do you have a link to Alvin's original post
It was an Email question I had sent to Alvin.
I just ordered A Musician Pegasus made in the same factory
as Denafrips [a long story] close model wise to the Pontus II.
Might be awhile getting here.
Bluesound Node (2021) PS upgrade to Teddy Pardo; is it worth it?
@totem395 ah I see. Enjoy the Pegasus, let us know your thoughts when it arrives 👍 |
@painter24 Similar to you, I have a Denafrips Pontus II DAC but with a Denafrips Hermes reclocker upstream, and I'm trying out a Bluesound Node 2021. Doing a streaming music sound quality comparison using high res songs on Qobuz via my laptop vs the Node, the better sound quality is coming from my laptop. This is using the Denafrips Windows drivers and a cheap, generic USB cable into the Hermes vs coax digital out from the Node. There's some infrequent pops and distortions on the USB connection when doing other operations on the laptop, but I like the USB sound more. The USB sound is more natural, present, and full. The Node has more of a sterile and constricted sound to my ear with thinner mids and bass. No modifications to the stock PSU or power cable were made to my Node. I'll either stick with USB or look for a different streamer with a better power supply. |
@painter24 A few more things of note regarding my testing. The laptop was drawing power from the battery, the coax cable from the Node is an Audioquest Forest (cheapest of their current digital coax line), and the USB board hardware in the Hermes is Denafrips in-house proprietary for optimizing the signal clean-up. So the better USB sound I'm hearing could be primarily due to linear power from the Laptop battery plus the Hermes' USB design being exceptional. I don't think the Audioquest coax cable is what would be holding back the Node sound. |