Maybe its time I get my feet wet with computer audio.
Let me understand this:
1) I need a tablet, laptap, phone or some computer device
2) Pay 19.99 a month for a subscription to tidal
3) Purchase this Bluesound thingy
4) Connect the computer with the Bluesound thingy via wifi. Easy?
5) Connect the Blusound to my DAC via a cable
Sound quality better than Redbook CD?
Emil you have a whole bunch of questions there so let me address them one at a time. First off the Bluesound Node is simply a network streaming device. All it does in and of itself is feed audio files from your home network into your stereo system via a WiFi or hardwired Ethernet connection. That can be digital files that you ripped yourself and stored on a hard drive, digital files that you purchased and downloaded to a hard drive via service like HD Tracks or files that you stream in realtime from a cloud service like Tidal.
The box itself has no controls other than a mute button so you need a computer tablet of smartphone to configure and operate it via a free Bluesound app. If you just want to listen to streaming services you can control it from your phone and don't need a computer at all. Of course if you are going to Rip and store files you will need a computer or a NAS drive to store, but that is up to you them on. (I think you might be able to download from HD Tracks directly and store the files on a NAS or USB attached hard drive, but I have not gotten that far into yet so I can't say for sure.
Setup was painless and other than having to update the firmware to recognize Tidal (being an older unit the firmware it shipped with was looking to connect to WIMP in Denmark, which was the original rollout of what we now know in the US as Tidal).
The Bluesound app provides native Tidal support, so unlike the Squeezbox there are no third party plugins to track down and install. (And BTW, Tidal offers a 30 day free trial so you can check it out on your PC and see what they have to offer before committing to signing up or buying any hardware to support it.)
As for the sound, with the painting I have been doing, kids home from college for Thanksgiving and trying to get all the outdoor Christmas decorations up while the temps are still in the 50s I cannot say that I have had a whole lot of sweet spot listening time since installing the Bluesound, but I have had enough to get some pretty strong initial impressions (and of course like everything else I am sure the unit will benefit from some break in time). It is really hard to do a truly valid A-B comparison with a CD because in most cases you never really know exactly what version of a CD that Tidal ripped for their library (with the exception of some specific audiophile pressings that have distinctive markings on their covers). But that said, in the few brief A-Bs I got the chance to do I found that Tidal sounded no worse than a decent CD pressing. Putting in an orginal CD of the same album yielded a small difference that I would categorize as similar to kind of a increase you might get from upgrading a well done CD pressing from the stock aluminum to the gold version. The differences are there if you listen for them, but they are no where near OMG revelations. And in my mind, if I am really concerned about having a high quality sit down sweet spot session, I am heading down the basement to pull out the vinyl copy anyway so not having the ultimate redbook SQ is a small price to pay for the amount of access I get to all kinds of recording. (It's like having the whole stock of PREX right in the living room with me
)