Bluesound Node Icon (Quick User Measurements)

[pogo]

Minimum 50ms. This is the BluOS specification, which unfortunately cannot be circumvented. I therefore had to delay my rear speakers by an additional 50ms.

 

[pogo]

Actually even if you use room correction Dirac or otherwise, you want normal tone controls for quick corrections of the played material

That was never the case for me. In the beginning I had programmed various target curves for this purpose, but I no longer use even these. I now have one Harman-like correction in constant use.

 

[Rja4000]

I now have one Harman-like correction in constant use.

Are you always listening at the same level ?

 

[pogo]

No.

 

[GXAlan]

Bass -0.5 dB Only
1 kHz SINAD
115.4 dB (Digital) | 74.2 dB (Analog)

Bass -0.5 dB + Dirac
1 kHz SINAD
111.7 dB (Digital) | 72.3 dB (Analog)

Just to test a few other scenarios with analog XLR

Bass -6 dB (76.2 dB)
Treble -0.5 dB (78.2 dB)
Bass and Treble +6 dB (73.9 dB)

 

[Mnyb]

That was never the case for me. In the beginning I had programmed various target curves for this purpose, but I no longer use even these. I now have one Harman-like correction in constant use.

I have my system dialed in quite well , so in practice i may turn the treble up/down some fraction of dB depending. In very rare cases i turn the bass shelf up or down .

 

[Rottmannash]

Same. Never use tone controls. Either passthru or DL.

 

[GXAlan]

The only way we can avoid the problem with the tone controls is if we can use Dirac as the tone curve.

I’d really like to figure out a way to create a Dirac project with a flat digital curve but I cannot do it. Dirac expects a mono microphone but I cannot trick the Node Icon to output SPDIF in mono. So, when Dirac is trying to measure the volume of the right channel, it sees nothing. Only someone like @Flak with direct access to Dirac engineering could generate a project file which has the "recording" of a mathematically flat response.

 

[pogo]

Try this: Link

 

[GXAlan]

Ok, I've done my fair share of end user measurements. Now the unit goes back to its actual intended use. Any other tests can wait for Amir's official measurement

Try this: Link

I guess using analog works fine. The E1DA should allow me to merge the inputs too, without needing a Y-cable.

 

[jeroen020]

Minimum 50ms. This is the BluOS specification, which unfortunately cannot be circumvented. I therefore had to delay my rear speakers by an additional 50ms.

Really? That disqualifies it for me. Even my Sonos Playbar could do 30ms 10 years ago via optical in, and could still stream to the sub and surrounds bonded to it. If Bluesound could add a local only (non-multiroom) mode to the Node with 10-20ms delay or so that makes it a lot more attractive for time critical use cases like gaming, DJ-ing and studio use.

 

[pogo]

+1

 

[pogo]

I guess using analog works fine. The E1DA should allow me to merge the inputs too, without needing a Y-cable.

You could also try loading my project: Link
However, I suspect that it won't work because of the different devices.

 

[GXAlan]

Really? That disqualifies it for me. Even my Sonos Playbar could do 30ms 10 years ago via optical in, and could still stream to the sub and surrounds bonded to it. If Bluesound could add a local only (non-multiroom) mode to the Node with 10-20ms delay or so that makes it a lot more attractive for time critical use cases like gaming, DJ-ing and studio use.

I don’t have a good way to test this, but there was the option for AV mode On and Off, with the AV Mode On having the minimum 50ms delay. Not sure if the AV mode off is meaningfully faster.

I would recommend trying it from a place like Crutchfield which has true in-home trials.

 

[pogo]

A/V mode on: 50...150ms
A/V mode off: 250ms

 

[rdytro]

Tbh most it is much better than expected, but if you intend to use tone controls, then that seems to be a major dealbreaker.

 

[GXAlan]

So ultimately, it’s a tough decision.

The Node Icon is way more expensive than the Fosi ZD3 with a Bluesound Nano or Node N132 (2024). That would give you the Bluesound ecosystem with higher performance XLR analog output and Dirac. Bluesound’s software seems better than MiniDSP for example.

The WiiM Ultra seems to have superior PEQ which doesn’t impact SINAD, although enabling tone controls and applying tone controls are two different penalties with the Bluesound. It’s weird that we see this kind of penalty when applying tone controls. The WiiM Ultra has better measured RCA performance too.

The Node Icon has the cleanest direct output and the power of Dirac, but you definitely are paying a premium.

The performance penalty with tone controls doesn’t make much sense to me, but there really isn’t a true penalty with Dirac.

You can see that the noise is the same, you have the invariable headroom issue that is a part of Dirac itself. It’s not transparent for a 1 kHz SINAD since you’re not supposed to be transparent… when you introduce the bass room correction, you may be introducing phase shifts and the FIR filters to correct the bass can introduce pre and post ringing which shows up in a test.

Still, having measurements like these might encourage Bluesound to rewrite their software to improve the tone controls. In theory, if you turn on tone controls and it is flat, I would have expected there to be zero penalty. If I add +1 dB bass, I would have expected a 1 dBFS limitation and if I add +6 dB bass, to see a 6 dBFS headroom loss. Of course, if you are asking for -0.5 dB, there’s no reason to compromise the maximum signal output.

All I really want is a HDMI ARC DAC with low noise, XLR output, and reliable CEC with a 12V trigger *and* a small footprint. Surprisingly, the Node Icon is probably the only product that fits that criteria. From that perspective, it’s a major price premium to pay…

 

[pogo]

The Node Icon is way more expensive than the Fosi ZD3 with a Bluesound Nano or Node N132 (2024). That would give you the Bluesound ecosystem with higher performance XLR analog output and Dirac.

The Nano does not have Dirac Live, but N130 and N131 will get it.

 

[pogo]

Btw. you can get back the unused DL headroom by including an offset in the target curve.

 

[mr_bill]

@GXAlan or others. To help me understand if I’m reading this all correctly as I’m thinking of buying an Icon to use with my integrated amp (icon as streamer/dac).

If I’m not using Dirac or tone controls and use this as a streamer/dac.

XLR output- really really good high SINAD scores
RCA output - not good SINAD ~20db worse


Also,
My integrated has only rca in - if I use Node Icon xlr out to rca in on my integrated (integrated doesn’t have xlr inputs) do I benefit from the xlr way higher SINAD score?

@GXAlan - thanks for all your work!