First Streamer...

Like some here I have the Bluesound system. I have a Node 2 in one HI FI system and a Vault in another.. I have ripped all my CD’s to the Vault. Interesting note, if one has a hard drive with music on it, like I did with CD’s ripped to Itunes, the Vault can accept all that music without re-ripping CDs.

I have been happy with the sound by using external DACs with the Bluesound devices. Unlike others here, I have both Qobuz and Tidal and I think Tidal via MQA sounds better. I have also upgraded the Power supply on the Node 2.

I have found the customer service from Bluesound to be stellar. I think when other audio brothers here compare Bluesound to other streamers (which do sound better) they compare the Node which is often 1/2, 1/4 or even 1/16th the price of the better streamer. I, for one, cannot spend $6K on a streamer. It’s a budget option that sounds good, maybe not great. It’s performance jumps up a couple notches with a better DAC. My only negative is that it works better connected wired on a network with Cat5 cable to a router then it does wireless.

johndyson,

I have the original Rega Apollo CD player. Although it is good, the Wolfson DAC is dated now. My Node 2 and Schiit Bifrost 2 together sound a couple of notches better. In fact the internal DAC in the newest Node 2 would IMHO sound better than the Rega internal DAC. I would be very, very surprised if it did not. DAC’s are getting better every year. With my current setup, the Bifrost 2 does the DAC duties for both the Node 2 streamer and my Rega CD player. And both the Bifrost 2 and the Node 2 are considered budget products. Food for thought ....