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 | Yamaha A-S801 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 Yamaha A-S801 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 | evenly matched | Much the same signal-to-noise ratio (100dB vs 99dB). |
| Built-in DAC | evenly matched | Both have a DAC on board with much the same capability. |
| Streaming | A | Only Bluesound POWERNODE has AirPlay 2, Roon and BluOS. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Yamaha A-S801 takes more analogue sources - 6 against 2. |
| Phono stage | depends | Yamaha A-S801 has a built-in phono stage (MM) and Bluesound POWERNODE does not. Decisive if you own a turntable, completely irrelevant if you do not - and an outboard phono stage is easy to add later either way. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Bluesound POWERNODE is Class D and Yamaha A-S801 is Class A/B. Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle; Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Shelf space | depends | Bluesound POWERNODE takes up about 77% less shelf area (420cm² against 1792cm²), and it is 222mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | Yamaha A-S801 costs less - $900 against $949 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Yamaha A-S801 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 Yamaha A-S801
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?
Yamaha A-S801 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. If you play records, Yamaha A-S801 saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely.
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.