Node 3 or Better Streamer

noticeable but not WOW

For that budget, I'd stick with the Node 3 and upgrade the power supply from PDcreative. I've found you have to spend at least double or triple that to potentially get a noticeable improvement.

Or you can combine the classifieds and find a deal on a much better streamer at a discount versus retail.

FWIW I did in home A/B test of Lumin D2 vs. my Node.  I wanted it to be better and maybe it marginally was....but the UI killed any sense of wanting to live with that.  

If you are using the DAC in the Node, then spending the extra $1K on a different unit won’t get you much farther. In this case I would agree with the above of improving the power supply. There are many solutions that drive better SQ than the Node, but the cost of entry to easily surpass is likely about $3-4K. 

Plus upgrading the power supply makes the biggest difference if you're using the internal DAC. If you're using an external DAC, the upgrade has a smaller effect at least in my experience.

I have heard, although with no experience, the ifi Zen Stream has better SQ than the Node. You have to have a dac as Zen Stream is a streamer only. Priced at $399.