Like many of you, I felt I needed to bite the bullet and find an alternate way to access Tidal as Oppo is not likely to update its 2015 iOS app. I noticed several posts re the Node 2i, so here’s my experience.
I recently purchased the Node 2i after reading some favorable reviews. It does have a nice iOS app and is very easy to use. I tried it via its own DAC into my amp, as well as sending its digital output via both optical and coax to the Oppo DAC. The sound was always disappointing compared with Tidal directly via Oppo, even though MQA playback was a bit better than 44.1.
After a few days it went back.
I now have the Pro-Ject Digital Pre S2 DAC. This tiny box is really impressive. I am now playing the Tidal app via my MacBook Pro fed via USB into the S2. The sound on standard 44.1 files is excellent. MQA seems a mixed bag. I find older material (John Coltrane) isn’t really helped much but some new jazz and classical (what I mostly listen to) material is really impressive. DGG’s Beethoven violin concerto with the Munich Philharmonic, and Vijay Iyer’s Its Far From Over were good examples.
The Project box has a more detailed sound with darker backgrounds than the Oppo. It’s good enough that I am torn on whether it sounds better than the Oppo. Both let me close my eyes and suspend disbelief enough to be drawn into the music (despite being saddled with a computer on my lap as I listen with the S2). So for $500 I found a solution that suits me.
The system I listen through: NAD 375 BEE amp, Vandersteen 2 CE speakers, one Vandersteen 2WQ sub.