Bluesound Powernode

Streaming integrated amplifier

- By Ken Micallef

Old-school audiophiles like me cling to our vinyl records and CDs. We spin them on turntables and slide them into transports, which send electric signals through wires to solid-state or tubed amplifiers—a string of hardware devices. But, despite our object-attached ways, we’re quite aware that we are living in a software-enabled, Bluetooth-connected, Wi-Fi–facilitated world. Even our Milky Way galaxy is wireless; as that pontificator of everything galactic, scientist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, has proclaimed, “We’re all connected.”

“Connected,” though, can mean different things. For some, it means stumbling down the street staring at a smartphone screen and bumping into strangers as life rushes by. For others, it’s a way to carry their office wherever they go—a curse if you ask me. But for still others, including the multitude of music lovers who have purchased Bluesound’s NODE streamer, POWERNODE1 streaming amplifier, and VAULT storage, it’s a net positive: They can have music—a big fraction of all the music there is—almost anywhere they want.

Debuting in 2012, the Bluesound Node and Powernode have sold upward of a million units, a roaring success for parent company Lenbrook, which also owns and shares technology from PSB speakers and NAD, no strangers to high-value audio equipment. NAD, in fact, produced what might be the most iconic high-value amplification component ever made, the 3020 integrated amplifier, which launched in 1978 for $135. That’s just under $600 in today’s dollars.