Bryston BDP-1 vs Bluesound Node 2i

The Roons = Roon
MPD= Music Player Damon, that renders Qobuz/Tidal or local file storage. and is managed by Manic Moose on the Bryston BDP series (1,2,3 and Pi). Its an alternative to Roon and Spartan but the SQ is Top Notch. I jump back and forth between MPD and Roon.

Twix = between
Manic Moose is scheduled for a rewrite soon so your new BDP should run that.

I did a Roon trial with my PC, but not from my Node or BDP3.  I have seen many comments that Roon causes a notable degradation in SQ, particularly from HiFi reviewers in the U.K.  Manic Moose is hopeless, IMO.  I think that Bryston has exactly 1 employee who over sees the platform.  I can’t see that a rewrite will do anything except be a band aid.  Bryston should use third party apps and be done with it

@mahler123 I have not seen many claim that roon degrades sound.  I don't believe it degrades anything on my end.  Peter Li at Lumin even recommends using it over their native app.  

Not to get off on whether Roon is worth it or not though.

I really just want to know if this old beast of a bryston would be better than a new Node.  

Thus far, I haven't got any real answers, but I did get sold a Bryston unit! haha.  So, certainly not a total fail :)

I have seen a few people comment that they hear a difference between Roon and other apps. Before I started using Roon a few years ago, I was using jriver and didn't notice any change in SQ switching to Roon. At the time, I was using a Windows PC as my media server, and my system was not as good as it is today, so this could have been obscuring the differences.

Since then, I have completely changed my system - literally every component - except Roon. My system is dramatically better than it was several years ago, but each upgrade has been very easy to discern (some more than others, of course). I can't say for sure that Roon is as good as other streaming systems SQ-wise, but it sure sounds good to me on my system and doesn't seem to be limiting my ability to make improvements through component changes.

And while I love to change things in my system to experience the differences, I have absolutely no interest in giving up Roon.

So now that you have the Bryston you will be able to switch between Roon and MPD.   But I cant tell yah right now that the Manic Moose (MM) interface is nothing like Roon.  But you will have to use MM to set the BDP to Roon ready and that is where you make the switch.  Just select either Roon Ready or MPD.  You will have to configure Manic Moose to connect to your music service once if you want to try MPD. Once thats done you can jump back and forth between the 2 to compare.   Be interesting to hear what you think.  Since I switched the Roon Core to an SGC Sonic Transport there is not much difference.  But under critical listening i still think MPD has a little bit more life and dimensional image.