Jaw Dropping Improvement?


60-something, intermittent earner here (Read “mostly starving-artist with the rare, unexpected windfall here and there.”) who has just acquired a Bluesound Node 2i.  I’d be very interested to hear what external DAC, in your experience-and-opinion gave such a dramatic improvement in SQ over that of a stock Bluesound streaming device as to be jaw dropping...an absolute game changer.  Does such an animal exist for less than $2000 U.S. or are improvements at this price point more in the nature of subtleties?  Somewhere in between?  To be sure these things are subjective but your take on this would give me a running start on researching things here with a fairly tight budget being considered — If subtle-to-low/moderate level “tweaks” to SQ are all I can expect from, say, a Qutest or Gungnir Multibit, I’ll probably stay with just the streamer and be happy.

Thanks in advance.
lg1

Showing 1 response by denverfred

Happy Node2i user here. Lots of good notes in this discussion but I would highly recommend you insure that you’ve heard everything it can do. I was thinking about Chord and Shiit and all those but I wanted to give the Node2i a fighting chance. This thing is really good if you get rid of all the noise in your wiring.
1) Use Ethernet not WiFi and minimum AQ cables to start.
2) Upgrade the C7 cables on the Node2i, your router and anything else with a C7.3) Consider an Ethernet hub with re-clocking ability. THEN listen for 3 months and start shopping for an upgrade.