Bluesound Node 2

erniejade

Thanks all. Sorry to side track your thread.
I have a few dsd downloads that's all. Not a lot but a few so when I look, I keep dsd in mind. The sony I considered a few times but, it re-formats to its own type of formatting. So if I have 2 tb of music and go to another type of unit with that external drive, it will not read it.

For now I am still using jriver and a I7 laptop. This looked like it would be a great solution outside of the DSD part.

tonyb

Ern, I thought Jriver was updated a few years back to support DSD.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82074.0

ramaroodle

My friend just got a Node2 and is very impressed with it. He says it sounds better than CD, flac or Tidal. I say "bulls**t". It may color it or have more gain but can't sound "better" than the source material.

Maybe someone can comment on my line of thinking.,,,

First off, let me state that after years of ABXing and blind tests I know I can't hear the difference between flac and V0 or even 196 for that matter. Same with bluetooth vs source material.

All of my music (and movies) is stored on my PC HDD, backed up/mirrored on another internal HDD using Syncback and in the cloud through Backblaze (about 4K albums). I use a free app called Plex media server. It allows me to listen to and watch in HD everything I have anywhere on the planet that I have wi-fi or at least 2 bars of cellular connection using my laptop, phone or iPad.

When I am at home I use a Logitech bluetooth adapter connected to my home system (magneplanar speakers) to stream from my phone or iPad.

Why do I want a Node2? That is a serious question,

tonyb

ramaroodle wrote: »

My friend just got a Node2 and is very impressed with it. He says it sounds better than CD, flac or Tidal. I say "bulls**t". It may color it or have more gain but can't sound "better" than the source material.

Maybe someone can comment on my line of thinking.,,,

I'll bite....

"Better"....is subjective, your not saying, I hope, that you know what is better sounding than the other guy doing the listening ?

Obviously the way you have your stuff setup works for you, but it may not for others. The poster is simply commenting on his own experience with the Node, nothing more, nothing less, whether that fits into something you want or not is up to you.

I would imagine the Node has a decent dac in it to improve the sound some, if they aren't using an outboard one anyway.

Why do you want a Node 2 ? I don't know, obviously you don't, so why are you interested in this thread ?

ramaroodle

Wow dude. Lighten up.! I think you totally misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was interested in a Node2. I am just always skeptical when people say that they hear a drastic difference in sound between anything but different speakers once you are using audiophile grade equipment.

Bear with me for a minute please.

A few years ago we did a really in-depth ABX comparison using a Rotel CD player vs a 20 year old Sony discman. No difference. We then tried $500 cables vs really old and cheap speaker and RCA cables vs expensive gold tipped ones. No difference. So, we felt it was time for another get-together with the Node.

Today we had another ABX party where 4 of us get together at someone's house, drink beer and do a listen test. We met at my friends who just bought the node. We all have what we consider to be "good ears" as we are musicians and sound/recording engineers.

We all also have what we consider to be "high end" gear. Today we listened to 3 or 4 recordings to compare and A/B the node2 to source material, Tidal, Spotify and my Plex through the Logitech bluetooth adapter all put through about $15K of Macintosh amps and pre-amps, Rotel CD Player, Scout turntable etc. This is always fun and a great source of conversation.

The results were that after 15 rounds of blind listening NOBODY could hear any discernable difference between a cd, Tidal through the Node2 and V0 mp3's from my home server via WiFi to my iPhone and into the Logitech via bluetooth when the recordings were sync'd through the preamp inputs.

What we did agree on was that the vinyl sounded warmer than the digital. recordings.

So, to make a long story short, we all again agreed that your brain will tell you that there is a difference until you do an ABX test. There have been studies done on this (the brain thing) published on the web. If you want to hear a difference you will, but the data says otherwise.

THAT is why I was interested in this thread.

ramaroodle

Sorry for the double post but it took me longer than an hour to edit this cuz it's Halloween and kids are at the door.

So, the reason for my post was that someone asked about sound quality and someone mentioned that they couldn't hear the difference between the Node2 and a CD.

We all expected that the V0 mp3's via bluetooth would not sound as good , but no. Having the volume levels the same is crucial as the slightest difference in volume will make you think the louder one sounds better.

There have been studies done on this (the brain thing) published on the web. If you want to hear a difference you will because of the subconscious desire to have more expensive gear have a better sound, but the empirical data always says otherwise.

tonyb

Gotcha.....the old placebo effect argument. Nobody would argue that placebo certainly has it's place in audio, but your painting with a pretty broad brush when using it to describe higher end audio in general.

You won't find many here who subscribe to those thoughts, but your certainly entitled to have them. The only empirical data needed is what one's ears tell them, does anything else matter ?

ramaroodle

tonyb wrote: »

Gotcha.....the old placebo effect argument. Nobody would argue that placebo certainly has it's place in audio, but your painting with a pretty broad brush when using it to describe higher end audio in general.

Understood. To be clear re the broad brush, I'm not saying that all high end audio sounds the same. Every major component has the ability to color the final output. Some amps are "warmer" etc. I got rid of a Bryston that cost almost 3 times as much as the used Mac I replaced it with because I "thought" I liked the sound better. I'm only saying that using the same amp, pre amp and speaker components as a baseline reference for all of the tests, my "personal" experience is that without a true ABX comparison it is very easy to feel that one format (i.e V0, 320,flac), DAC chip or auxiliary component etc. makes a difference which is why I have always made minor tweaks with a 15 band EQ in the chain. In our little group the guys who only play and want flac only want flac even though in every ABX test we've ever done they can't tell the difference. I know I can't hear a difference between 196kbps, and V0 but I use V0 and never 196. It just "feels" better to my brain.

Thanks for the feedback. Sorry if I've derailed the thread.

david_tammy_moss

Hi,
Newbie to the Node2 scene and having some issues connecting it... Can anyone tell me the advantages if any to hooking the Node2 to a computer (Imac) rather than the Russound cA$ multiplayer.

Thanks!

erniejade

What are you trying to accomplish? Why would you hook ot up to a computer? Its ment to eliminate the computer basically.