I realise the topic is for the Node 2i but I thought this might still be relevant: I recently re-purchased a Flex 2i to check how things have improved with Roon and Bluesound after the last big update. At long last the sync issue seems resolved (Bluesound Flex 2i in sync with Allo Digi One)… but… I am also experiencing the delay that @c2c2c2 reports. It does not happen all the time but it does get really bad (>10 seconds) if I skip a few tracks in succession or if I rewind a song at different parts. Initiating playback from ‘cold’ and with a grouping including the Allo Digio One + Flex 2i, there is a 3-5 second delay. Once playback starts and I begin skipping tracks, the delay in playback start worsens significantly. I tried partly rewinding a track mid-playback and noticed the delay worsens if I do this >2 times in succession (say you want to listen part of the beginning of the track and then skip to listen to the mid part etc). With this type of skipping and rewinding, the Flex 2i quickly introduced a delay of 10-14 seconds for playback to resume. Even worse, the Flex 2i sometimes stopped playing altogether after skipping and rewinding a few more times. I would have to stop playback and then resume to correct this. Taking the Flex 2i out of playback and grouping two endpoints: Allo Digi One + Windows 10 PC, results in flawless operation. No playback delay no matter what amount of skipping or rewindinding.
I am not sure if the above applies to the Node 2i as well but it might be.
@Yiannis_Kouropalatis, your description of this issue precisely mirrors symptoms I am seeing on my Powernode 2i. Roon @support looked at this for me, said they’d have QA look at the logs I’d provided but I’ve never heard back from them. There is certainly an issue with Bluesound and Roon and I hope Roon is looking at it and trying to reproduce. I am waiting for them to effect a repair rather than just dismissing it as a customer or customer network issue. In my case, the various trial-and-error tests they ran me through pretty much eliminated everything but a Roon/Bluesound software issue.
Hi all,
does the Node 2i work properly with Roon yet? I’ve heard a lot of bad things about it and its predecessor regarding Roon compatibility.
I just bought one but am still able to return it. So far I’m really liking its sound and AirPlay 2 capabilities, but I haven’t been able to test Roon. It’s likely I’ll switch over pretty soon and I really want it to work reliably with RAAT.
And is its issues confined to Roon or is it generally unreliable? Reviews are great, but that’s not the whole picture.
Hi Gabriel,
There are some very happy Bluesound owners who are reporting trouble free operation with Roon. I was one of the unlucky ones and if you look through my past posts you will be able to read through the kind of problems I encountered. I don’t have the Node 2i any more but I have a Flex 2i which when used with Roon it is working so so for me (see above for reported issues). Airplay 2 on the other hand works reliably and the sound is really good with it. One issue I encountered with Airplay 2 it is that the volume control implementation in Bluesound appears to be logarithmic so the first 60% of the scale is barely useful and there is only a small portion that allows for meaningful volume changes. I would test that with the Node 2i to see if it is the same case.
Regarding Roon and Node 2i, have you enabled the Node 2i via ‘Settings’ and then ‘Audio’? If so then I would try the following via Roon to test how well it works with it:
- Start playback (on Node 2i) and notice how long it takes after you tap play for the music to start. Ideally it should not be more than 1-3 seconds.
- During playback try skipping the track to the next and then immediately again to a next and so on. Ideally there should be no issue with this operation (in my case playback would eventually freeze after a few track skips in succession).
- During playback try moving the slider to fast forward the track and then back again. Ideally it should resume playback without problems (in my case, after a few back and forth slider moves, playback would start freezing or alternatively it would take 7-10 seconds to resume).
- Try grouping the Node 2i with a different zone and start playback. See if the music is in sync and whether it remains in sync after a while.
In my case (at least with the Flex 2i), airplay 2 directly from iTunes or my iPhone works really well and more reliably than using Roon to control the Bluesound speaker.
Let us know what you find 
Hi,
Yeah, Airplay 2 volume is weird. It gets better by adjusting the boundaries in BluOS but it’s still not great. Room for improvement.
I just installed Roon and signed up for a trial so I can play with it on the Node. I don’t have any other RAAT zones to group with (yet) so I can’t really test out the multiroom features. AirPlay 2 is the main reason I bought it however to be able to cast from my and play together with my HomePod, and that seems to work really well. There’s a distinct shortage of AirPlay 2 enabled streamers so I was happy to find the Node 2i.
I tried a couple of these (Airplay, DAC bypass, digital output on S/PDIF coax to Mytek 192) and was disappointed with reliability and SQ. After a couple weeks, the first one started to output an electrical shorting sound. I sent it back for exchange and the 2nd one had problems sustaining its wifi connection (device not recognized) despite a strong signal (RSSI ~ -42dBm) on 5GHz 802.11ac. I also heard a slight upward tilt in tonal balance (brighter, more emphasis on high frequencies) with Node 2i S/PDIF coax compared to Airport Express gen 2 Toslink. I didn’t compare SQ of Node 2i Toslink vs Airport Express Toslink, as by then I decided not to keep the Node 2i because of its unreliable wifi connection.
I had similar problems with 802.11ac connections, awhile back. I reported this to Bluesound, but was told I was “holding it wrong”, if you take my reference.
Their support has been polite (I reported a couple of issues with their app), but nothing gets fixed.
Interesting. I swore I heard that, as well, but was thought it was something else, unrelated to the Node 2i. This was connected to my Bel Canto DAC 2.5.
FWIW, I took into my office and am using it wired and with coax S/PDIF out into an old Rega DAC - sounds and works fine with local music and streaming services (Spotify and Qobuz).
I am at this moment trying a trial to roon to see if I can correct the sound of the node 2i …to me it sounds horrible out of the box …for the first time my system is fatiguing and shrill … I can not get roon to work it won’t find the node …it’s making me crazy …I am going to keep it and use the coaxial and bypass the node dac and use the one in my Rotel RA -1572
I bought a Node 2i early this year. I love the functionality, small form factor, and relatively low price compared to some other streamers. But … for me, the SQ has been a mixed bag. For much of the chamber music, folk, or jazz I listen to, it sounds fine. Wonderful, sometimes. But especially on more complex arrangements or tracks with a wide dynamic range, it has sounded shrill or bright to me. I’m not knowledgeable enough to even describe what it is I don’t like, or whether to attribute it to the device or some other part of the system (like the room acoustics).
Well, yesterday I got a miniDSP microphone from Amazon, downloaded REW, and started taking some measurements. What it seems to be showing me is that (a) by feeding my amp (Peachtree Nova 150) via coax, I get a big bump in energy levels above about 5000Hz … but (b) by using analog RCA, I get a drop in energy levels above about the same point, and ( c) by feeding the amp via USB directly from my Mac Mini or Macbook pro, the frequency response becomes rather flat. These 3 results seem to correspond to what I’ve been experiencing subjectively these past months. The direct USB from the Mini seemed to offer the best SQ (especially for more complex/dynamic arrangements). I also got a relatively flat frequency response (in the mid-highs anyway) by sending the REW signal through a ZVOX soundbox.
Of course, YMMV. There are so many factors involved and I’m not a super knowledgeable audio person. But I wonder if these results make sense? If so, I wonder whether the differences might be attributable to the Node 2i, to the amp, or to the cables themselves?
Huh. That’s interesting and thanks for taking the time to report.
Since you have all of that setup, would you be willing to repeat that test using TOSLINK out from the Node 2i? I assume your Nova 150 has an optical input.
The Nova 150 does have two optical inputs, but I don’t have a cable hooked up to either one for music.
I should point out that in measuring for the analog RCA and coax outputs, there was WiFi in the loop. REW and was on my laptop and so was the microphone connection. I don’t know if this invalidates the comparison to the USB test/measurements, which involved a direct wire connection from my Mac Mini, running REW, to the amp.
OK, today is a new day. I repeated my measurements, this time running REW consistently from my Mac Mini for each measure, and also with the USB microphone connected to the Mini (and placed at the same position, about 6 ft from each speaker, for each measure).
This time, I could not replicate the big high frequency spike I saw yesterday with the Node-to-Amp connection via coax. Perhaps that was due to room reflections picked up with the mic placed farther back?
Here’s what I find now:
(1) With 1/6 smoothing, my frequency response looks nearly flat with a direct connection via either USB or Toslink directly to my Peachtree Nova 150 amp. There are small drop-offs at both the low and high ends. Here’s the plot for the USB direct connection:
(2) When I send the signal through the Node 2i, I see bigger drop-offs at either end. At the low end, the drop-offs seem to be about the same whether the signal goes to the amp via Coax, Toslink, or RCA analog. But at the high end, the drop-off seems to be most severe for coax, less severe for Toslink, and least severe with an RCA analog connection. See charts (coax first, toslink 2nd, rca third):
I’m too inexperienced with REW (etc.) to draw very strong conclusions. But, what these results suggest to me is that (a) taking the Node 2i endpoint out of the loop may improve the frequency response (which has been my subjective SQ impression all along), but (b) if I do want to keep using it, I may get the least SQ penalty with an RCA analog connection to the amp (whereby the Node’s own DAC is processing its signal, instead of sending it to the Peachtree DAC). IOW the Node 2i seems to crapify, but also does a better job of de-crapifying its own crap. If that makes sense.
This is hilarious. I think I do get you.
I have been considering a toslink streamer, but I think I will go the RPi4 route instead, with a HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro hat.
Thanks for the update. Have you read Amir’s review of the Node 2i? In particular, his later tests with an external DAC using coax S/PDIF out?
Thanks for sharing that, Kenneth.
Very interesting. So, comparing my findings to some of the posts (and Amir’s review), I reached pretty much the opposite conclusion. Namely, the Node’s RCA analog output looks a bit better than results of coax to my downstream DAC. But then, I was focusing only on high end frequency response. YMMV.
My impression has been that Peachtree put a lot of work into their USB handling. The typical use-case they envisioned may have been plugging an iOS device directly into USB-A or a computer into USB-B? Maybe they spent less development money/time on the coax and toslink inputs?
I do agree with some of the comments that the Node 2i delivers a lot of functionality for the price. Some of the issues mentioned (Airplay2 and MQA support, Roon integration) seem to have been worked out by now. I love it for multi-room play, like when I’m moving around the house doing chores.
Agreed. I use mine at my office, coax-connected to an old Rega DAC, into a Lehmann Audio head-amp and set of Sennheiser HD-660S 'phones. All I need for work.
My (much) younger co-worker thinks I am crazy to have all of this crap on my desk - she uses her iPhone and a set of bluetooth earbuds.
Fantastic office setup Kenneth
Almost makes me want to un-retire.
Hello I’m new here and also new for Roon and Bluesound. I have a Bluesound Node 2i. I want to connect it to the Roon Services. I read every single article and found that I need to installed the Roon Core first. I’ve installed it at my Mac, sign up for the lifetime membership, but I can’t find my Bluesound device at the audio setting of Roon Core. Please help with some solutions. Forgive my bad english, bcause this is not my primary languange.
PS: I have another streamer and connected successfully to the Roon. Is that could be the reason that I cant connect to my Bluesound. Thankyouu for any answers.