What makes an icon? I pondered this question as I awaited delivery of my next product review sample – the ‘NODE ICON’, a flagship wireless music streamer designed by Bluesound for, in the company’s own words, “the audio obsessed”. My mind initially went to Hollywood and icons such as Clint Eastwood, Brad Pitt and Charlize Theron came to mind, but I decided to ask ChatGPT, and the answer was revealed… Whether it’s a person, a symbol, or a brand, an exemplar becomes iconic when it’s instantly recognisable, emotionally resonant, and timeless. Would the Bluesound NODE ICON fulfill this definition? We'll see.
A Multi-Faceted Icon
Given the sleek full aluminium chassis, smooth curves, and the vibrant 5 inch full-colour display, I’m leaning towards the Charlize Theron type of icon here. Yeah, NODE ICON is a looker. Here’s a big call: Bluesound states in its website that the new NODE ICON sets a new benchmark for wireless music streamers. There’s no denying that it does possess an powerful arsenal of features.
NODE ICON seamlessly connects to any amplifier, powered speakers, or headphones, and provides BluOS hi-res streaming to offer a multi-room music system throughout your entire home. With dual-band Wi-Fi for dropout-free listening, you can play your new favourite tracks everywhere or listen to different music and genres in different rooms with total control from your phone, tablet, or desktop. It also sports HDMI eARC (great for connection to TVs and allowing the TV remote to control the system volume), Dolby Digital, and Dirac Live room calibration technology to ensure an ‘immersive’ audio experience for music and TV. Wow!
Bluesound, is an ‘alliance of audiophiles’ who say they are dedicated to delivering on the promise of wireless, digitally perfect high-fidelity audio. The business is owned by the Lenbrook Group, a Canadian company that also owns NAD and PSB Speakers. The group’s products now share some common features most notably the BluOS streaming platform and Dirac room calibration technologies. The Bluesound ecosystem uses your home wireless network not just to stream music, but also to communicate with other BluOS-enabled players on your network. You can connect up to 64 players and, through the BluOS Controller App on your smart device, you can play your music in perfect sync, or play different music simultaneously. Cool.
As stated above, the NODE ICON boasts an impressive set of features. Firstly, it’s equipped with two of the latest ESS Technology Sabre ES9039Q2M DACs in a Dual-Mono design that Bluesound says delivers sound with unparalleled dynamic range, ultra-low distortion, and exceptional resolution. It employs MQA Labs' groundbreaking QRONO d2a technology to further refine DAC performance by correcting timing errors during digital-to-analogue conversion, ensuring the timing response aligns perfectly with the original recording for an authentic listening experience.
Then we have the THX AAA headphone amplifier technology with two 6.5 mm jacks for “cable management”. It offers balanced XLR outputs, HDMI eARC, optical, analogue and USB-C inputs, RCA, S/PDIF coax, Toslink optical, USB outputs, Apple AirPlay 2 and aptX Adaptive Bluetooth. NODE ICON is also Dirac Live Ready which means it’s set to intelligently deal with bad room acoustics. Dirac Live is available as an upgrade which allows you to measure your room acoustics (with a high sensitivity microphone available as an additional purchase) with the aim to minimise standing waves, reverberations, and other unwanted distortions.
NODE ICON also boasts impressive specifications, with support for DSD256, 16-bit to 24-bit bit-depths and native sampling rates of up to 192 kHz. There’s audio file format support for AAC, WMA, WMA-L, OGG, ALAC, OPUS and MP3 as well as high-quality audio file formats such as FLAC, MQA, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, MPEG-4 SLS. All this with Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of up to 129dB (XLR) and 121dB (RCA) with Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) at 0.0004%.
The headphone stage has continuous output of 150mW (at 16 ohms), 235mW (at 32 ohms), 56mW (at 250 ohms), and 23mW (at 600 ohms) with no more than 0.1% THD. It’s also multi-voltage compatible, allowing it to be used on any planet where the voltage is between 100 and 240 AC and (depending on the local force of gravity) weighs in at 2.23 kg. All this in an elegant package with dimensions of 220 mm (W) x 84 mm (H) x 193 mm (D). Nice.
World’s Best Headphone Amplifier Technology?
Bluesound says that lifelike headphone listening is made possible by THX’s AAA technology, which boasts the world's most linear response. Its patented feed-forward error correction apparently results in remarkably low noise and distortion, to reveal what Bluesound believes to be exceptional soundstage and clarity. I love that it comes with two headphone jacks, avoiding the need for an additional adapter or connecting cables if you want to share your listening experience with a friend or partner.
Bluesound offers a range of similar and complimentary products (which you can read about on the company website) which include the NODE and the NODE NANO streamers, the POWERNODE and POWERNODE Edge amplifiers, the VAULT 2i for ripping and storage, and the HUB for converting wired into wireless. Bluesound also makes several speakers as part of their PULSE range.
Down to Business
I connected the NODE ICON to my trusty Perreaux e250i Anniversary Edition amplifier (via unbalanced outputs) which drives the Sonus faber Toy Tower speakers. With such a compact footprint and while in standby mode on the shelf it could easily be mistaken for a digital clock. The NODE ICON features a proximity sensor which causes the controls on the top to light up as it senses your approach. Nice touch.
Next, I set up my Dirac account and performed a multi-point calibration, the output of which can be seen below. The calibration needs to be done on a laptop rather than on the smartphone app. I created a few different filters which I experimented with via the BluOS app during playback. One of the great things about the Dirac system is the simplicity – you don’t have to free up an afternoon or an evening to perform the calibration – it can be done in under an hour.
On Jeff Beck’s Wired album the track “Come Dancing” had more oomph in the bass than I expected from my Toy Towers, the rim shots ‘exploded’ nicely and reached for the walls of my listening room. There was also a surprising sense of spatial precision thanks to the Dirac processing that eludes the native output, which sounded almost cluttered by comparison. “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the same album was rendered beautifully… Beck’s soulful licks sending shivers down my spine as he rephrases and elaborates on the melody as the tune progresses. The cymbals were almost pristine and shimmered nicely. Overall, it’s a nicely balanced sound that you could (and I did) listen to for hours. On “Head for the Backstage Pass”, Jeff was firmly planted between the speakers – it was more than just a vague presence.
The drumming on King Crimson’s “Thrak”, from the album of the same name, was equally crisp, powerful and precise. The spatial presentation (always a King Crimson strength) was well developed and held up quite well compared to my more expensive main streaming setup.
On “Ruby Lee” from Joe Cocker’s Sheffield Steel album (expanded edition) Joe’s gravelly voice was dynamic and powerful again, as on previous tracks, giving the illusion that Joe was there with you. The rhythm was unfaltering, and the bass was solid and well defined. Perhaps a little light-on but, most likely, that’s in the recording and the fact that I played it after listening to a bunch of recently produced tunes, many of which seem to be engineered with overblown bass. The NODE ICON’s natural smoothness and balanced presentation seemed to benefit the keyboards allowing them to float nicely around the edges of the stage.
Keith Jarret’s piano on Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s “Keyboard Sonata in A Flat Major. H. 31 Wq. 49/2” (Württemberg Sonatas) was warm and full-bodied and never shrill. Here the NODE ICON allowed a satisfying representation of the recorded venue’s ambience.
The soundstage was broad and deep on Melody Gardot’s “The Rain (Live)” with crisp, deep and powerful percussion and, again, cymbals that shimmered nicely (even if not quite to the highest level of the far more expensive sources which have recently passed through my system). The saxophone was smooth – the lower notes maintaining the distinctive ‘edge’. Bass was lithe, strings clearly audible even when things get busy. Melody’s vocals were powerful and had a nice in room presence.
RY X’s “Shortline” from his Dawn album was another standout. This is a room-filling sound with dark undertones and a solid bassline. The NODE ICON balanced the piano, vocals and synth so that they all projected together in unison, like a wave that washes over you.
Like all good audio components, the longer I listened the more enamoured I became with the NODE ICON’s sound. It leans towards an almost analogue type of smoothness… it’s not fatiguing in any way. If there’s any criticisms to be made, it would be that the smoothness comes at a marginal cost to detail airiness. However, this is a minor trade-off, especially at the price point and, in absolute terms, it’s not something that is likely to take away from your enjoyment. Overall, the NODE ICON presents a fatigue-free experience that remains engaging.
I listened to a few more tunes in my session – “In Your Face” from Cat Power’s Wanderer album and Lana Del Ray’s “Hope is a Dangerous Thing” from her album Norman F#cking Rockwell! with both being very satisfying.
I did notice a rather large (>10dB) loss with Dirac processing (curiously I didn’t notice this on the NAD M66 I reviewed last year which also included Dirac processing). This wasn’t too much of a problem as it was easily compensated for with my amplifier’s volume control. I did learn that Dirac processing can result in lower volume output requiring manual compensation. This can be caused by several factors but mostly if the processor gain fader is set too low, or when using a microphone with lower sensitivity.
Listening through my trusty AudioQuest Nighthawk headphones, the NODE ICON sounded detailed and dynamic. While not quite capable of the sort of results a dedicated headphone amplifier can deliver, the built-in headphone amp maintains a comparable quality standard to the one established by the main output stage. The headphone connections are discretely positioned on the sides of the unit rather than polluting the front facia – a nice move and in-keeping with the overall aesthetic elegance.
Conclusion
The Bluesound NODE ICON is simply the perfect way for music lovers or someone launching into an audiophile journey to experience seriously good playback of their favourite music at home. For the price I can’t think of a better way. Just add an amp, a turntable if you’re into vinyl, and a pair of speakers of your taste and you’re set. The NODE ICON is compact, understated, looks great on any rack, cabinet or bookshelf and will integrate well into any living environment.
So, while I might have preferred dinner with Charlize Theron (if she was feeling charitable enough to grace a mere plebe with her presence), the more sensible move might be to consider investing in a different type of icon – one that’s available now. One that likes all my favourite tunes, even those I haven’t discovered yet. One that sounds consistently good and, most importantly, delivers long-term musical enjoyment in almost any system or space.
Yes, one such as the Bluesound NODE ICON which, in my view, might just become a true icon.
… Barry Jones
www.soundstageaustralia.com
Associated Equipment:
- Speakers — Sonus faber Amati Homage, Sonus faber Toy Towers
- Amplifier — Perreaux e250i 40th Anniversary Edition integrated amplifier with Eloquence DAC
- Sources — Digital: Lumin T1, Analogue: Rega RP6 turntable, Rega Exact-2 cartridge, Rega Aria phono stage & Rega Couple interconnects
- Processor — DEQX Pre-8
- DAC/Headphone Amplifier — Chord Mojo DAC
- Headphones — AudioQuest Nighthawk
- Cables — Nordost White Lightning, Kimber Cable Timbre balanced and Van den Hul D-300III unbalanced interconnects, Atlas Compass Digital Coaxial Audio Cable, QED Performance Graphite USB
- Miscellaneous — IsoTek Sirius Power Conditioner, 8 x SA8600 bass traps in front wall corners, 12 x Sound Acoustics MP700-40 ceiling acoustic panels
Bluesound NODE ICON Reference Music Streamer
Price: AU$1949
Australian Warranty: Two Years
Australian Distributor: Amber Technology
+61 (0) 2 9998 7600
www.ambertech.com.au
Bluesound – The Lenbrook Group of Companies
633 Granite Court
Pickering, Ontario
Canada – L1W 3K1
+1 905 831 6555
https://lenbrook.com/