Kent in Welly - thanks that helped me understand the technical issues and limitations.

So for partial MQA goodness I should take up a Tidal subscription and stream using the Tidal desk-top app via the USB port on my 818v2; upgrading to an 818v3 gives me no MQA-related advantage whatsoever over that solution since none of my speakers (DSP33, DSP7200.1, DSP8000.1) are MQA capable (yet).

That titchy sub-£200 Explorer 2 must be very well endowed internally since, lacking any digital output, it must be doing the whole full-fat MQA decode.

In the spirit of Spinaltap, I would like to confirm that I am not involved in the corrupt theft of a global sport.