Best way to stream hi-res audio

[Jasonovich]

Hello,

I'm trying to understand what is the best setup I should get to stream best possible quality music to my system.

I currently have Advance Paris A10 Classic amp, connected to B&W 603 speakers and Canton 601 Sub.

Questions:

1) Tidal seems to be the best quality streaming service with FLAC (MQA support ended recently). Correct or is there a better service ?
2) Since I'm planning to stream Tidal FLAC, it should be sufficient to get a streamer that support FLAC, such as Advance Paris WTX StreamTubes (I like tubes sound, my amp is also hybrid tubes one). Correct or I'd be better off getting a streamer that supports also other formats such as DSD and MQA ?
3) Finally, should I connect the streamer to the amp via digital or analogue connection ? My understanding is that via analogue connection the streamer DAC would be used instead of amp DAC and vice-versa with the digital connection

Big thanks in advance! I tried to ask this in my local HIFI shop, but they wouldn't answer unless I buy everything from them. So I'm very much looking forward for some help here.

Hi there!

I am a big advocate of DSD and I think you'll like it, for it's smooth texture, you hear nuances and soul of the artist in very high detail. It may be digital but it's closest to analogue sounding and if you love tube, you'll certainly appreciate DSD, it's full latte!

MQA is not my thing it's just another PCM formatting process, not sure if MQA offers any advantages over FLAC. My preference is direct digital streaming SACD/DSD. www.NativeDSD.com is where I frequent the most for my DSD downloads. They also big on vinyl if you prefer physical media and even offer reel to reel from master tape but crazy expensive!

I'm not clear how you're streaming your music, my setup below, I use a digital transport running through Matrix Mini i-4. Local storage is via USB and NAS network server. If you plan adopting DSD in the near future, you can use coax or optical but if you must have optimum high res i.e. >DSD512 you require USB, ethernet (Cat6 and above) or Is2 connection.

Anyway, my 2 cents something to think about. I think I really need a small rack for my bedroom HiFi!

 

[manicm]

Just took a glance at some comments.

Regarding Atmos, very few services and devices will directly stream Atmos without HDMI. To my knowledge it's only the Sonos Era 300 that will let you stream Atmos directly to it - and only via Apple Music or Amazon HD. For reasons known only to God, they've excluded Tidal. I'm curious if the issue lies with Sonos or Tidal. The latter gets no love from Sonos - I only realised now that Sonos devices do not do Tidal Connect - you have to connect and play via the Sonos app.