pretender

Everywhere I look the 2i is at $999 but anyway this is not the place for a market analysis with a list of the latest bargain offers.

Here is a good streamer, a clear step up from the Squeezebox Touch I was using for 10 years. I thought I could use it to play back MQA but my DAC only plays back MQA through its USB input. Super easy to use even by a technology avoider like me. All cables accessories included in the box. The price includes shipping Australia wide and paypal fees. Further information: Photos: PLEASE READ If you are advertising multiple items, you must post one bulk price only, or post seperate ads for each item If you include any reference to pricing whatsoever in this section (excluding RRP), your ad will not be approved If you don't include photographs of the actual item being sold, your ad will not be approved

Enough said, the Doge 8 is something we keep for years...

Hi Glen, I still use daily the one you sold me a while back and it really is a great centre of any system. For those who swear that no preamp is the way, they should try one of those and the MM phono preamp is really good too.

I know indeed very little about all this and I should do research instead of polluting this ad. Can you use bubbleupnp from an IPhone and play internet radios?

Hello, Can you use a Microrendu to stream Tidal without running a computer?

Item: Sotm SMS200, SMS200 Neo Price Range: 400-450 for used and more for new Item Condition: New or Used Extra Info: I tried a Bluesound node 2 but it was not as good as my McBook as a digital transport and I want to improve on its sound. I think the sms200 could do it! So I am still looking for one of these units and they have been hard to find used! Anyway I can travel to Melbourne and I am happy to pay for transport otherwise Please don't forget to report your post as FOUND when possible. (You can now delete this text).

It is the same with the Project S2 dac, it only decodes MQA through USB. I got a Node 2 streamer which only has optical and coax outputs so it provides the first unfold but I don't get full MQA from the dac, which indicates 96kHz when playing MQA files. I am looking for a renderer like the Sotm SMS-200 to pair with the S2 dac through USB. It seems that the Mytek Liberty is the lowest price dac which can decode MQA through the Optical and Coax inputs.

Keeping the bargain hunters on the edge of their seats. Excellent posting.

The days of feeling threaten by a global MQA take over are behind us by a few years now. It is just a streaming format. No one buys MQA files, I don’t even know where we can. And the overwhelming majority of music with MQA is there on Tidal as well as PCM. MQA is not a format for audiophiles; people with super duper computers up sampling PCM in real time to DSD 512 or with fancy FPGA or R2R DACs who want to control everything in their DSP chain. Most audiophiles hate it conceptually because it is degrading the “purity” of their "immaculate" 24 bits PCM stream even though it is possible to prefer it sonically. I get that point and I would not want just one proprietary format preventing high-end innovation or limiting PCM/DSD availability. But at this stage MQA is actually becoming a format for the masses giving better sound from a smartphone or a low-cost/midfi dac/receiver when streaming. It is the type of clever DSP that we used to find in multi thousand dollar DACs available for everyone and this is progress. A LG V30 smartphone streaming MQA into Focal Elegias gives darn good sound when commuting.

Is the reduction from 24 to 17 bits a result of MQA’s compression scheme to keep the files smaller?

That’s right. I think anyone interested in digital format and hires should start there not just for MQA but for listening to a file at the same format at different sampling rate.

Elitism!

I am on the same page as both of you: the benefits of MQA, if one hears them, are already there in the first unfold and a very good non MQA dac will do better playing MQA music than an average MQA dac doing the second unfold. So indeed buying an MQA dac is really not necessary. Where I disagree is that an average dac playing MQA music files (first unfold or full MQA decoding) can sound better than a much better dac playing the equivalent PCM file. I know I am probably in the minority with this! I much preferred the Meridian Explorer playing MQA to the Chord Qute HD playing PCM playing recent recordings coming from the same master, not old jazz... through speakers or headphones. Sure enough the Qute images better and is more dynamic but for me MQA brings a coherency and speed of transients and tone of instruments that makes music a lot more believable and palpable on complex/fast music call it string quartet, symphonic, jazz electronica... Truth is with mid fi dacs/cd player (never owned MSB stuff), PCM digital music makes little sense to me. It feels like being bombarded with details which are disjointed from each others and the result is just not involving. So digital was for background listening; I am a vinyl guy and this is where my real enjoyment still is when I have the chance to sit between two speakers which is rare these days. However MQA has changed things a bit and gets my full listening attention. All these little details seem to be musically connected again in a realistic way. Many people don't find significant difference between PCM and MQA files either way but what I hear is what I hear and this is the only thing we have to navigate in audio! What is your take on the sound of MQA Firedog? I guess you have DSP speakers so they probably don't decode MQA but do you get anything different out of them when you play an MQA file through them?

Hello Peppy, Can you share some of your experience with MQA to find out if you liked it or not with the SMSL dac? Cheers Laurent