Bluesound Node versions SQ

so when a young 20-something coworker, who has backed into this hobby via home theater asks me questions contemplating a purchase, if I can’t give him a valid "why" something should sound better, they might just decide to stick with Bluetooth, and that is rather sad.

@moonwatcher The best advice is to have him/her demo something in their system  — that’d be more effective/impactful than any words or logic, and it’s easy to try things like DACs and streamers risk free these days so why not?  Words only go so far, and listening is the final arbiter anyway.  They’ll either hear the improvements or they won’t, and that’ll override any words/logic you can provide. 

@soix

I’m sure you’ve heard the (TRUE) story of Bill Johnson, the founder of Audio Research, being accosted by an engineer back in 1972 for introducing tubes back into audio when transistors had just shown - by Golly! - that tubes were antiquated and hopeless and didn’t produce good sound. And engineers insisted that transistors were "perfect-sound-forever" gifts from God.  (This was 1966, by the way.)  However, music sounded bad played thru transistors. REALLY bad. I wonder why the measurements didn’t help them. Could it be that they had completely untrained ears?

Anyway, that was then. And the engineers were wrong then, too. While measurements can do some things, they can’t do everything. They can’t discern the difference between a Yamaha flute and say, a Selmer. The measurements will be identical, nonetheless.

I find it fascinating that, in a field called AUDIO, people insist on trusting measurements instead of using their ears. I do realize they don’t trust their ears, of course. And maybe they shouldn’t! We’ve all heard that ears can be fooled, and I’m sure they can be. That said, I would STILL never mistake a Yamaha piano for a Steinway, so I guess my old, old, OLD (and) fallible ears are still good for something! People like measurements because they don’t know how to listen using their ears. I don’t blame them. With the lack of music classes or band courses in high school, many people get through 30 years of their life without ever having heard a flute, or a trumpet. Or even live drum sets. They can’t identify acoustic instruments, so measurements make them feel better. That, and it gives them license to sneer at others.

@invalid , I have never had a red light of death on any of my Bluesound products.  I have always kept my units on the top shelf with plenty of space around them so heat soak could be a problem with the design but my setup doesn't create that opportunity.

@ironrick6 , after getting the Chord Qutest into my system, I immediately started some traveling so my listening was a bit delayed.  Now, almost a month into ownership I'm getting closer to sharing my thoughts.  Not sure if adding to this thread would be the best place or if starting a new thread would be better.  I'd like to document my system and experience so that people could understand where my thoughts are coming from.

@ironrick6 , I'm replying to your message here since Audiogon wants me to verify my phone number (ok...) and a payment method (why?) to respond to your message.

To answer your question, I'm currently using an old 75 ohm Audioquest video cable with an RCA->BNC plug going into the Qutest.  I'm looking for a used Audioquest digital cable to see if that makes a difference.  I would like to try the USB cable; however, I use an SSD plugged into the N130 USB port so I'll need to do something different to test that option out.

@plain_fan  my bluesound node 2 was on a shelf with plenty of ventilation, there was a design flaw in the power supply, that causes the two capacitors to get too hot.  All you have to do is look at at the design and you can see it isn't very good. There are two power supply capacitors next to a voltage regulator heat sink, a board in front of them and a transformer directly behind them.