Bluesound Node Wireless Multi-Room High Resolution Music Streamer - Black

I had a much more expensive streamer that was too quirky. This blows it away and sounds amazing. It looks weird, but cool. Didn't think I'd have much use for the buttons but I use them all the time because the radio stations are great and sound phenomenal. I use android and Amazon music HD. The Bluesound has no compatability issues whatsoever and was super easy (and fun) setting up. I've had it for 2 months now and use it every day because it's so easy and convenient. I may not have audiophile ears, but the dac is incredibly good sounding. It does have a few clunky issues to get used to, but for the money it's amazing. Pros: small footprint, excellent sound quality, easy compatibility to all known streaming svcs, great free radio stations from all over the world to explore, Radio Paradise is a great built-in feature no commercials and and let's you skip songs. Sound leveling feature ensures all tracks from your playlist and radio are equal volume. Save innumerable presets and assign your favorite 5 to the buttons. Cons: No power on/off switch, sometimes player can't be found d (have to restart node to connect) Amazon Music app not quite as friendly as the native app. No balanced outputs (RCA only) I use an integrated stereo amp and excellent quality source units - turntable, FM tuner, CD player. This is the cheapest source in my rig, but gets used the most because it's easy, fun, accessible, and sounds great. Really enjoying it. Oh, and their web site has very good support run by Bluesound people so no rude jerkoffs like in public forums. They're always polite and happy to help inexperienced people like me. April 2, 2024: 12 month updt. Still happy with trouble-free usage. bluesound updated the Amazon Music app, works really well. I bought a standalone DAC to improve. It is now slightly more refined, but honestly the built in DAC is really good. The Node is very stable and predictable. I don't see myself having to upgrade anytime soon. Happy listening.

I am very pleased with this purchase! It can be difficult to figure out how to improve sound or resolve issues when your audio equipment is a little old but not so old that it makes sense to just replace it. The Node turned out to be the solution I was looking for. I'll walk thru the steps I took in case it helps someone else in a similar situation. I have wireless Yamaha MusicCast speakers . . . specifically the MusicCast 50 and some older generation wx-030 speakers. You can access several of the major streaming services using the MusicCast software and the speakers alone. However due to some issues with the MusicCast software, I had switched to using MusicCast app on my android phone and transmitting to the speakers via bluetooth for my SiriusXM subscription. The older speakers use a very old version of bluetooth and there were occasional dropouts but I had mostly resolved that problem with some tweaks to my router settings. Also, playing any files already downloaded to my phone to any of the yamaha speakers worked fine with Bluetooth -- it was only streaming that was an issue. Then I subscribed to a streaming service called IDAGIO which is a very good service for classical music only. It provides a large library for on-demand streaming and a high-quality file stream. IDAGIO is far superior to the limited classical offerings on SiriusXM which is not really aimed at classical music listeners. MusicCast software doesn't support IDAGIO but you can run app on an android phone and transmit via bluetooth just as I had done for SiriusXM. Unfortunately the higher-quality stream was generating regular dropouts in the audio from my speakers. I wasn't sure if the problem was my phone or in the version of bluetooth supported by the yamaha speakers but after a brief experiment with connecting my phone to the MusicCast 50 via a cable from the phone's headphone jack, I decided to look for a device that could pull the stream from the internet and connect to the MusicCast 50 via either analog or digital cables. The Bluesound Node was listed on the IDAGIO site so I thought I'd give it a try. The dropouts disappeared when using the Node. The sound quality is very good. Also, the Blueos app supports a very long list of streaming services if I want to experiment with any other services in the future. The cable connection to the MusicCast 50 means that audio never drops out and using wifi (instead of bluetooth) from the 50 to send music to the older wx-030 speakers means no dropouts there either. Also, the stream from the Node to my Bluetooth headphones (Bose Quiet Comfort 35 ii) sounds very good. People like me who use wireless speakers can't really throw around pretentious descriptions of audio quality but this sound just fine to me. I don't need high volume or a thumping base line -- I would just like to hear the quality of the voices and instruments as accurately as possible without trying to run cables all over the house. This product was just what I wanted.

Prior to the Blusound Node, I used an older gen iPad with a USB cable to stream from Amazon HD to my system (Topping DAC —> Willsenton R8 amp —> Klipsch L Scalas). The music quality was great. It was easy to use and connect to the net . Demerits were that it was buggy with Apple choosing to ignore the USB cable about 33% off the time, the Amazon HD would freeze the iPad occasionally as well., and lastly the inability to control the music wirelessly from your couch. This sparked the move to the Node. Setup: I was a bit concerned about the reviews here complaining that it was hard to set up a a wireless unit. Luckily, I had no issues. It found the net and updated itself in an hour or less. UX: I use the iOS app for controlling the Node. It works brilliantly allowing all the control to be done from your couch. You don’t need to touch the device for anything. You can simultaneously control it from multiple apps - my wife and take turns switching the music from our individual phones. However, the app is basic and has a learning curve to it and is not very flashy. And unlike the iPad, it never crashes. Music quality: Good. Enjoy it but don’t find a much better sound experience from the iPad. I like that it has a subwoofer output so that is welcome as my amp does not have it. I haven’t tested the onboard DAC but that might be useful feature for those of you that don’t have a separate DAC.

Il m'a fallu du temps et tester 3 appareils différents avant de trouver le bon (merci Amazon). Le Bluesound Node est ultra facile d’utilisation et de connexion, il délivre un son fabuleux ! Le son est cristallin, rond et puissant, je le recommande.

Lee archivos de hasta 24 bits y 192Khz, incorpora plataformas de musica en Streaming como Tidal y Sporify (entre otras), y con un cable optico, se puede utilizar el DAC de ultima generación que incorpora. Todo esto por el precio (en mi caso 565€) que creo que es una gran relación calidad precio. Si quieres descubrir el mundo del audio stereo en alta resolución, este es tu dispositivo. Evidentemente el equipo de audio, tiene que estar a la altura de las espectativas que busques. En mi caso, totalmente satisfecho con la compra.

I bought this to replace a Sonos Connect I bought a few years ago. Sonos came out with a replacement model and immediately stopped supporting the Connect and wanted to sell me an upgrade. I’ll never buy a Sonos product again. I read the app for the blue sound is good , I was also looking for a sound improvement. The app is very good, very sensible and has run perfect. I’m very happy with a much bigger improvement in sound quality than I expected. The sound is more clear. If I listen to music with several instruments playing, it’s noticeably easier to pick out and listen to a single instrument. Similarly the sound stage is more defined, I can hear front to back depth much better. In hi-fi, you get to a point where your system is really good and you need to sped a lot more to get progressively smaller improvements. I think the Bluesound Node is near the top end of where you get a good improvement without getting to that esoteric level.

La app es muy lenta en mi Iphone, y la aplicacion en mi laptop no se pudo cargar, estoy esperando si en alguna actualizacion que hagan las cosas mejoran, ahora solo lo utilizo con el airplay.

Did a lot of research on streaming devices and narrowed it down to two: Node and Cambridge Audio CXN V2. Although the CXN is a higher quality than the Node (and more expensive), what swung it was that the Node supports Amazon Music whereas the Cambridge Audio does not at the present time. the Node was easy to set up and I am using it to drive my trusty old Cambridge Audio A300 into Kef Q1s. Immediately the change to the sound quality was remarkable with clearer high end and enhanced lower frequency response. The diverse number of inputs is excellent including a HDMI ARC socket to play my TV through my HiFi system. Haven't tried the Optical input yet. I was a bit dubious about the App. due to some poor reviews but it seems to work well on my PC and android phone. bit clunky with Amazon Music in that it will only play music from the library and switching to Bluetooth headphones is not always seamless but these are minor gripes. All in all this is an excellent little box.