2. digital
  3. 129665-3592

Going from computer audio to dedicated streamer

A few days ago I purchased a Bluesound Node 2. Immediately after hooking it up I noticed a more relaxed less digital sound than I was getting from my Mac mini into my Wyred 4 Sound Dac-2. My hookup for the Mac was via a good usb cable into a Musical Fidelity Vlink192 coax into the Wyred 4 Sound. It is every bit as detailed as streaming Tidal through the Mac but is more "musical" and relaxed. An example would be on high dynamic contrasts the Mac could sound harsh and a little piercing in the highs. This was with every speaker I have owned. Not that it sounded bad overall, actually sounded quite good but I am loving this upgrade so far. No more messing with Amarra or Audirvana for me and dealing with the associated crashes etc.   
I am curious of others experiences good or bad moving away from computer audio to something else.
Also is anyone running an external hard drive with their music collection and running though the Bluesound or similar device and how is that working out?   
mofojo
mahler123
3,373 posts
 
I also struggled with computer audio and all of it's associated issues.  I won't recite the whole litany of problems that I had but I went the Bluesound whole home route 2 years ago and have been much happier.  The latest update to the OS makes it easier still to play the music on my Mac which is nice because I had disposed of several CDs that I ripped before the switch to Bluesound.
  I still use my CDP as I just haven't had time to rip most of my collection.  I don't notice any profound difference between the Bluesound or the Oppo 105 as a source into my DAC.
  I struggle with IT issues at work and when I want to relax at home the last thing I want is a computer issue while listening to music.  A dedicated player/server or whatever these things are called makes so much more sense and the Bluesound stuff is imo reasonably priced
kclone's avatar
kclone
684 posts
 
how can a streamer affect sound quality?  I thought the purpose of a streamer is functionality and features/options for the user and also to deliver a bit-perfect digital stream to a DAC?  We all hate digital glare, brightness, hardness etc.. so a getting a DAC that lessons that would be paramount.  Of course something like the Bluesound has it's own internal DAC and in that case the yes that type of device would affect sound quality.   
mofojo OP
2,304 posts
 
kclone,
i could be wrong but I think the differences between streamers only outputing the digital signal to an external DAC would be the amount of jitter they produce. 
2psyop's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
2psyop
1,611 posts
 
I am using a Western Digital MyCloud 3TB HDD which contains some 14K songs ripped with Itunes from my own CDs. I have a Western Digital Passport HDD as a backup. The Bluesound Node 2 finds the MyCloud database just fine. This setup works much better than I thought it would, but it took some time to tweak.

I have a Schiit Bifrost Uber as an external DAC for the Node 2. I might try the internal Node 2 DAC for comparison to the Bifrost Uber. As it stands now, it sounds great with AIFF files.
rotarius
431 posts
 
RPi dacs are getting very good these days.  I use RPi with Hifiberry Digi+ as a media player connected to my MF V90 dac.  Software is the latest Moode player release.  It just beats everything I have tried so far, Node 2, Sony UHP-H1 and a bunch of USB dacs connected to my laptop.  Highly recommend Moode.  
More to discover