Bluesound

Bluesound began as a small project inside Lenbrook — the Canadian parent of NAD and PSB — and has, over the past decade, become one of the more thoughtful multi-room audio platforms in serious production. The premise is, in essence, that hi-res streaming should not require a separate hi-fi rack to take seriously. The Bluesound system is built around BluOS: a multi-room operating system that handles lossless and high-resolution sources, integrates with Tidal, Qobuz, Roon, and the major streaming services, and lets a single room or twelve rooms be controlled from one app.

Compared to Sonos — the obvious reference point at this price — Bluesound earns its place on three fronts. The sound quality is a clear step ahead: NAD-derived HybridDigital amplification and properly-engineered DACs across the range, audibly better than Sonos at every comparable price. The user experience holds up too — BluOS is cleaner, faster, and doesn’t quietly shed features with each software update. And it doesn’t lock the customer inside a closed ecosystem.

That openness matters. Bluesound exposes a full developer API, which means a properly-integrated URC Total Control system can browse Tidal, Qobuz, your local NAS and the rest of the music services natively, from inside the same remote that already controls the lights, the projector and the climate. No app-switching, no separate phone, no second handset on the coffee table. Every current Bluesound player is Roon Ready Tested, so a household running a Roon Core gets the bit-perfect end-point control, multi-zone synchronisation and DSP that Roon makes possible — applied across every Bluesound device in the house.

The Power Node is the workhorse of the range — a streaming amplifier compact enough to fit inside a cabinet, capable enough to drive most domestic loudspeakers, and quiet enough to do so for years without fuss. The current generation handles 80 watts into 8 ohms with the kind of unsensational engineering that suggests the designers have been doing this for a long time.

The Node, without the amplification, is the streaming source for owners who already have an amplifier they like. The Pulse Mini 2i and Pulse Flex 2i are the wireless one-piece speakers — used as bedside units, kitchen units, garden-room units, anywhere a small but properly engineered streamer-and-speaker pair earns its place.

A Bluesound system is, for many households, the first piece of hi-fi that the entire family will use without instruction. That is not an accident. It is the quiet result of careful product design.