Pulse 2

The Pulse 2 combines a streaming player, amplifier, DAC and speakers in one cabinet. It uses a 5.25-inch woofer together with two mid-to-high range drivers, powered by 80 W of tri-amplified stereo amplification. A dual-acoustic chamber and DSP equalization are used to improve bass power and clarity, and the unit is intended for a bookshelf, countertop or end table.

Audio is handled by a DirectDigital amplifier and a 35-bit/844 kHz DAC, with a 32-bit architecture and 8x oversampling. The player runs on 1 GHz ARM Cortex-9 multi-core processors and supports high-resolution and lossless playback as well as common formats such as MP3. It can stream to other Bluesound players around the home and access internet radio, cloud music services and a local music library.

Control is through touch controls on the unit, an app for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Windows and Mac OS X, the optional Bluesound RC1 remote, or voice commands through the BluOS skill for Amazon Alexa. Music from iOS and Android devices can be streamed over WiFi, and built-in Bluetooth with aptX is included. The speaker came in black or white.