Good morning, guys, wee snowy thoughts… lol
I was thinking about upgrading my small home system with a cd player: basically I use a Naim Mu-so Qb 1st generation (streaming provider Tidal “mqa” edition), a Bluesound Node 2021 Edition, Austrian Audio Hi-X50 as headphones.
The CD player should be the Rotel CD11 Tribute, found refurbished on Ebay.
Is this upgrade worth consideration?
Thanks a lot.
From memory I think the Qb has only one input, which presumably is being used by the Node. How would you connect a CD player? You wouldn’t want to keep swapping connections all the time.
The Qb is designed as an all in one smart speaker, not as the centrepiece of a ‘proper’ system. If you want to use a Node and add a CD player you are probably best getting an amplifier and a pair of speakers instead.
It’s also worth considering why you want a CD player. You can rip CDs on a computer and store them, or just use Tidal.
You would have to use the 3.5mm stereo line input on the qb as the CD player you have chosen has coaxial output not optical.
If you are okay with that, then it will play your cd collection, though personally I would consider eg brand new denon £249 from richer sounds (which does have optical output).
Of course as HH has mentioned, your node is likely using the optical input already?
What are you streaming with your node, as the qb itself supports tidal direct?
Thanks for the replies, guys.
The Node is not directly connected to the Mu-so as I use it to stream music from Tidal or my NAS where I have more than 600 CDs ripped and ready.
Let’s say the Node is a sort of a Mu-so Qb substitute as I cannot use my headphones on this kind of device.
I guess I’d probably keep on ripping CDs at this point. 
The Qb can stream from your nas and Tidal without the need for the Node. As you clearly already know how to rip CDs to a Nas, a CD player serves little purpose. Maybe you should but the money towards an Atom and some speakers.
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Thanks, HH, the purpose of using the Node is to add some headphones which would be impossible with the Mu-so Qb.
So you are using two systems at the moment: the Node + headphones for headphone listening and the Mu-So Qb for everything else? And do you want to add the CD-Player to the Mu-So or the Node?
Either way, as others have mentioned it is possible via the 3.5mm line input but certainly not very elegant.
What is your rationale for buying a CD-Player if you already have a NAS with ripped CDs?
If for whatever reason you are really keen on adding CD player, I would probably re-engineer the entire setup and buy an amplifier, CD player + speakers and connect the Node to it. Or look for something like the Atom if budget allows.
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