@fthompson251 I am an Aurender dealer, but audiophile first, so take this with a grain of salt. I used to own a Modwright-modded CXN V2, the one with a tube stage, in a second system. While the upgraded DAC section was quite good, the streamer was quite lackluster. I once put it into my primary system a few years back, where I had a NAD M50.2 dedicated server/streamer going into the the CXN. The NAD did a good job of cleaning up the sound. I've since become an Aurender dealer and moved away from the NAD. In September, I had a customer come by with his Modwright CXN V2, and he asked me to connect an Aurender N200 into it. I did so, and the difference was outstanding - much higher than the older M50.2 I had hooked up a year or so prior. It only took about 10-20 seconds of listening for the customer to tell me he was sold on the N200.
I was in a similar dilemma as you when I had the NAD M50.2 hooked up to a PS Audio DirectStream DAC. Both were good components, but I was missing something, so I went on a DAC hunt. I moved through a number of DACs, including a Lampizator Baltic 3 with over $1K of tubes, but ended up returning it. When I decided down the other path and added an Aurender to the chain, it made a much bigger difference than continuing to upgrade my DAC.
The CXN is absolutely the weak link of the two. Feel free to contact me directly if you'd like to talk about the N200 or any other products Aurender has to offer.