sound that I get this way, and my exploration of music has grown as a result.
TIDAL has improved the availability if MQA albums recently, and I understand they have also improved their front end. Maybe a topic for thread would be ROON, but for the moment, having the album artwork/liner notes/Allmusic commentary available on a tablet whilst the music plays is satisfying.
So a long winded response. Horses for courses. MQA, some like it, some don't. Try it and see.
For reference, the rest of my system is Valve Audio Black Widow pre and mono power amps feeding a Martin Logan ESL speakers.
