What’s a good method of listening to jazz on Bluesound? I wish that Radio Paradise had a channel.
New streamer? N150 vs U2
So many people have asked this question and I’ve read all the threads. Has anyone actually directly compared the Aurender N150 to the Lumin U2 (or U1)?
‘’I’m having a difficult time with an upgrade because I modified my BlueSound Node 2i, added a linear power supply and a new digital coaxial cable (Nordost Silver Shadow). The results have been outstanding. So why upgrade? Well, that is the big question. Can a new streamer add that much more?
I would like full MQA if possible and upscaling to DSD. My DAC does do MQA so I’m limited to the first unfold from the Node 2i.
‘Advice?
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I’ve got both Node 2i and Lumin U1 Mini. These are (or were) both feeding a Sonic Frontiers SFD-2 MK3. Despite its age this is a truly a super-DAC even now, extremely hard to improve on. The very few who have heard will agree (I say this to try and short circuit the usual "old digital can’t compete" arguements from posters who haven’t ever heard it). Anyway, that feeds an extremely revealing, high resolution system. I have no use for MDA so that isn't at play here. My conclusion: Sonically, the Lumin clearly beats the Node 2i. But the Lumin UI is just a bad joke, so much so that I’ll sometimes use the 2i for that reason. I’m on Android, maybe Apple works better. BlueOS seems to work great on all devices. |
@rockrider thank you for that link! @leorousseau best way for decent higher resolution jazz on BlueSound is to program in a custom URL on TuneIn custom stations using JazzRadio Premium. That way you can get 320k mp3 streams. I use these streams for music discovery and there’s a direct link in BluOS from TuneIn to the album or artist on Qobuz and Tidal.
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Decision made. I pulled the wallet-trigger on an Aurender N150. I’ll investigate DACs and decide whether to upgrade that after I evaluate the N150 on the Chord Qutest DAC. @marco1 did you find that a specific USB output on the N150 sounds best? Any other advice is also appreciated! |
@txp1. Congrats I think you'll be very happy. The 150 is at my vacation house so I'm doing this from memory but you'll use the vertical USB port. The other USB ports are for data (outside drives, etc.) My initial suggestion after the unit breaks in, which you can use a printer cable for, would be to use a good USB cable. I tried 3 different cables but ended up with the Cardas high speed cable. Whatever you try, give the cable ample time to break in as you will hear subtle changes for the first 100 hrs or so. Differences in the cables will also be subtle. I happened to like the Cardas as it seemed to smooth things out a little more than the others particularly with the Qutest, without loosing any of the detail. |
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