GDHAL wrote: [

Oppo relegated to RCA out

GDHAL, glad to hear it's on the way! The anticipation must be killing you.

A question on your Oppo. I use my Oppo 105 digital coax out to feed my Vega DAC. Is that what you plan to do? Or are you up to something else?

Charlie

charliehatch wrote:
GDHAL, glad to hear it's on the way! The anticipation must be killing you.

A question on your Oppo. I use my Oppo 105 digital coax out to feed my Vega DAC. Is that what you plan to do? Or are you up to something else?

Charlie

Thank you, Charlie.

While I am eager to receive it, the anticipation isn't nearly s great as it was when I waited for the T Refs In the case of the T Refs I waited almost six months. In the case of the Yggy, I'm waiting two months. I expect to receive it Friday 10/13 and have it hooked in to my system that evening or 10/14.

As for connectivity, here is my plan. All digital cables obtained from blue jeans cables. Their "best" offering.
Oppo UDP205 > digital coax out > Yggy
Emotiva ERC-3 > aes/ebu out > Yggy
Samsung SMT-C5320 > optical out > Yggy

I picked up a Bluenode 2 today. Early impressions: awesome. Only hiccup was that I tried to connect to device via the app while it was doing its firmware update (automatic) and it wouldn't connect, but after that fine. Easy to point it to the network location of my music and it quickly indexed my FLAC files at a rate of about 1000 files per minute (10,109 FILES IN 642 seconds per the logs). So in 10 minutes, the library was ready. The app is LIGHTNING fast to browse and play my flac files, I am seriously impressed because I am running these on a NAS storage unit that is 7 (?) years old now. And it changes between tracks as fast as I can press the screen on my iphone. Meanwhile the tracks and album art have all been indexed to the Bluesound so when I am browsing the device doesn't have to access that older NAS...great stuff so far. Haven't tried the Tidal MQA, have just been demoing my own FLAC files on the TRefs and they sound awesome as you would expect. On John Mayer's live in LA you would swear he is plugged in just behind the speaker on "Gravity".

So far, easily worth the investment for anyone who has large ripped FLAC/lossless libraries and wants a way to easily index and play back those files. Seriously, this thing is already running circles around the Yamaha MusicCast app, they should acquire Bluesound and integrate the app and the tech into their Musiccast family.

hot_rod wrote: I picked up a Bluenode 2 today. Early impressions: awesome. Only hiccup was that I tried to connect to device via the app while it was doing its firmware update (automatic) and it wouldn't connect, but after that fine. Easy to point it to the network location of my music and it quickly indexed my FLAC files at a rate of about 1000 files per minute (10,109 FILES IN 642 seconds per the logs). So in 10 minutes, the library was ready. The app is LIGHTNING fast to browse and play my flac files, I am seriously impressed because I am running these on a NAS storage unit that is 7 (?) years old now. And it changes between tracks as fast as I can press the screen on my iphone. Meanwhile the tracks and album art have all been indexed to the Bluesound so when I am browsing the device doesn't have to access that older NAS...great stuff so far. Haven't tried the Tidal MQA, have just been demoing my own FLAC files on the TRefs and they sound awesome as you would expect. On John Mayer's live in LA you would swear he is plugged in just behind the speaker on "Gravity".

So far, easily worth the investment for anyone who has large ripped FLAC/lossless libraries and wants a way to easily index and play back those files. Seriously, this thing is already running circles around the Yamaha MusicCast app, they should acquire Bluesound and integrate the app and the tech into their Musiccast family.

Hello Hot Rod,

OK - educate me please.

I am not very interested in streaming music via the internet. However, I am interested in devices which improve the sound when I play my FLAC files. I have nearly 26,000 FLAC music files stored on a Seagate 3 TB external drive. I am using a dedicated Toshiba Laptop running Windows 10 to stream these files to my Cambridge DAC Magic. The Seagate drive is connected to the Toshiba via USB and the Toshiba feeds the DAC via USB. I use either MusicBee or MusiCHI software to index and play these music files.

Now, my questions are:

1. Would the Bluesound Node 2 handle my 3 TB Seagate Drive?

2. Would I notice a significant sound quality improvement by streaming these FLAC files via the Bluesound Node 2 as compared with streaming them via either the MusicBee or MusiCHI software players resident in the laptop?

3. Anything else I am missing in my analysis?

Thanks,

Art

1. Would the Bluesound Node 2 handle my 3 TB Seagate Drive?

Yes I think it can handle any stored music anywhere on the network. Some more details here: support.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/...-Music-to-Bluesound-

As long as there is some kind of network path to your Seagate (?), and it can be seen on the network, then the BlueNode should be able to see it. In your case maybe you are actually mapping the folder on your Toshiba which itself is mapping the Seagate? Not sure how it is all connected. In my case, I am using a Synology Diskstation (210j), which is like a mini computer and has its own IP address on the network - so for me I just put in "\\Musiclibrary\music" being the name of the NAS on the network and the folder I wanted mapped, and I added the user login and password to access the network drive, and then Bluesound started to index it immediately. It worked faster than I expected.

2. Would I notice a significant sound quality improvement by streaming these FLAC files via the Bluesound Node 2 as compared with streaming them via either the MusicBee or MusiCHI software players resident in the laptop?

I am not sure if the DAC inside this is the same or better/worse than your cambridge. I am using it primarily as a library organizer/streamer first, and a Tidal/MQA streamer second, I did not buy it purely for its DAC functions though it can do that for sure. Anything on your network or the internet that is accessed through the Bluenode can be passed through as digital out or can be converted to analog and then you use the analog outs from it. Right now I don't have a dedicated DAC so I am using it for that function and then the analog outs to my Yamaha integrated (to be upgraded down the road). At some point I might use the digital outs and see if the Yamaha ESS chip is any different (I think the Bluenode has BurrBrown?) Personally I think it sounds great in a quick listen, and I can't wait to tuck in more - both to my own FLAC content and then also Tidal CD/MQA as I just set up a new account for that.

Most importantly for me - so far the app has been extremely responsive to navigate, both with my own indexed FLAC files and also the Tidal integration. I was so annoyed before at how Yamaha had tidal in Musiccast app, it was unusable as everything just said "loading" when you changed screens. The best user interface so far for me has been Spotify and Spotify Connect, but they didn't have lossless streaming content (and I couldn't see my ripped music). This BlueOS basically takes that experience and extends it to my own content and Tidal etc. (ps it does Spotify too if that's your thing). It is great to go from one screen to another and all the content and album art is loaded correctly, it doesn't take time to "think" about it.

If you think about it, with this purchase you are not just getting the streaming box you are essentially buying a) the hardware of the box, and b) the BlueOS app for iOS etc. [which is free to download] The app has 2/5 stars on Apple but I am with the lone 5 star reviewer who said it worked great for him, albeit I haven't been playing with it for long. I think some of the people have other issues with connecting wireless speaker networks etc which isn't relevant to my intended usage of the Bluenode 2 anyhow.

Hi Hot Rod,

Thanks for your quick and detailed response. I have done a bit more research on the general idea of streaming options and the Bluesound Node 2 in particular. Since I already have a high-quality DAC, the DAC capabilities of the Node 2 are not specifically of interest to me. The Node 2 might or might not offer a better DAC than the Cambridge.

My present streaming and control approach provides fast and accurate access to all of my music FLAC files. I use Windows Remote Desktop to control my dedicated music laptop from my business laptop which sits at my PLP. Both MusicBee and MusiCHI have extensive library capability.

So, the only possible area of improvement wold be in the quality of the streaming capability of the Node 2 versus MusicBee or MusiCHI running on my laptop. I suspect that I would have to do a side-by-side listening comparison to determine whether or not the Node 2 streaming capability offers a better playback than my present setup - probably not a very practical thing for me to consider trying to do.

So far, I have not found any online info which discusses the relative merits of sound-quality resulting from different streaming software or different streaming options.

Thanks again.

Best,

Art