Streamers and software
It's been a battle. I have had a Bluesound Node 2i for 5 yrs. I upgraded the power supply. There is nothing wrong with function or sound. I switched to Qobuz a few months ago. I transferred my songs from amazon to Qobuz. Qobuz works great when using the Bluetooth function. When I want to play Qobuz thru BluOS, I am missing several thousand songs, called Favorites. Loading and searching times are not usable.
Finally after 2 months BLUOS says they have no solution. QOBUZ is working on a direct connect app to the streamer, but no release date.
So, reluctantly, I started looking at a streamer. I find several other streamers but have buggy software.
So, from what I see the Innuous pulsar mini has good software I would like to spend as little as I can but it looks like $1-$2k? It would be nice to have a linear power supply. Thanks for any suggestions are welcome.
Here is some I looked at.
Holo Audio Red, Ever solo, Innuous, Volumio
Thanks all. Lots of suggestions. I am pretty sure the Qobuz sound was noticeably better. I am always wringing more out of my system. I could have done something else at the same time. But I will try Amazon again. We are generally in agreement on brands. An Aurender N10 was 1300. I have time. I have workarounds. At least my system sounds great! But I hate it when I can't fix things. Old maintenance mindset. |
What akg_ca said re the Moon 280D, except that you seem not to need a DAC so Moon MiND2. |
I would stick with Qobuz, personally. The best sound of all the current streaming services, IMO. If you're using the Bluetooth connection to the Node, why not correct directly to the Topping, as someone else suggested? Otherwise, for an ethernet/wifi streamer, the Inuous looks like a good bet, with the most reliable software. I have not used one myself. Another option is a Mac Mini running Audirvana, which I love. Audirvana connects easily to Qobuz and has a good remote app. For $600, the Mac Mini gives you a ton of flexibility in terms of playback software and connectivity. Combine it with a Pi2AES Mercury V3 streamer for $500 and you've got a first-rate digital system. ;-) But in terms of simplicity, biting the bullet for an Innuos seems sensible. |
Hopefully whenever they roll out a "QOBUZ CONNECT" for streamers, most of your problems will go away. That's one reason I started with Spotify then switched to Tidal when it became apparent that Spotify had lied and were NOT going to offer lossless. I'm glad Tidal has now dispensed with the useless lossy MQA mumbo-jumbo and just provides good old FLACs. Having a "connect" app just makes life easier, being able to hand off the URL of the stream directly to your streamer. Good luck. |
