Products you added to your system in 2021 that made most impact to your music enjoyment

I’m a frugal ex-audiophile, now music lover (not mutually exclusive). This year I replaced my very serviceable Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB with a lowly Pioneer PLX1000 direct drive TT. I went from an Ortofon 2M Blue to a much less expensive DJ cartridge - Ortofon Concorde mkII MIX - that came on the Pioneer when I bought it. The difference in the presentation is amazing. The Pioneer has so much more drive. It might lack just a bit of air vs. the 2M Blue, but I prefer the Concorde.

Next "upgrade" is the cartridge. If the $99 Concorde DJ cartridge is this good, can’t wait to hear what a higher quality "audiophile" cartridge can do on this table. But I’ll keep the Concorde for records of questionable condition.

Thanks @reubent —glad you enjoyed it.

in regard to the Blusound Node—I haven’t lived (tinkered) with it long enough to make any sort of honest, evaluative conclusion.  However, I am a bit ambivalent about it, but that may be on me for buying $600 box hoping it would fill-in all of my perceived gaps.

The pros—it’s easy enough for everyone in the house to use.  It presents with more  power and body than my iPad.  The included HD radio stations are pretty great!

The jury is out, however, in regards to playback.  (Confession #2–I am fairly certain Vinyl is my preferred source material (inner-ring distortion not withstanding))

At the moment, I am streaming Amazon HD and the buffering is untenable for me.  This is my biggest issue.  I don’t think I’ll be able to make a helpful comment on playback fidelity or musicality until this is sorted.  I’m not ready to lay this issue at the foot of the Node, Amazon HD, or some aspect of my internet connection.  But, I’ve never had the issue of buffering whilst streaming in the past.

it’s a smidgen annoying that Apple Music HD isn’t supported (as that is the preferred service for my family members).  I may re-up with Tidal and see how that runs, so watch this space.

@reubent do keep us abreast of your phono journey.

Any constructive help on optimizing my node is appreciated.

DirGordonCole

Symposium shelves and footers were a great bang-for-buck addition but the Hegel H390 that I acquired a couple weeks ago has. without exaggeration, lifted my system to another level. 

It has mostly been about different phono preamps. One is still on the way (I started this about 1 year ago).

@dirgordoncole  - Hi Gordon. I hope you get your connectivity issues resolved with the Node. Lots of people love it. However, I've also read many accounts of people having networking issues via wifi. They typically say connecting via ethernet resolves the issue. Don't know if that is possible for you, even as a test. If it works, but you don't have the ability to connect via ethernet in your preferred location for the node, perhaps you can install a mesh network and connect the Node via ethernet to one of the mesh's nodes.

BTW, I'm streaming via a Raspberry Pi3 based DIY streamer and it works great. It's really inexpensive. If you get frustrated with the node, and want to investigate a mesh network, or a change of streamers to a DIY Raspberry Pi based unit, just let me know. Would be happy to discuss...