BluOS Controller 4+

Connect to a pair of Beoplay 18s through a Node 2i. This app has actually been a bit of a pleasant surprise as I’ve used so many terrible music apps before, by B&O, Yamaha, etc. in contrast, this one actually works and plays both music from my NAS as well as from Tidal without any issues, very stable (fingers crossed).

My only feedback would be that the app itself is better on iPad than on iPhone — unless you understand how the logic of the app works (which isn’t completely intuitive) it’s easy to get lost on the iPhone app.

Two main things, you have your Library which is a type of home in the app, but that’s only for local files, if you have a music streaming service like Tidal, that ends up hidden behind a hamburger menu. If you enter there, you go into a type of “second home/library” just for Tidal. The app does a good job of replicating Tidal’s functionality. The separation also makes sense on some level but would be nice to have a direct link to Tidal from the home screen.

Unless you know it’s there, the “playlist” is not intuitively present or obvious. Would be nice to be able to swipe left and right on the full screen play screen to get to the playlist. Here, it would also be useful to be able to drag and drop to change the order of songs in the playlist — feels like a pretty basic functionality.

This app and the Node 2i are outstanding. Sound quality is a step up from Sonos having tested both on top quality sources. The app is snappy and responsive. My whole experience with this ecosystem has really just impressed me and that is hard to do. All the streaming is easy to setup. Being a techno freak it gives a great balance of allowing you to tweak things and being to “Apple” locked down. The setup was simple- follow the app and everything just works. This app and all the features are laid out differently than others such as Sonos. Once you become familiar with the operation, it makes sense and works well. Currently, there is a NAS song base, and 8 streaming providers in the setup we have been evaluating. At least 30 favorites setup from those sources with everything working properly. The network access and catalog has been very good as well. Even the integration with Alexa was easy and works as well as most Alexa products do. Everything I’ve experienced is inline with the hi-fi reviews on the net.

I have had the Blusound vault for 4 years and it has been wonderful until the last BluOs controller update 1 week ago. Since the update the sound has from my Blousound device has been unbearably distorted. Rebooting hasn’t helped. All the other components of my system work fine. I am sure there is a reasonable fix to this but their customer support has been horrendous. I have emailed customer support a week ago and have had no response. I have called customer support multiple times over the past 2 1/2 days and have had no response. Their voicemail just instructs to leave a message and they will get back to you within 24 hours but I have heard from no one. For 4 years I would give this 5 stars but given what happened and zero response to a request for customer support I have to downgrade to a 3 star. Frankly as it is unusable since the update 1 week ago maybe 2 stars would be better. I have no idea how to get anyone from Bluesound to help me find a fix. Maybe it is time to switch to another streaming devise.