Any Bluesound Node2 owners

Kveteran, The official fix for the "Northern Lights" emanating from the NIC on the back side of the Node 2/2i is some carefully placed electrical tape.

IMO the Node 2(i) is one of the best-bang-for-buck HiFi products around.
I agree with those who suggest just using it for a while before investing in fancy cords or cables.  I do prefer it wired (ethernet) to WiFi, but especially if you have fairly fast internet service,  WiFi  might work fine for you.

I also agree that instead of buying a stand-alone DAC to use with the Node 2, you might want to wait until you are ready to upgrade the whole shebang. Any of several integrated DAC/streamer/preamp products at around $3K would offer a nice one-shot upgrade. The Matrix Element X, iFi Pro iDSD, or a used Auralic Vega G1 would deliver USB and balanced outputs along with any improvements to the DAC. 

Benchmark dac3b

    Im wondering why all the recommendations are for expensive DAC’s, then i thought, whats the sense in getting a comparable DAC to the burr/brown thats in the node2.

I understand now :0)

I am with @amg56. Although my system costs roughly a magnitude less than his main one.