It all depends on what you are needing for control too. From a control perspective, I would prefer to use a computer - and that is how we had our library set up before. However, it is a pain if you are not at the computer to change tracks or look up music etc. If you have a dedicated listening seat, then having laptop control is fine. But for our situation in a house where the speakers are not in a dedicated listening environment but serve all purpose listening at all times, I might want to control the track playlist from the living room (where speakers are), the adjacent kitchen (open concept), or even outside on the patio if I have the receiver sending audio output to speakers there as a zone 2. So using the BlueOS looks like it will give me the ability to control that FLAC library from anywhere I have my iphone/ipad, and at a zippy speed. I did try the web interface for JRiver several years ago and it was not good (bookmarking a local IP address and accessing it that way, if I recall correctly). Perhaps their newer JRemote app is better (?), but really you still need a machine to index and serve up the cover art etc to whatever you are using to view...my NAS was not fast enough to process and crunch that itself but this box can, so the NAS can simply act as a glorified hard drive housing now! Plus I wanted to be able to stream Tidal for the lossless CD quality and the lossless MQA also (though CD sounds awesome enough on the speakers), and the BlueOS provides a way to control Tidal easily.

Yes, I can see how implementing the Node 2 will enhance your musical enjoyment. In my case, I only listen when I am in my "media room". I have a separate sound system in my garage where I work on my HO model railroad - including a separate computer with a separate HD connected with the same music files. Yes, I do spend time keeping all of my data sources up to date, but I also have three different sets of files to provide backup in case of a data crash.

Looks like I'll be standing pat upon my present configuration for the present. Enjoy your system with its new capabilities.

Best,

Art

The Bluenode 2 isn't without its quirks. I can't get track radio or artist radio to work within Tidal. And then tonight it pushed out an automatic firmware update and the device promptly forgot my Tidal account and my network music library so I had to re-map and re-index it. I have a ticket open with support for both these issues, and the retailer I bought from has a generous return window right now so I will give it a shot for at least a couple weeks and see if it happens again.

Hey hot_rod, thanks for the informative stuff here.
I checked out the Bluesound Node 2, but could not find much info on it. Like what DAC chip it is using?
But I did find that for me it is seriously lacking:
No Multi-channel
No Ability to play DSD files
No Balanced outputs

So I will keep looking, though not seriously. Because the seriously good stuff, multi-channel stuff is SERIOUS money. And I don't need it at all really. It would just be for a bit of convenience.

But thanks for the information.
Happy listening,
God Bless,
Wayne

I wanted to post a follow up. I am still evaluating the BlueNode 2 but it is likely going back to retailer. One key issue I have is that for a new device, with latest firmware, it still has a couple quirks – one of which is lack of being able to do artist/song radio properly. Also, I find library scrolling to be slow even on the associated desktop app (if it has indexed my library, why does it take seconds for my album art to load for my library and Tidal, when scrolling a list?). And then when I wrote in about the artist radio, the rep told me they can see my unit is in temporary storage mode (?) meaning that if power failure or unplugged then the BlueNode 2 will lose all settings including Tidal log-in and all the library indexing to my NAS. This has happened twice already due to power outages. No DIY solution to put it out of its ‘temporary’ mode, only fix per company is to schedule a shared Teamviewer computer screen-share with support desk and give them remote access to network?!? No thanks, and especially not for a brand new product…back to the store it will go! Unacceptable that this is not something they can address with firmware download.

However, that being said, before taking it back since there is a long return window I wanted to assess if MQA streaming is important to me, and if I can hear a difference on the TRefs. The answers: maybe and *yes!*. The Tidal ‘CD quality’ albums sound good, and MQA simply sounds better…doing A/B comparisons for an hour one evening and listening closely, there is a slightly brighter sound with MQA and details pop – as if a muffler has been lifted off the whole soundstage when switching to the MQA version. I was able to quickly switch between CD/MQA of a few favorite jazz tracks using the BlueOS app, skipping to solos in each to compare instrument/voice timbre:

“You're looking at me” (Diana Krall, ‘All for You’ album)
“They say it's wonderful” (Hartman/Coltrane)
“If you could see me now” (live - Wes Montgomery / Wynton Kelly)

All of these sounded better in their MQA format on Tidal. Would I have been happy enough with the CD quality? Probably, it sounds good too. But the MQA sounds more engaging to the ears when played. Is it worth having a separate player/decoder for this? Not sure yet. For $500 the bluenode 2 seems like a decent bargain to get the MQA if it weren’t for the quirks. Another thing I didn’t like is that in the BluOS app I cannot do a search filter for only MQA albums, so pulling up an artist will show me 2 versions for each album – on iOS app I can see a CD or MQA icon, but in the BluOS desktop app there is no distinguishing icon so you don’t know which one you are selecting.

So in summary: I can confirm that the quality spectrum for streaming is: Spotify --> Tidal CD -->Tidal MQA. Which is exactly how you would expect based on their specs, but my firsthand experience is that it is audible quality difference using the same amp and TRefs. There are a lot of articles on the internet about whether MQA matters or makes a difference – I can verify that to my ears, it sounds better than the CD equivalent of these same tracks. I can only imagine that the MQA must sound even more awesome with a better amp than my integrated Yamaha. The same way that the Spotify tracks sound better on my TRefs than my old speakers, but the MQA tracks sound better on the TRefs than spotify does.

I would encourage other GoldenEar owners to seek out MQA streaming to try, as long as you have decent enough internet speed to stream the high res files I think it is a good deal for $20/mo or less via Tidal. Really it is all just zeroes and ones getting decoded, and this is the way of the future – streaming or downloading files that are the same as burned on a CD (or higher quality in this case!) Now I need to figure out another option for my library management and sourcing MQA, other than the Bluenode 2 (too bad as it would be easier to have it just work).

PS – even my spouse can hear the difference between CD and MQA too though her take is “they are really close”. And the TRefs do an awfully good job of making even the Spotify-quality stuff sound good, making it hard to justify additional gear purchases!!!

hot_rod,

Thanks for the review. I've been thinking about streaming alternatives to my Oppo 105/Tidal setup, and I think I'll pass on the Bluenode for now.

Charlie