2. digital
  3. 141712-17758

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 justjames72

justjames72's avatar
justjames72
66 posts
 
Obviously it's all subjective, but I had the Node 2i playing coax out to my Rotel 1572 and I thought the Rotel sounded a bit better even with MQA files.

Now, I have the Metrum Ambre with Metrum Onyx and well...that is an obvious step up in everything. However, I did have the Ambre hooked up to my Rotel 1572 for a short time and the difference was quite noticeable.

I'm thinking the higher up in performance you get with DAC's the less you will be able to tell difference with MQA. I do agree that some MQA tracks sound better than the same track non MQA. I'm still on the fence on how I feel about it. Now, i just let the Ambre and Roon do the MQA unfold. I realize I may not be getting the full monty, but I'm not worried about it. 
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