This is a review and detailed measurements of the Bluesound Powernode wifi and ethernet streaming amplifier with digital input. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $949.
The design is apple-like and gorgeous as usual. Alas, I miss some kind of informative display on what it is doing instead of using the app. The blinking colored LED gets kind of old.
The core of the unit is a hypex UcD class D amplifier module. Here is the back panel:
There is a subwoofer output with programmable crossover frequencies (for both mains and this output). Whether it was pilot error or not, I could not get proper output from the sub out even after I enabled it. Notice the dual combo Toslink and line in.
The control app on my Samsung S23 Ultra was much easier and reliable to use than competing products from Sonos. I like the way it detected that I had Toslink input so would not show me the same analog input to select.
Bluesound Powernode Amplifier Measurements
Let's start with analog input after setting the gain close to 29 dB:
Wish we had lower distortion and noise as this is below average performance (see below). Let's switch to Toslink digital input using the same volume control settings:
Distortion is the same but noise floor is lower allowing SINAD to improve a bit. Still, we land below the competent class:
You can see the impact on noise when we measure that directly:
But again, even with digital input we still have sub-par performance. My target for 5 watts is 96 dB and we are way, way away from that. Even at max power we don't get there:
On the positive front, we have no load dependency and wide bandwidth in this class D amplifier:
Crosstalk is again better with digital vs analog:
Multitone and 19+20 kHz show the modest levels of distortion:
Company only specifies power at 8 ohm and it basically gets there:
Unusually so for an amplifier, it doesn't produce more power at 4 ohm:
There was some oddity when testing 5 kHz where distortion jumped up to same level as 15 kHz:
I could not figure out how to turn the unit on and off so no pop tests for that. The amplifier was stable on power up:
Conclusions
The general message is "good enough" measured performance. Alas, nearly $1,000 is above the point where this kind of performance would be acceptable. Yes you get an elegant package from a well-known company but let's have good objective measurements go with that.
I can't recommend the Bluesound Powernode streaming 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 design is apple-like and gorgeous as usual. Alas, I miss some kind of informative display on what it is doing instead of using the app. The blinking colored LED gets kind of old.
The core of the unit is a hypex UcD class D amplifier module. Here is the back panel:
There is a subwoofer output with programmable crossover frequencies (for both mains and this output). Whether it was pilot error or not, I could not get proper output from the sub out even after I enabled it. Notice the dual combo Toslink and line in.
The control app on my Samsung S23 Ultra was much easier and reliable to use than competing products from Sonos. I like the way it detected that I had Toslink input so would not show me the same analog input to select.
Bluesound Powernode Amplifier Measurements
Let's start with analog input after setting the gain close to 29 dB:
Wish we had lower distortion and noise as this is below average performance (see below). Let's switch to Toslink digital input using the same volume control settings:
Distortion is the same but noise floor is lower allowing SINAD to improve a bit. Still, we land below the competent class:
You can see the impact on noise when we measure that directly:
But again, even with digital input we still have sub-par performance. My target for 5 watts is 96 dB and we are way, way away from that. Even at max power we don't get there:
On the positive front, we have no load dependency and wide bandwidth in this class D amplifier:
Crosstalk is again better with digital vs analog:
Multitone and 19+20 kHz show the modest levels of distortion:
Company only specifies power at 8 ohm and it basically gets there:
Unusually so for an amplifier, it doesn't produce more power at 4 ohm:
There was some oddity when testing 5 kHz where distortion jumped up to same level as 15 kHz:
I could not figure out how to turn the unit on and off so no pop tests for that. The amplifier was stable on power up:
Conclusions
The general message is "good enough" measured performance. Alas, nearly $1,000 is above the point where this kind of performance would be acceptable. Yes you get an elegant package from a well-known company but let's have good objective measurements go with that.
I can't recommend the Bluesound Powernode streaming 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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