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Bluesound Node 2i upgrades

I have been running an AURALIC Aries Mini for for sometime now. Added a MCRU last year which brought an improvement to SQ. The internal DAC of the Mini is really quite good.

Well yesterday a Chord Qutest arrived (a bit of an upgrade I will admit) and it is brilliant! The improvement in decay/attack, blackness, space etc is just incredible. Negates the need for the MCRU LPS but I’ll keep it there anyway. Waiting on some leads to connect the Meridian 206DS and the Chromecast Audio.

External DAC is the way to go if you want the biggest improvement IMHO.
 
I have been running an AURALIC Aries Mini for for sometime now. Added a MCRU last year which brought an improvement to SQ. The internal DAC of the Mini is really quite good.

Well yesterday a Chord Qutest arrived (a bit of an upgrade I will admit) and it is brilliant! The improvement in decay/attack, blackness, space etc is just incredible. Negates the need for the MCRU LPS but I’ll keep it there anyway. Waiting on some leads to connect the Meridian 206DS and the Chromecast Audio.

External DAC is the way to go if you want the biggest improvement IMHO.
I'm still not sure why Auralic dropped the mini. It was an accessible way into the brand line up.

I chose not to go with Auralic because of their lack of support for Android. That also seemed a strange decision to limit their market.
 
So was I. I think it is $600 ish (not sure what import charges are now though). I took the "module" to be the replacement board, then you are putting 5V of whatever you want in. TP is all in one, no changing the supply or experimenting like you can with the other two variants.
That is inaccurate, to say the least. We are offering a complete kit, including an internal module and an external power supply, at less than the figure mentioned here, including express shipping...
 
That is inaccurate, to say the least. We are offering a complete kit, including an internal module and an external power supply, at less than the figure mentioned here, including express shipping...

My point was that you have to buy a PS as well as the module, you can't just buy the module like you can elsewhere. $585 will probably come to more that $600 with VAT, import duties, and admin charges UK?

So yeah, inaccurate, you can experiment with other PSs but you have to buy one of yours first though. Also probably quite a lot more than $600 after charges etc. Soz.
 
All I can say is the interface upgrade really is a no brainer. I've had my Node2 since August 2016, and used it in standard guise until September 20 at which point I bought the Polish interface (£80) and a Chinese 5v LPS (£40) and this gave a good vfm uplift in SQ.
A few weeks later I picked up a used Longdog Audio/MCRU 5v LPS (£120) and again things were better, I then scored an SBooster BOTW (£200) and sold the LDA, the SBooster improved things even more.
Also around the time I got the SBooster I also managed to grab a DAC I'd been after for ages, a Jolida glass fx dac (mk1) which I promptly sent of to Opendoor (member on the Wam) for pimping. Plugged it in when came back (via Canare 61S coax with Canare plugs) and DAMN!! the Node2 was really singing now.
I've since swapped the JJ ECC83s out for a pair of 70s Telefunken 83s, these were the final, part of the puzzle, SQ now is pretty close to that of my Lector CDP7TL, I reckon I'd need to spend £1500+ to match the Node & Jolida combo let alone beat it.
 


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