Bluesound Node (2024)
Can the new Node music streamer keep up with the pack?
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Music streamer | £499 whf.cm/Node_2024 |
It looks largely unchanged but the digital circuitry includes a new DAC
It’s a common theme in art and literature, from classical myths to modern novellas, that time waits for no man. No matter how great you might be and how high you may rise, there will always be something, or someone, to pull you back down to Earth. “There’s always a bigger fish,” to quote Liam Neeson in the decidedly un-literary Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace.
The world of hi-fi is no different. So often we have seen products dominate a corner of the market, only to be sideswiped by younger, better rivals keen for their turn at the metaphorical watering hole. Bluesound’s Node was almost synonymous with well-priced music streamers, with its thirdgeneration iteration from 2021 earning multiple What Hi-Fi? Awards. It seemed as though the good times would last forever – until the similarly priced Cambridge Audio MXN10 (tested at £449) strode into the clearing and declared itself as a major new force in the budget network player arena.
Bluesound hasn’t taken such competition lightly. Roughly three years after the release of the original model, the Canada-based company is back with another Node in a bid to wrestle control back from the young Cambridge pretender. Let battle commence.