Bluesound

The process of getting music throughout your home used to be relegated to a few companies that pandered more to the quick and dirty music distribution-for-convenience side of things, than to the quality of the music. The convenience was nice, but the sound quality usually was not worth the cost. Often those systems included wireless loudspeakers of dubious quality, or even wired speakers that fed off of a system so mediocre that it simply wasn't a wise outlay of your money. We have had people come in and tell us about some popular brand names that did put sound through their houses conveniently, but sound was about all they got. The "soul" and foot-tapping enjoyment special to music just wasn't there, even though the price tag was.

Thanks to two companies partnering in the areas of quality audio, streaming, and distributed music, we can now take that type of system to a musically-satisfying quality level for a reasonable price. Moreover, these systems have all the convenience you could want. We are not talking about ultra-high-priced “audiophile” equipment. We are talking about affordable and very well engineered and manufactured equipment from "audio first" companies, designed for top audio quality to give you the convenience of wired or wireless streaming throughout your home.

It all started with Bluesound. This company designed and engineered a ground-breaking new audio distribution system and incorporated it into a series of quality audio components. Their electronics allow you to play music stored anywhere on your home network (such as on your computers' hard drives or network attached drives), from any of the thousands of radio stations on the Internet, or from some of the best-sounding streaming services such as Tidal. Their models include the Node 2i at $499, a stand-alone streamer that can plug into any existing stereo or home theater system, the Power Node 2i at $799 which is a self-contained integrated amplifier with Bluesound capability built in, and the Vault 2i at $1199, a complete Bluesound solution that also has a huge, built-in hard drive for storage of your own personal music collection. Their equipment is easily controllable from your iPad, iPhone, or Android device as well as from your PC or Mac. They also have wireless loudspeakers, including a soundbar and subwoofer. All models also support MQA, ROON, Airplay, Alexa voice control, and multiple streaming formats such as Spotify.

The real excitement has come with the recent combination of Bluesound and NAD. Most readers will be familiar with NAD, a company that has always been known for providing very impressive sonic performance at budget prices. Many NAD amplifiers can now be purchased with all of the convenient Bluesound capabilities built in. This means that NAD, a company that first began building remarkably-good-sounding equipment in the 1970s, has added its sonic expertise to the Bluesound streaming capability to produce the best-sounding streaming systems available. We finally have a method of listening to and remotely controlling music throughout your home that is state-of-the-art and which is worthy of being sold by a “sound first” store like Audio Nexus. We are very happy to offer the Bluesound and NAD products as a way for you to have the convenience you always wanted along with the sound quality that makes it all worthwhile. Sound plus convenience in one package: now that's a smart way to spend your money!

We listen to an NAD/Bluesound system all day in the store and can easily demonstrate its flexibility, ease of use, and great sound quality. Please come in for a demonstration. This may well be the whole-house solution you have been looking for.