Mojo to Bluesound Node 2

I am finally getting some decent Audeze headphones that I have been told will require a headphone amp. I am wanting to repurpose a Bluesound Node 2 as the streamer for the headphones.

There are two questions that I have:

  1. The Bluesound Node 2 has a headphone jack - will the Bluesound Node 2 be able to drive the Audeze headphones while providing optimal sound quality?

  2. If the answer to the first question is no - I was looking at getting a Mojo for this purpose using the Bluesound Node 2 as the streamer. I note that the Mojo has two possible connections with the Node 2 - optical and coaxial. I would prefer to use coaxial to obtain maximum resolution, but note that the coaxial link on the Mojo is 3/4 inch while the Bluesound Node has standard coaxial output. Is it possible to obtain a coaxial cable with the different sized pins?

The Bluesound Node will work but how good the headphone stage is moot. You could get a cable for the Mojo, but that seems like a compromise, and you’ll end up with two DACs. Of course the advantage of the Mojo is that it is very good and you can use it on the go.

Have you considered buying a headphone amplifier and connecting this to the line outputs of the Node? For example, the Schiit Audio Magni 3 is supposed to be a pretty good headphone amp.

I have both the Chord Mojo and a Node 2i, but have never used the two together unfortunately.

But if I did, I would not necessarily prefer using the coaxial connection over optical for “maximum resolution.” Chord does not recommend upsampling the digital content that you feed into their DACs as the proprietary FPGA voodoo (aka “mojo” - no pun intended :wink:) works best when feeding it a virgin native signal. As the vast majority of the streaming content available is CD quality (or less), I wouldn’t get too hung up on being limited to only 24/96 sample rates via an optical connection.

Deciding to go with a dedicated headphone amplifier or DAC/amp combo whether it’s a Mojo, Schiit amp, or other will yield you better sound from your Audeze headphones than worrying about which connection option is “best.”

Thanks for your advice. I have a few albums that are more than 24/96 resolution. Undoubtedly you are correct about the trivial perceptible aural difference (if any) with higher resolution quality.

Thank you for providing me with this information on the cable that I would need… I had already searched the internet and some of the descriptions given were not clear.

I got the Bluesound Node a few years ago out of frustration in my pre Roon days to improve the streaming to my Devialet amp. With Roon and the various upgrades to both Devialet hardware and software, it is no longer needed for that purpose. I wanted a Roon Ready streamer and the Poly looks terribly expensive - if the Bluesound Node can serve the purpose.

Of course it could be that the Bluesound Node’s headphone stage is OK for the headphones. I will soon find out!