...I am listening via a schiit stack, and schiit does not support mqa... When I am listening to master quality tracks on tidal through my desktop and schiit stack, am I getting any improvement over normal hi-fi quality?
Seems to me that if MQA is everything it's cracked up to be you should not have to ask!
But that's the whole point. It seems everyone is comparing Tidal MQA to Tidal hi-fi to Spotify to CDs to... whatever, without incorporating an MQA compatible DAC. (Sometimes saying they've compared several times and can't hear any difference... listening with only their i-Phone and earbuds - but not in this forum).
Isn't that like saying (20 years ago), "I don't get all this 5.1 surround crap, I play DVDs that are supposed to have great sound through my integrated NAD 3020 (I just use the "B" speaker output for the two rear speakers) and, truthfully, selecting 2.1 stereo sounds a lot better than when I select 5.1."
If you don't have a surround processor (now, built into your receiver), why would you expect 5.1 or 7.1 or 9.1 to wow you?
Or (back in the even older days), if you had a Dolby encoded VHS tape but your VCR didn't encode Dolby, that wasn't a reason to say Dolby didn't enhance the quality and was a crap format/encoding/whatever. It just meant your hardware wasn't equipped to take advantage of their "technology".
How is it different with MQA? Isn't 2% of the improvement due to (maybe) careful selection of master recordings and 98% of the improvement due to the decoding done by one's MQA compatible DAC?
It seems Danger Toast has asked exactly the right question; it's not like your laptop/macbook/desktop is doing the decoding, correct?
Shouldn't we hear from people who've compared MQA vs any other medium, including CDs, using their MQA capable Mytek, Meredian, Bel Canto, Aurender, Cary Audio, etc DAC? Isn't that what the guys from "The Absolute Sound" and "Stereophile" did, and that's why they rave about its potential? Or am I missing the point somewhere?
(So, I'm looking to start my high end headphone system with a MQA capable DAC with an I2S input - good luck, right?)
Edit:
Woops, was typing (and warming lunch) as the previous poster explained much of how MQA really works.