The Draco is an excellent DAC, especially for the price (I own the Pegasus, and according to the review on soundnews.net the Draco comes really close in performance). If it’s still under warranty get it fixed/replaced and focus on upgrading your steamer. I’d look at buying something used that’s much better than the Node (Lumin, Aurender, Innuos, etc.). While the Node gets the job done it just doesn’t suppress noise near the level of better streamers, and noise suppression is one of the key aspects of getting better streaming performance. And I’d definitely avoid combo units as both DAC and streaming tech are improving so quickly it would be better to be able to upgrade those separately when needed/desired. FWIW, and best of luck.
Upgrade Internal DAC of Node or go with Atoll ST120.
Looking at upgrading to a external DAC for my Bluesound Node or picking up a all in one streamer/dac like the Atoll MS120 or ST200 or another brand all together. My price for all in one would be around $1500 and DAC only would be $1000. I stream via Qobuz. Big question would be what option between these two would sound best.