we've had beta product around the store for quite a while but this week we finally got our big display and some stock.

Performance is excellent. Sound quality is Top notch.

Streaming services are extremely limited at this time, but we'll see more as the brand grows and they get more units out in the marketplace.

regardless, RDIO and TuneIn really cover most of what I need anyway.

we're told that they will have a full 2-way control with popular control systems.

if you havent seen it yet, take a look.

http://www.bluesound.com/

Very interesting! I do not know how I have never heard of this before. They addressed some things that are lacking from SONOS that could be major for the CI channel. Trigger output on the Node. The Vault gives users a place to easily rip and store their CD collection. All models come in black or white...albeit the black is high gloss...which I hate! The big one for me is hi-rez. 24/192!

Now the question is how it stacks up in the UI, reliability, support, ease of setup, etc. against SONOS.

How is the pricing?

I will be taking a close look at this. Thanks!

EDIT:

A closer look indicates the lack of an audio input for "legacy" sources. Also, I did not see the ability to stream music directly from an Android or iOS device. And with 3 cloud sources as of now, they better get on it if they do not want to lose traction before they get started. Still an interesting product.

Whoa, This looks to be a serious competitor and much more CI centric.

They need to up their streaming services and get more to be a true competitor but im sure it has more to do with support then anything else.

Looking foward to folowing this.

Priced in line with SONOS?

Pricing is close to Sonos. Vault is $999 retail.

each unit has a USB port. we'll see some input options via usb in the future.

Looks pretty but sometimes it's nice to just put stuff in a rack. Apple has f'ed up everybody's idea of what is good design. Form follows function, how CI centric can you be with that form? Still, would love to see how different/better it is.

Saw this in action awhile ago and again a few months ago. Was very impressed with the build and sound quality. Sounded a lot better than Sonos. User interface was good, but not at the same level as Sonos. Also really liked the vault option for customers loading their own cd collection. And

They also know they need to add more music services & two-way modules for control systems. They talked about how difficult it has been, which is basically the same thing I heard from URC awhile back. But everyone I work told them that these were the two most important things they needed to add and they understood how important it was.

Bluesound is owned by the same group that owns NAD. And the Bluesound product actually works with some of NAD's existing equipment (and some stuff coming out in the future).

I know they have been selling it in Europe for a little while and wanted to wait until there were confident enough in it before releasing it in the US. And I guess that time is now.

Rather large. Buttons on top - not rack friendly.

Have to wait and see.

 First things everyone thought.  

1.  That thing looks exactly like a Play 3.
2.  Those things aren't going to work well in a rack.  
3.  Does that thing have speaker connections?
4.  What apps does it have?
5.  They did a nice job on the GUI.  

I like the abillity to rip cd's thats cool.  

Sonos killer?  No.  Somebody is going to have to come up with something incredible to "kill" Sonos for CI's.  I'd like to suggest they look at my Thread "My Sonos Wish List".   

This is by far and away the closest contender I've seen though. They're definitely on the right track. 

If we could convince one of these companies to make something "rackable"...then we're on to something. 

I dont think being rack friendly is as important as people think.

that being said it would be pretty cool to have a rack mountable unit with 2 or 3 independent outputs on it.

[Link: nuvotechnologies.com]

You can rack it as easily as other odd sized and shaped boxes. Hide it behind a blank panel if you want. No big deal IMHO.

I have not seen the interface, so I cannot comment on it, but their major obstacle seems to be content availability.

I am guessing it uses the wifi network. I think Sonosnet is what makes it so rock solid reliable. Piggybacking this on the LAN might be a recipe for problems if the network is not pwned. :)

Personally, the biggest things it has going for it that set it apart from SONOS is the ability to play hi-rez....I realize this is probably not a selling point for most of the demographic, but it is to me. And the Vault, although, not something I would use personally, is pretty big. Have you ever had to teach someone how to rip their music to a NAS drive and then get it to play on the SONOS? Having a CD slot that "magically" adds their music to their system will be big for a lot of people.

Some good points.....
Just fyi...forget the nas, rip and load to amazon cloud player, works great

Well you can config Windows to rip on insertion of CD so I think lots of folks could deal with that.

But for non-computer folk who may not have a NAS unit the Vault seems like a good idea even if it is somewhat expensive.

I wonder how close they are to having production units. Still some missing specs I noticed.

"Hi-Rez" will appeal to a small group but its still a good feature given that it's easy to implement so why not include it.

its a player too.



I have them all on display in my showroom.. so if they arent shipping already, they are very soon.


Hi-rez audio can appeal to everyone. who exactly would be opposed to better quality audio? whether its enough for someone to ignore some of the missing things on the system is another thing.

Does it play iTunes?