This is a review and detailed measurements of the Bluesound Powernode Edge streaming DAC and amplifier review. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $649.
The unit has lots the elegant look of the regular Bluesound Powernode which I just reviewed. Yes it is still white but I am not a fan of the angles and such. Anyway, it doesn't take away from the functionality of the device which like its larger brother, includes such things as HDMI ARC audio support and dolby digital decoding:
I was again happy to see the device easily discovered by their app and controlled.
One thing I don't like is that the volume adjustment shows no values. Just a horizontal bar with no indicators. The small control bar for that also made it easy to accidently set the volume to very high levels. Here are the company specs:
Bluesound Powernode Edge Amplifier Review
I started with using analog input with volume adjusted for a gain of near 29 dB:
That is inline more or less with the regular Powernode measurements. As with that testing, I also tried Toslink input keeping the volume in the same spot:
We get much lower noise but distortion goes way up. Suspecting some overload condition, I set the input level to max and lowered the gain to get the same 5 watt output. Performance sharply improved:
This catapults the Edge to near top of our competent category for amplifiers:
This whole gain situation with amplifiers is such a mess.
From here on, I will stay with digital input and above setting.
EDIT: here is the same measurement but streaming from Roon player:
And SNR using Toslink:
Frequency response was very flat and nice with no load dependency:
Crosstalk was excellent as well:
There is some strangeness in noise floor though:
Maybe it is noise shaping but it is very extreme as it starts to do this as just 15 kHz.
Let's see how much power we get:
The high ultrasonic noise makes my wideband tests of power vs frequency look very inflated:
The Edge is stable on power up:
Conclusions
The Edge seems to be a more performent implementation than regular Powernode with lower price -- both of which is to my liking. There is some oddities with respect to noise floor and rising noise at higher frequencies. It could be a combination of both DAC and amplifier doing this. While you can assemble streamers with much higher performance and/or lower cost, it would be difficult to get features like HDMI ARC and Dolby Digital decoding.
I am going to recommend the Bluesound Powernode Edge streamer amplifier.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome. Click here if you have some audio gear you want me to test.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The unit has lots the elegant look of the regular Bluesound Powernode which I just reviewed. Yes it is still white but I am not a fan of the angles and such. Anyway, it doesn't take away from the functionality of the device which like its larger brother, includes such things as HDMI ARC audio support and dolby digital decoding:
I was again happy to see the device easily discovered by their app and controlled.
One thing I don't like is that the volume adjustment shows no values. Just a horizontal bar with no indicators. The small control bar for that also made it easy to accidently set the volume to very high levels. Here are the company specs:
Bluesound Powernode Edge Amplifier Review
I started with using analog input with volume adjusted for a gain of near 29 dB:
That is inline more or less with the regular Powernode measurements. As with that testing, I also tried Toslink input keeping the volume in the same spot:
We get much lower noise but distortion goes way up. Suspecting some overload condition, I set the input level to max and lowered the gain to get the same 5 watt output. Performance sharply improved:
This catapults the Edge to near top of our competent category for amplifiers:
This whole gain situation with amplifiers is such a mess.
From here on, I will stay with digital input and above setting.EDIT: here is the same measurement but streaming from Roon player:
And SNR using Toslink:
Frequency response was very flat and nice with no load dependency:
Crosstalk was excellent as well:
There is some strangeness in noise floor though:
Maybe it is noise shaping but it is very extreme as it starts to do this as just 15 kHz.
Let's see how much power we get:
The high ultrasonic noise makes my wideband tests of power vs frequency look very inflated:
The Edge is stable on power up:
Conclusions
The Edge seems to be a more performent implementation than regular Powernode with lower price -- both of which is to my liking. There is some oddities with respect to noise floor and rising noise at higher frequencies. It could be a combination of both DAC and amplifier doing this. While you can assemble streamers with much higher performance and/or lower cost, it would be difficult to get features like HDMI ARC and Dolby Digital decoding.
I am going to recommend the Bluesound Powernode Edge streamer amplifier.
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome. Click here if you have some audio gear you want me to test.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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