Cheap temporary streamer

[hk6230]

hk6230 opened thread on bluesound and since then i got hocked to it only because of hires and newer than Sonos. I ordered for Bluesound despite HK's suggestion towards Sonos and in the market where Sonos is more appreciated due to app robustness. Its arriving tomorrow. Will update how it went in Hk's Bluesound thread or open a new thread.

However, what it replaces or adds to my existing setup of macbook-air (AIR_ETH), is iphone (bluesound app) + Ipad (Bluesound app). Do I really need it ? i m seeing drops and white noise with AIR_ETH (with AE dedicated to Devialet). White noise is not frequent, maybe once a days during my music sessions and drops observed 2-3 times.

Well, Bluesound Node is an excellent pieve of hardware if you want to play 24-bit, 96/192kHz music files. Like Sonos, it does support several cloud music services such as Tidal, Deezer, Spotify, Rdio, WiMP, HDtracks, Qobuz, Tunein, etc. The only thing is, all these services are not well supported and/or reliable in China. The only reliable service is Tunein but with only limited radio station availability. And with Node, you can access your external NAS in your network. However, its indexing is slow. Every time a new music music is added in your NAS, you will need to reindex all files again and it's kind of slow.

Please do note that though Bluesound Node's optical link can output 24/192 bitrates but Devialet's optical input can only support up to 24/96 bitrates. I circumvent this by adding a toslink to coaxial converter.

IOS/Android/Desktop apps are essential in controlling Bluesound and music selection. With Bluesound, like any other streamer, your computer (Mac/PC) is bypassed, and you will never encounter white noises. But, it's still debatable whether AIR offers better sound.