Streamer only

ifi makes a streamer that is in the $300 range that’s excellent, and will give you enough of a savings to purchase a nice ethernet cable and or usb cable to round out a really high performing unit for very little money. I have one mated with their dac in one of my vintage systems and I’m astounded by it’s performance for the money. IMO it out performs the Node. Hope this helps.  

Ifi steamers sound great when they work….

I can vouch for the Project Stream Box S2 Ultra.

A very good streamer, reasonably priced, that performs above its price point.

I'm looking at upgrading in the future, but will have to spend more than double the cost for a reasonable improvement.

Why are we trying to put bias ply tires on a Ferrari? You have good equipment don’t let your fear of the unknown prevent you from wasting your money. Save your nickels and get a quality streamer. I am a INNUOS fanboy but The aurender crowd is popular here too. 

@benanders , my laptop is about 5 years old, I bought it specifically to drive my Schiit Yggdrasil as it used SSD instead of a disk drive and I used it solely with battery power. I was stunned by the increase in low level information, especially allowing me to hear overtones and spatial information. I essentially parked my turntable after getting the Aurender. I must say that the result was exactly as my dealer predicted- Jeff Fox, owner of Command Performance, and Jon Archer had both told me about their own extensive journeys trying to make commercial computers into streamers, with Jon having worked extensively souping up a Mac Mini (my original attempt as well).

As they both predicted, the Aurender was astonishingly better!