Bluesound Node 2i

[BultyBoy]

I just got my hifi back after 20 years. Bought a new Rega RP6 , Elex R amp, really pleased. I then wanted more music available so bought a Bluesound node 2I and using spotify. It's amazing, better than some of the vinyl pressings and I can't tell the difference on the better recordings. If I would have known this a month ago I probably wouldn't have bought the Rega and that isn't knocking the Rega. As Terry Wogan used to say 'is it me'? £499 for magic in a box..

[Roy S]

Had a similar experience with the Bluesound using Tidal. Through a Chord Hugo TT dac it’s a revelation, my Cyrus CDT & Garrard 401 don’t get a look in.

[BultyBoy]

Yes I'm thinking of going for Tidal, are you doing the £20 a month high resolution scheme? Thanks.

[Roy S]

Yes, went for the cd quality option and have been very pleased with it. There’s a thirty day free trial so you can ‘try before you buy’.

[BultyBoy]

Thanks Roy

[Zoidburg]

Love my Node 2i, its just so simple and yet sounds great. Its a real bargain for what it is.

[mikeyb]

Remember to check the content on Tidal AND Qobuz as they might have different access to artists, I usually do a search of my favourite artists on each service before committing to payment. Tidal is quite US orientated for obvious reasons and tends to favour Rap on their main screens, Qobuz is more Classical.

I dropped both as they are both so so for Electronic and Prog.

Use a free VPN service to sign up from ‘another’ country and use PayPal for payment, helps keep the cost down [emoji6]

[Roy S]

Their after sale service is excellent to, thought I had a problem with one of the outputs on the Bluesound (it later transpired it was my dac), their 'support crew' were very helpful.

[Manicatel]

The node 2i is a cracking thing. Very decent sound & one of the best control apps as well. Can it be beaten?
Well yes, but probably only by spending probably twice as much or so.
Going through a separate better DAC is probably the best step up, as my opinion is that the biggest upgrades with digital stuff is with the DAC. There are differences with the streamer side, but relatively small compared to the DAC.
There are plenty of other sub £1k streamer/DACs but a lot of them have clunky apps or rely on 3rd party apps so they don’t have control over app development.
In the OP’s set up, Spotify will be the bottle-neck. Step up to Tidal or Qobuz to maximise what the Node can do.

[BultyBoy]

Thanks everyone

[BultyBoy]

So the other night I played some tracks Rega RP6 vs node 2i. The node was really lacking bass. I then found the tone controls on the node which were off. When I clicked them off the subwoofer was set to on so all the sub80khz was going to a non existent woofer. I turned that off and wow what a difference. I wonder if they are all set that like as I've not touched it before?

[Colin2040]

Interesting read this. I currently use a raspberry pi3 with allo dac . I am trialling a new amp which I really like and it has a dac onboard. I have thought about updating my raspberry to a pi4 and use the amps dac but also looked at the innuos zen and the Bluesound node 2i. I like the fact that the Bluesound can stream amazon and my son uses amazon so that would be a tick in his box. Does it have blue tooth and a usb to dac connection?
Thanks

Colin

[mikeyb]

The Node 2i has Bluetooth in/out but no USB out, the USB is for connecting a hard drive etc and the other one is for service use only.

[Colin2040]

Thanks, the amps dac is usb but I could use rca to connect the Bluesound to the amp then I would just have to buy a cd transport with u#b connection. How will I break this good news to the wife!
It would be good to have the amazon hd but the son can always use Bluetooth to connect to a raspberry. I like the zen but I don’t really need the ripping facility albeit it is a nice unit

[hermano]

Can I ask is there a limitation to attaching a hard drive? Do the apps etc still work if only using an attached had drive? Also, is there a track limit like Sonos?

[Tim]

Can I ask is there a limitation to attaching a hard drive? Do the apps etc still work if only using an attached had drive? Also, is there a track limit like Sonos?

If you mean can you plug a USB HDD directly into the Bluesound Node and play music files directly from that hard drive, then yes it will be fine and is designed to do this as one of it's playback options. The Bluesound app works the same way, once all the files have been indexed. It's actually a good way to use the Node, rather than streaming files over a Network either wirelessly or via ethernet, both of which also work fine subject to Wifi strength and the bandwidth of your wired network.

There are song limits like the Sonos as these systems all run from a stored database. The Bluesound Node 2 has the ability to index 'up to' 100,000 songs, the Bluesound Node 2i 'up to' 200,000 songs. But these are both theoretical limits, hence the 'up to' notation. These are maximums in ideal conditions as the database indexes the metadata, so if you have a lot of information in the metadata, like long track names or titles and associated artwork, this 'theoretical' maximum can be substantially less as there is more data to index.

I have used a Vault, Bluesound Node, Node 2 and 2i as my best mate is committed to the Bluesound ecosystem but not much of a geek - I apparently am, so I look after them for him when he has problems. The only real issues he has had are in relation to this song limit as he has a huge ripped FLAC library. As an example his Node 2i starts to struggle with over 130,000 songs, which is well below to it's supposed maximum. It works, but nowhere near as well as when he's got under 100,000 songs indexed. It can hang or just be slow to respond on the apps. It doesn't affect the sound quality, just responsiveness.

To put this in context though, he's extremely pleased with Bluesound as am I, although I don't have one myself. It easy to use, has a great app and sounds very good for a £500 streamer, I'd argue its the best value at this price point. So if you don't push it to it's limit then you'll have no issues. He's had no problems since he reduced his library size, but since adding Tidal this has been a non issue as he pretty much uses that all the time now and rarely plays his own library files, as he likes to discover new music, so is constantly on the look out for new stuff on Tidal.

So keep the library size under control and the Bluesound Node is a darned good compact streamer :)

[Gromit]

A few weeks on from the OP but I received my own Node 2i from Richer Sounds this week. Cracking little bit of kit, have been very impressed so far. Had considered the Audiolab 6000N but didn't relish the idea of using a 3rd party control app, plus the Node is so much smaller in size, and - once played through a stand-alone DAC - I'd guess the sonic differences are marginal.

Running mine through my trusty old TEAC UD-H01 but have been very surprised how little there is in it between that and the Node's built-in unit. Think it's time to go DAC-shopping. :)

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50978817171_c537fbeff2_b.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2kEPLgD)Bluesound+Cyrus (https://flic.kr/p/2kEPLgD) by Boxertrixter (https://www.flickr.com/photos/93875151@N07/), on Flickr

[Tim]

Hi Richard, it's an impressive bit of kit for the price and the Node 2i is definitely a step up from the 2, not just the song capacity. My mate has his 2i currently hooked up to a Roksan Blak and it doesn't embarrass itself at all. For folk who want to get into streaming and local music file playback with minimal fuss, it think it's the gold standard for 500 quid. You can of course bugger about with a Pi if that's your thing, but for most people I'd say just go for the Bluesound.

Nice picture (as always) by the way :)

[Gromit]

Hi Richard, it's an impressive bit of kit for the price and the Node 2i is definitely a step up from the 2, not just the song capacity. My mate has his 2i currently hooked up to a Roksan Blak and it doesn't embarrass itself at all. For folk who want to get into streaming and local music file playback with minimal fuss, it think it's the gold standard for 500 quid. You can of course bugger about with a Pi if that's your thing, but for most people I'd say just go for the Bluesound.

Nice picture (as always) by the way :)

Thanks Tim :)

Would really like to hear this through a Qutest or some such, seeing as my Teac's a few years old now and no doubt stuff has moved on in the digital realm. For now though, I'm one happy chap.

[BultyBoy]

I've just fitted the Fidelity Interface board and an Allo Shanti power supply. It is definitely much better to my ears. You can follow individual instruments now whereas is was a muddled sound before. I am so impressed with the Bluesound. The confusion to me now is being told yesterday that another dac won't make much difference if any. There is so much conflicting advice out there...

[BultyBoy]

I've just fitted the Fidelity Interface board and an Allo Shanti power supply. It is definitely much better to my ears. You can follow individual instruments now whereas is was a muddled sound before. I am so impressed with the Bluesound. The confusion to me now is being told yesterday that another dac won't make much difference if any. There is so much conflicting advice out there...

[Tim]

There is so much conflicting advice out there...

Welcome to the world of audiophile HiFi!

However, your statement is slightly flawed, what other DAC would this seer be advising on? What I can tell you is there is a difference when you play music from the coaxial output of a Node 2i via a Rega DAC, but I wouldn't say it was worth the extra £600 that difference will cost you. Whether that difference is 'better' is also very subjective, but it's certainly different.

That kind of advice is pretty irrelevant as DACs can be as different as chalk and cheese. I would say you will probably have to pay more for a DAC than the value of the Node to reap any significant improvement, which isn't worth it IMO.

So relax and enjoy what the Node 2i does well and don't fret about trying to improve it, that would not be an economical venture at this price point and you could end up chasing your tail down a rabbit hole of discontent.

Just enjoy the music :)

[BultyBoy]

Well interestingly it was an RME Adi 2 that I was originally asking said person about which is imposed to be rather good on every review I've seen. But your right about accepting what is already very good and yes I am enjoying the music, hours every evening whereas for many years 20plus I forgot the pleasures of having a live band at home 🙂

[Gromit]

I've just fitted the Fidelity Interface board and an Allo Shanti power supply. It is definitely much better to my ears. You can follow individual instruments now whereas is was a muddled sound before. I am so impressed with the Bluesound. The confusion to me now is being told yesterday that another dac won't make much difference if any. There is so much conflicting advice out there...

Thanks for the mention of the interface board and external psu, it's something I'm interested in trying. From what I've read (not exhaustively though) the board & psu makes a bigger difference when using the Node's internal DAC.

My own, very brief, try-out of Teac DAC vs the internal ended up with a slight preference to the former. Very subtle, but certainly demonstrable - the Teac having a more rounded, less forthright presentation, but perhaps more mature. Now the unit's run-in it would be interesting to re-compare. Also doing a comparison between coax and optical output - there does seem to be a split on which is better.

[Lurch]

With regards the interface board, a cheaper but as effective option is the Polish one that's sold via eBay (the designer is on the wam) it's what I use in mine fed by an SBooster, I also feed my Node2 into a pimped Jolida Glass fx dac (tried an RME & Quetest and couldn't hear £800+ difference to the std Node DAC).

[Jimbo]

With regards the interface board, a cheaper but as effective option is the Polish one that's sold via eBay (the designer is on the wam) it's what I use in mine fed by an SBooster, I also feed my Node2 into a pimped Jolida Glass fx dac (tried an RME & Quetest and couldn't hear £800+ difference to the std Node DAC).

The Node 2 DAC is very good and hard to beat at the price. I have also heard the Qutest in my system and thought it sounded great but double the price of the node 2!

[BultyBoy]

In the last few weeks I came across Brad Mehldau Art of the Trio and have been listening to the albums. This week I got to volume 2 live. It is absolutely astonishing, I have never heard anything so live before in front of me, the band are playing just there. What a stunning recording if you like jazz or try it even if not. After hearing something like this I think I have answered my question whether I need a better dac, most probably not. Perhaps they do however make some recordings sound 'better or different but I think I'll hold on for now.