There has certainly been a spike in cost of used Bluesound products. I started looking for Node2i a few months ago with the intention of trying-out some stand-alone DAC’s and Pre/DAC’s. At that time, the Node2i was selling used around $300 - I narrowly missed a sale for $277. Then I watched the used price jump to $350... $400... $450... $500. I even bought a Topping D70, then sold it partly because of the increasing cost of completing the system with a Node2i.
I think there are a few contributing factors.
1) Since COVID there seems to be reduced supply of new units. Crutchfield is out of stock, Amazon has them - at the moment.
2) YouTube reviews by Darko and others have praised it as the best ’value’ choice.
3) Amazon UltraHD music service was released, and companies with the API from Amazon are limited - Bluesound happens to be one of them, along with Sound United and Harman International, and a scattering of other companies.
I’ll wait for the price to come back down, or Bluesound to release the next version, or go another route entirely (NAD M32) to play with DAC’s.
