For its tenth birthday, Blue sound presents a new
headphone amplifier to the Node streamer.
Bluesound's Node wireless media streamer made its debut ten years ago, and to mark the occasion, the business has chosen to manufacture a special anniversary edition of the product called the Node X. Headphone aficionados will immediately notice the one difference: the Node's 3.5mm headphone port has been replaced with a quarter-inch output, while having a nearly identical appearance to the regular Node. And you're correct if you think the modification goes beyond simply making room for a bigger plug.
According to Bluesound, the $200 THX Onyx headphone DAC/amp uses the same THX Achromatic Audio Amplifier (AAA) technology that powers the centrally located headphone jack. This technology is said to have patented feed-forward error correction that results in infinitesimally low levels of noise, distortion, and power consumption.
There is a brand-new digital-to-analog converter (DAC) feeding that amp as well as the RCA analogue outputs. The Texas Instruments/Burr Brown PCM 5242 DAC in the Node has been replaced by the ESS 9028Q2M Sabre DAC. According to Bluesound, audiophiles like the ESS DAC because of its "amazing musicality, near-zero levels of clock jitter, ultra-low noise, and a wide dynamic range."
Last but not least, Bluesound is also including a free RC1 remote control for the Node X, a separate device that usually costs $59 more.
Otherwise, the Node X is identical to its brother in terms of its abilities:
The Node X costs $749, which is $150 more than the Node's $599 pricing. With the potential to do multiroom audio with Bluesound's many other wireless speakers and soundbars, the increased price may be easily justified by the extra goodies Bluesound has included if you enjoy wirelessly streaming high-res audio via headphones or powered speakers.
