How much would I lose going to a Bluesound Node 2i


I'm considering going a much simpler route for digital. I play to a lot of vinyl on my Lenco TT and Era V phonostage, and so digital comprises 30-40% of what we typically listen to. My current setup is running Roon on a Synology NAS that connects wirelessly to an Auralic Aries LE, then connected to connected to my Metrum Octave DAC via Curious USB Cable and Audiophillio 2. That's a lot of links in the chain, thus the desire to simplify with a single box solution if I can.

I have really enjoyed what I've heard from MQA so far, even though I'm not getting all the goodness yet. My Aries will decode MQA but my Metrum Octave does not support MQA, so I'm not getting the full monty. I am using ROON DSP to convert streams to 96kHz and 176kHz when possible. 192kHz is not supported on the Octave.
It's my understanding that the Bluesound will provide Full Decoder support for MQA and that the internal DAC punches well above its weight, especially compared to the Node 2. So my question is whether I should expect MQA to sound better on the Bluesound than it does on my current setup, and how much Redbook will sound degraded, if at all.

I'm tempted to buy a Node 2i to compare for myself but before I do, I thought I would garner some opinions here.
Thanks!
smccull

Showing 1 response by catalysis

It’s very clear that the Node 2i is a significant improvement on its superb predecessor.

In my system, rotating between Quad ESLs and Thiel CS 3.5s, I hear better sound at all times through the Node 2i than through my Benchmark DAC2 HGC. Frankly the improvement isn’t even subtle, MQA and otherwise.

This has totally amazed me. The Benchmark is a fantastic DAC and my original intention was to feed the Node 2i’s digital output through it. Turns out it’s better without doing that and I am able to do comprehensive A-B analysis. Anyone else who has heard to comparison agrees that the Node 2i is a winner.

A fabulous bargain.