There’s a lot of debate on this topic, so I thought I’d post my personal experience comparing Tidal playback on a dedicated Mac laptop (one of the vintage ones with a DVD-Rom) with Audirvana to a Bluesound Node as a streaming source.
The rest of the digital system = Audioquest Coffee USB Cable -> RME ADI 2 FS DAC. I listened both using headphones and using my two loudspeaker. One is an all Linn Akurate system, the other is Schiit monoblocks -> TA Criterion Speakers. So both systems are $10k-$20k.
Audirvana was set to not oversample or mess with the files at all. I tested on Tidal only, on both MQA and non MQA tracks (which didn’t make much difference). I spent about 3 hours comparing the two.
I was struck that these streamers sounded different. The Bluesound had slightly crisper microdynamics, and with slightly darker backgrounds. A touch dryer and with more details. More PRAT.
The Audirvana had a much larger soundstage with noticeably more air and deeper bass. I preferred it on most tracks. Vocals sounded more natural at times.
I’d say if I just listened to Jazz, I’d give the edge to the Node, but for other types of music the Audirvana playback was richer and had more width and depth and was more extended on the top and bottom the frequency range.
I tried the Node with other connections. This was using basic cables....nothing fancy. The coaxial sounded similar to USB, just with less top end. The optical out sounded great and had a lot of rhythm to it... but sacrificed even a bit more air. I’d say that the optical connection distilled the differences between the two playback sources even more.
They both sound great, but I’ll keep with Audirvana since I think it sounds a bit more pleasing to my ears and it’s easier to navigate the HiRes files on my hard drive. The Node app is, unsurprisingly, much better than the Audirvana remote app, and it looks nicer on my rack than an old laptop, but I don’t mind stepping to the laptop and using the keyboard to play things.
Hope this helps. Obviously all these differences are very system dependent. At the very least it puts an end to the myth that a dedicated streamer is always better than a laptop playback.
-Michael
