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See the complete review for the Testing the BluOS Wireless Codec with a NAD Masters M66 Streaming Preamplifier and PSB ALPHA IQ Wireless Speakers.

BluOS is one of several wireless music-playing formats currently available to consumers.

NAD M66 Streaming Preamplifier

It was released by the Lenbrook Group and is incorporated into several of their products, such as the NAD M66 Streaming Preamplifier and PSB Alpha iQ Bookshelf Speakers. I obtained these two products for review at the same time, so I decided to include information about how BluOS works with them.

The first one is the NAD M66 Streaming Preamplifier.

NAD M66 Streaming Preamplifier Front Angle View

At $5,499, this preamplifier is expensive, but you get what you pay for. It has lots of digital inputs as well as a set of analog XLR balanced and RCA single-ended inputs and outputs.

NAD M66 Streaming Preamplifier Rear Panel View

The NAD Masters M66 Streaming Preamplifier uses ESS Sabre’s highest-quality DAC chips. An ADC (Analog-to-Digital Converter) is used in the Analog Direct XLR and RCA inputs. The ADC can be bypassed for a pure analog signal to pass through, this negates the use of DIRAC or the balance and tone controls in that case. The other inputs are all digital and pass through the DAC.

The front has a 7″ touchscreen for scrolling through the menu. The volume control on the right has 100 steps.

The BluOS platform will allow up to 24-bit/192-kHz uncompressed audio to stream either through the M66 or BluOS-enabled speakers, such as PSB’s new Alpha iQ Bookshelf Speakers.

PSB Alpha iQ Bookshelf Speakers in all various color finishes such as orange, black, blue, yellow, and white

The performance of the NAD M66 is spectacular, with distortion below 0.001%

The BluOS feature was also amazing. It allowed me to access my Qobuz account, and stream music directly to the M66 or the Alpha iQ through my Wi-Fi, so the bit-resolution of the music was maintained. My smartphone acted as the remote control, and I was able to access and direct my favorite music at the touch of a button.

See our upcoming article with individual reviews of the M66 and the Alpha iQ coming soon after.

See the complete review for the Testing the BluOS Wireless Codec with a NAD Masters M66 Streaming Preamplifier and PSB ALPHA IQ Wireless Speakers.