Bluesound Node2 with outboard DAC

OP.
Glad to hear you went with another outboard DAC and are pleased with the results.
Myself, I sold the esoteric dac and went with a mytek Brooklyn which was another huge step up and it supports mqa so now on the right files I am getting 24/192.

In a little piece of heaven for now!

There's actually a Benchmark DAC1 on here right now at just $400.
That is going to be a nice improvement just for that little cash, certainly over Bluesound and likely an OPPO too.
A benchmark dac2 sold for 950 here about 4 days ago.
There are some great dac deals around.

aliskhan. 
I would have to say a resounding YES.
The weak link of the vault and node is the DAC, any half way decent DAC is an improvement. 1000 to 1200 gets you in the very good DAC market in todays equipment.

OP
I had huge issues with the OPPO app on my phone doing exactly the same and eventually gave up with it.
The OPPO is used purely for movies now and I use the Bluesound vault2 as my dedicated streamer, no connection issues from the Bluos app.

I think by connectivity I would say the OP means the ethernet connection?
Vault 2 is easy as it is hard wired ONLY, no choice for wireless and so in all honesty zero dropouts as long as you have a premium fast internet service.
The node 2 gives you option of both wired and wireless I think.
Where possible I run all my components on wired connections so as to minimize any chance of dropout. From my main hub upstairs I ran hard wires down to two smaller hubs downstairs so I could feed everything by hard wire in both the HT room and my stereo room but that might have been overkill...lol.
Some have reported occasional dropouts on the node using wireless but I would think again it would be more down to your router than the node unit.

I do not think it is the toslink cable itself that is limited to 96, rather I think some early versions of the input and output sections were the limiting factor to 96.
However no digital expert here by far.
I have always used spdif output and that shows up on my dac as 24/96 because my dac does not support the full MQA unfolding which is the only way you would get 24/192 through a bluesound product or to use its own onboard dac and output via single ended analog outputs to your amp. But to my ears I found the sq to be inferior by far compared to a good outboard dac. 

Absolutely!
I have been streaming Tidal and Deezer via my Vault2 for about 18 months.
I learned very quickly the onboard DAC is the weakest link by far on the unit.
I have output by spdif to a number of integrated amps with onboard dac vastly superior and the sq was impressive.
However to get full MQA unfolding you do need to use the onboard Bluesound DAC or send the signal to a DAC that has full MQA capability.
Unfortunately none of the DAC I have used have been MQA capable so I have been limited to 24/96 even on MQA masters titles. But this is still a very impressive quality and is now my main listening medium.
Latest dac is an Esoteric d07.