I bought a NODE 2021 a few weeks ago and ran it in for about 100 hours, connected to a Jolida Glass FX tube DAC via either a coaxial or toslink cable. SQ was disappointing at best. I experimented with the settings, until I ultimately arrived at what @christianb5s4 found to work best in his system:
"I had tone control off, subwoofer off, fixed output, MQA external on."
After over 100 hours I gave up and put the NODE away, thinking I’d return it to the dealer and trade up.
Today, about a week later, on a whim, I put the NODE back into my system and was very pleasantly surprised at how much better the unit sounded. I have no idea why because I made no other changes in my kit.
So the takeaway for me is that "for the money" the BS NODE is an excellent investment. The app works great on my MacBook Air, and the NODE is clearly (no pun) better than using the Mac into the DAC.
Plus a big fringe benefit is that I got rid of a long USB cable which was awkward and unsightly. I may upgrade eventually- Lumin, Aurender, Gold Note, Naim, etc, but for now I’m quite pleased.
Hope this helps.