Tidal MQA streamer

burnssimon

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Hi all,

Current set up is a musical fidelity ms2i and a pair of monitor audio Silver 200 speakers.

I'm looking to buy a dedicated streamer, almost solely to play Tidal MQA. Budget £1,000.

At the £500 price bracket I've looked at both the audiolab 6000n and the bluesound. Is there a better option if I spend closer to £1k?

Thanks in advance.
 
Roon + these
.
Stream_Box_S2Ultra-2.jpg
 
Hi all, thanks for your replies, will definitely check out the last two.

Have also been recommended the Lindemann lumetree.
 
Hi all,

Current set up is a musical fidelity ms2i and a pair of monitor audio Silver 200 speakers.

I'm looking to buy a dedicated streamer, almost solely to play Tidal MQA. Budget £1,000.

At the £500 price bracket I've looked at both the audiolab 6000n and the bluesound. Is there a better option if I spend closer to £1k?

Thanks in advance.
Hi Burnssimon,bit late but I noticed you are using a MF m2 what made you purchase it? I'm curious because I was thinking of getting one too. What if anything did you compare it to? Thanks
 
Hi there,

a couple of factors really, price and good compatibility reviews from other MA speaker owners were important.

I think another big driver was it did everythig I needed and nothing more. Didn't want in built DAC, tone, balance, bass controls, bluetooth, multiple speaker connections, etc. I did want HT pass through.

I figured that way, all the money I was spending on it, was going toward stuff i would use.

Got to say, it's cracking, not once regretted my purchase.
 
Hi there,

a couple of factors really, price and good compatibility reviews from other MA speaker owners were important.

I think another big driver was it did everythig I needed and nothing more. Didn't want in built DAC, tone, balance, bass controls, bluetooth, multiple speaker connections, etc. I did want HT pass through.

I figured that way, all the money I was spending on it, was going toward stuff i would use.

Got to say, it's cracking, not once regretted my purchase.
Thanks will try and get one on home dem
 
I use a Bluesound Node 2 and it's a super piece of kit.

However I would encourage you to trial Qobuz as I found it has a better sound quality than Tidal, even with MQA unpacking.

5 quid a month cheaper, too.
 
I use a Bluesound Node 2 and it's a super piece of kit.

However I would encourage you to trial Qobuz as I found it has a better sound quality than Tidal, even with MQA unpacking.

5 quid a month cheaper, too.

Hows the catalogue - is it equivalent in terms of content?
 
So... I'm going with a Cambridge Audio CXN v2 (grey one on sale at richersounds for £699) and Roon. The CXN is roon ready and roon itself will do the MQA decoding and send to the CXN. I have a similar setup with a Musical Fidelity ms5i and PMC twenty5.21 speakers.

if that doesn't work well, very well, then it's a teac nt-505 (on sale at £1099, but 4 weeks+ delivery time!!!) which detects as a Lumin and is a native MQA decoder or actual Lumin D2 at ~£1800 (expensive!!!).

Whichever way since I'm losing Bluos and I'm going with Roon.
 
I came close to getting that Cambridge Audio at one stage, but didn't as a few people mentioned it's not the best match for monitor audio, cracking reviews aside from that. I have a topping D50 usb DAC plugged into the MS2i.

I took the plunge on the Roon trial about two month ago, within a couple of hours I was hooked!

Now have a dedicated core and about five endpoints round the house, even finally got a raspberry pi working!

Enjoy!
 
So... I'm going with a Cambridge Audio CXN v2 (grey one on sale at richersounds for £699) and Roon. The CXN is roon ready and roon itself will do the MQA decoding and send to the CXN. I have a similar setup with a Musical Fidelity ms5i and PMC twenty5.21 speakers.

if that doesn't work well, very well, then it's a teac nt-505 (on sale at £1099, but 4 weeks+ delivery time!!!) which detects as a Lumin and is a native MQA decoder or actual Lumin D2 at ~£1800 (expensive!!!).

Whichever way since I'm losing Bluos and I'm going with Roon.
Hi,

Highly recommend the TEAC for the full MQA experience - the second unfold does make a difference. As you say, compatible with Lumin and Esoteric apps and uses the same dual AK 4497 state of the art DACs as an Esoteric costing 15X the price!
 

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Hi,

Highly recommend the TEAC for the full MQA experience - the second unfold does make a difference. As you say, compatible with Lumin and Esoteric apps and uses the same dual AK 4497 state of the art DACs as an Esoteric costing 15X the price!

I'm pretty happy right now, still to get my new PMC speakers but it sounds stunning. I'll grab a TEAC when more are in stock to try it out though.
 

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