Bluesound 2i coaxial output sound quality

@curiousjim , That's a very good question. Sorry, I haven't heard a $1000 streamer in my system so I can't answer it. I broke into streaming at entry level with the Node 2i and then the newest Node. I do like the OS and especially the remote. It has finer volume adjustment than my pre, allows me to surf preset radio stations, mute, pause, skip and can switch me from Spotify to radio. I have $1700 invested in an MHDT Orchid, new Node Sbooster power supply and power board upgrade. For $2200 including Node I think I would get a different flavor of sound and different OS in a streaming dac. Maybe someone who has done the upgrades and moved on can comment. Certainly the upgrades seriously shame the stock Node as a streamer.

@geof3

I prefer Volumio custom ala miniDSP and Pro-Ject OR piCorePlayer/LMS (open sourced). Anything with a switchable persistent queue.

In my experience people who like BluOS never tried anything else. Of course the cannot on a BlueSound, it is locked up like Hannibal Lecter.

From my experience a DAC does matter w/ the Bluesound Node 2i.  I had one and it was decent.  Used the coax and fed that into my McIntosh C47 and there was a major upgrade in SQ.  Likewise when I got a Simaudio 280d DAC, it sounded much better through the Simaudio then on it's own.  But the streamer isn't the best quality.  Its good, but not great and a $1000 streamer/DAC sounds better then the Bluesound through a $3000 DAC.  But at least Bluesound app is polished...  

I’ve been into high end digital since tha advent of the CD while maintaining a high end analog rig. I have tried many combinations of streamers an DACs while upgrading my main system, office and creating a headphone system. See my User ID for a couple of my systems.

A streamer is every bit as important as the DAC as is the preamp etc. In a well balanced synergistic system they all must be of equivalent and equal sound quality. Finding this combination for your system is hard… hype, different opinions, different sound quality character among all the components.

But at this point in time, in general, if you find best in class, the place to start is assuming the cost of each piece should be about the same… Streamer, DAC, preamp, amp, speakers (these will be more).

 

So on my systems the best matches I got on my different components are the following (all are mature complete end point systems):

Main: Streamer $22K, DAC $17K, Preamp $17K, amp $22K

Headphone: Streamer $4K, DAC $4K, Headphone amp $5K

I have had dozens of combinations and spent decades building these… working my way up. The formula has changed as streamers, DACs and other components have gotten better.

So, don’t believe anyone that says the streamer isn’t important… either they are playing with sub $1000 systems, or just haven’t had wide enough exposure. Probably well intended, but without lots of exposure at many levels, it is easy for your head to tell you, “it’s just bits, it can’t matter”… and believe it. I thought that once.