Help with Digital formats

[Delkat]

I wanted to purchase some digital downloads from Sound Liaison but they offer many different formats and I’m not sure which to choose. I’m using a Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC fed by a Grimm Audio MU1 streamer via AES EBU. The music will reside on the MU1s internal hard drive. The Tambaqui spec says it supports these formats:

PCM up to 384kHz/32 bits (>192kHz and >24 bits via USB and Roon only)
DoP and Native DSD up to quad speed (USB and Roon only)

Here’s the link to the available formats at Sound Liaison:

Tim Langedijk & Paul Berner - Down To The Downtown | High Resolution Audio Downloads at Sound Liaison

Buy Tim Langedijk & Paul Berner - Down To The Downtown and other great high-res downloads from Sound Liaison. All audio formats just starting from €17.95.

soundliaison.com

I believe quad speed DSD is 256 but it seems the Tambaqui only handles this over USB.

Any recommendations on the format I should choose?

Thanks

 

[Ian B]

If you plan on sticking with AES for a while, I'd get 24/192 PCM when available, DSD64 (or 128?) where available. Most music isn't even available at these sample rates, but I would prioritize the highest sample rate your AES connection can handle, and above PCM I would prioritize DSD. Where available. I have a big mess of many different sample rates in my library.

I personally find that AIFF sounds a good bit better than FLAC, and WAV is the best but doesn't have the metadata tags that some servers/software like.