[audioguru]

It looks like you can still enjoy at least some of the sonic improvements from MQA, even if your DAC (such as in my case the Mcintosh D1100) does not support MQA. As per an article in The Absolute Sound - "MQA's Unexpected Twist": The announcement on January 5 that Tidal would begin streaming MQA files (and suggestions that many other streaming services would soon follow suit) was accompanied by an unexpected twist—that MQA decoding can be performed in music-player software rather than exclusively in an MQA-compliant DAC. That is, you can listen to decoded MQA with your existing DAC. In addition, software decoding is limited to a maximum sample rate of 96kHz. Files that were originally at 176.4kHz, 192kHz, or 384kHz will unwrap only to a maximum of 96kHz, not the original sample rate. There is no such limitation with an MQA-equipped DAC. For whatever political or business reasons, you can now listen to MQA without an MQA DAC, but with the knowledge that the sound will be better when decoded by an MQA-equipped DAC.