Ok, I received my Bluesound NODE today and gave it a whirl tonight.
First of all: Glory Be! It. Just. Works!
With the exception that I discovered it won't recognize my external music library usb drive because it's formatted for MAC. (The Raspberry Pi/Logitech had no problem). Apparently I'll just have to format a drive to MS-DOS (FAT) and transfer my library to that drive. So no playing from my ripped CD library tonight (I have to buy another drive).
That aside: I couldn't believe how easy it was to set up. Basically plug and play and I was off listening to Tidal and the internet radio stations that went missing from my Logitech/Raspberry Pi server for so long. (Still a mystery).
So I'm really, really happy out of the gate.
Except.... The sound.
I'm not sure exactly what is going on. I've run the optical out of the Bluesound NODE in to my Benchmark DAC2L. I chose the "output level fixed" setting for the Bluesound. So should be good to go.
On the BlueOS controller app I opened up TuneIn Radio, my preferred internet radio source. I played two of my favorite radio stations and when the sound came on it almost seemed like the speakers were wired out of phase. That is, the sound seemed more wispy and vague than I'm used to. Didn't have the solidity and punch. I thought at first maybe I was just too used to having listened to my vinyl front end and the change was screwing with my head. But track after track from the internet radio station just seemed different, not as great as I remembered.
Then I just wanted to test airplay from my phone, so I opened the TuneIn Radio app on my phone, played the same streams and sent them Airplay to the Bluesound. Then...whoa! There it was! More like the sound I was used to. It sounded more solid, present, punchy. WTF? I double checked that I'd chosen the same streams on both the iphone TuneIn app and via the Bluesound app. Yup. So I started switching back and forth between the streams sent via airplay and the streams from the BlueOS app (volume being fixed on both), and there seemed a distinct difference of the type I've just described.
Some announcers voice, for instance, centered between the speakers sounded insubstantial and "see through" but boom, sounded dense and solid and more present from the airplay stream from my phone.
Now, this isn't making sense to me - I'd expect the Bluesound is sending exactly the same bitstream to my DAC as my Raspberry Pi. So I would like to think it's my imagination. But frankly, while subtle, this "difference" seems so distinct (and density of sound is something I always key in on), that it's hard to shake the impression.
Can anyone explain IF there could be a sonic difference and what could be going on?
Tomorrow I'll be able to try my music library via USB I hope.
