One is a streaming all-in-one and the other is an amplifier. Judge them on how many boxes you want and what you already own, not on the spec sheet alone.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | AudioControl Bijou 600 has more power - 100W against 80W into 8 ohms. That is about 1dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Bluesound POWERNODE the better fit for a small room, and AudioControl Bijou 600 for a large room and a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Noise floor | A | Bluesound POWERNODE is the quieter design on paper - 100dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board. Bluesound POWERNODE goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Streaming | A | Only Bluesound POWERNODE has AirPlay 2, Roon and BluOS. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Bluesound POWERNODE takes more analogue sources - 2 against 1. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Shelf space | depends | Bluesound POWERNODE takes up about 21% less shelf area (420cm² against 534cm²), and it is 55mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | AudioControl Bijou 600 costs less - $899 against $949 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | AudioControl Bijou 600 is the cheaper watt - about $9 per watt against $12. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Bluesound POWERNODE B AudioControl Bijou 600
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
The usual trade-off: Bluesound POWERNODE measures better, AudioControl Bijou 600 costs about 5% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.