You love music or you wouldn’t be here reading this.
You need a STREAMER!
Even a curmudgeon like me who owns tons of CDs and records, needs a streamer.
The musical options today are practically limitless. The price, is simply too good to be true. Buy your streamer, sign up for a music service like Tidal, and for $10-20 per month, the amount of music available to you is STAGGERINGLY impressive.
The sound is good too. Streaming can be done at background levels. CD quality levels. Or even at a much higher resolution level. We are so spoiled now- with this embarrassment of riches at our disposal.
So, which one should you buy?
Bluesound Node $600
Please buy an NAD Bluesound Node streamer. Plain and simple, it’s the smartest choice out there. Please don’t hold it against NAD that it’s only six bills.
First and foremost you should buy a Node because IT WORKS. You might think I’m kidding when I say this. I most definitely am NOT.
While there are many streamers out there, most do NOT work well. Many cough, sputter and literally quit playing without warning.
Being the geeks we are, we have tried a number of options. Let me recount a few experiences.
We tried Naim integrateds with built in streaming. They sounded good. But the consistency of the streaming platform was worse than roller skating on cobblestones. When we brought up a tune, the first few seconds distorted- then played fine. If we let the music flow within that album, it would hang on to the signal. BUT, if we selected another song from another album, the first few seconds would distort. It would play fine until you selected another tune from another album- and then it would happen again. If we pulled up Internet radio and just let it play, it might play an hour. It might play five minutes. It would never play 3 or even 4 hours, before it would hiccup and quit. We have seen similar buffering issues with Moon & Linn in customers’ homes.
We tried several DTS Play Fi streamers, like Audiolab. We selected a song. It was slow to PLAY what the iPad quickly recognized. It was literally out of synch. When the music came on, it sounded good. While it was playing we’d select a different song from a different album. Once again, the graphics came up quickly. The music was slow to follow. The music intermittently buffered, sputtered and went mute. This, was even more annoying than the Naim experience.
Support
What we learned CONSISTENTLY through these experiences is, the machine you buy is just the start. We know that companies like Audiolab, Naim & Linn can make decent machines.
But the performance you get from your streamer is only as good as the company that SUPPORTS it!
And this, is where NAD slaughters the competition.
NAD is an international company with very deep pockets. It makes a wide array of products, not just streamers. By the way, they call their streamers Bluesound for sexy marketing. They could just call it the NAD Streamer- but that would be less FUN.
NAD has a team of engineers that is dedicated to chasing the moving target that is web world out there. NAD does frequent updates to ride the bucking bronco of shaking hands with the reality of streaming. NAD introduced Bluesound in 2015 and has been doing this WELL, and consistently, for 8 plus years!
Right now there are a number of S Korean companies making streamers and servers for $2k on up. They aren’t as reliable and just how much would you bet on some company we’ve never heard of – for where they’ll be in 8 years?
We have run into a number of competitors in our own trials and at customers’ houses. At this stage of hi-fi, they all sound pretty good. But they don’t work as consistently as Bluesound does.
Recommendation
My recommendation is to buy a Bluesound Node. It’s only $600. Resist the temptation to want to spend MORE, thinking you’ll get something better.
Yes, I know it sounds too cheap to be any good. But I promise, it’s the best buy out there. That’s because IT WORKS GREAT!
NAD is dedicated to supporting its operation. Bluesound works and sounds better than Sonos- a company that once showed promise but has devolved into low fi and planned obsolescence.
The Node comes with a built in Sabre DAC. It sounds good. Most of our customers listen RCA out of the Node and call it a day.
However, we audiophiles know you can’t put a SOTA DAC in a $600 product. Node also provides Coax and OPT out- so you can run into a higher end DAC. What might that be?
DACs
Bryston makes among the best DACs on the planet. You can buy an outboard DAC for $3800. Or, better yet, consider the unimpeachable BR-20 preamp which has that world class DAC on board.
Mytek makes the Liberty 2 DAC. It is among THE BEST DAC values in the world. It is a stand alone DAC that you can run your Node into, as well as your CD player. Hence you can get the benefit of Mytek’s improved sound on both sources.
Hegel of Norway offers edge of the art DACs in all of its integrateds.
Servers
You don’t need one! You can stream ALMOST all the music you’d ever want. For your small library of music that isn’t available streaming, just get off your dead tail and play the CDs.
If you insist on saving your CDs to a streamer, let me ask WHY?
First of all, if the music is anything we’ve ever heard of, you can stream it. It is unnecessary to save it.
Now, there is some music you might want to play that isn’t available on Tidal or other music services. An example would be.. the great Hyperion label. They just won’t play ball with streaming- YET. So play your Hyperion CDs. Buttt…
I consider it a heroic waste of time to record these discs to some hard drive- and then find the meta data is WRONG for that music. Now you have to go in and type it all out. Why? Just so you don’t have to occasionally walk over to your CD player?!
I’ve had some guys say, “Well my wife doesn’t want CDs around.”
Really?! Seriously?!
It’s your house too! Look at all the crapola around your living room and tell me you can’t find a drawer for the handful of CDs that you might be interested in hearing.
Come on guys! She can have the rest of the house but show a little courage and demand a tiny amount of space for your few great CDs that aren’t available to stream.
Further, severs are not forever. Some day, they’ll all crash and burn. This is NOT a worry with streamers.
So ya see, I just saved you some money and earned you some cardio by not wasting your time with stinking server!