What's a really great Streamer/DAC box for just streaming Tidal?

Dhcod, you really need to upgrade your budget a bit, You have great equipment and even used at $1,500.00 you are not going to find many streaming dacs that are good enough to match your system.

You should look at a Lumin D2 which is a great streamer for the money.

You should also look at the Ifi DSD pro which offers a similar sound to the little Ifi headphone amp, this is a tube coupled dac which employs some radical technology. Very musical huge soundstage.

We sell both of these dac streamers if you need more information please PM us.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ IFI and Lumin dealers

the issue big greg is that the Blue Sound Node is a decent steamer but it is hardly the end all and be all in streaming and it doesn't output anything higher than 24/192k and no DSD files  to a dac.

The Lumin D2 is a standout because it does high res and can actually upconvert or transocde PCM into DSD.

If you buy a $1,000 dac a good digital cable and a Node you are very close to the price of a Lumin D2 which will sound better

The blue sound nodes usb connection is for memory sticks input only.

Chip the Chord is an excellent dac but the Blue Sound will not perform optimially with a superior dac that shoudl be run via USB especially for the higher sampling rates.

Interesting Rbsterno, we had the Auarlic Aries and found its sound quality to be very lacking. 

As per ethernet being better it depends on the dac and how you are feeding it. certain dacs will sound better via usb while others via ethernet.

Also using a standard computer to feed your streaming dac does not equil nirvanah, we have tested extensively standard computers running Roon on the network via ethernet and then playing the same feed from a dedicated server also via etherent and the server sounded far better. 

So the take away is that just because you are running via etherent doesn't mean you will get great sound.

Part of the reason the Lumin makes such sense is it is an optomized one box system no cable streamer directly feeding the dac. 

Our two recommendations for inexpensive streaming dacs are the Ifi Dsd and the Lumin D2 both are very hard to beat, be more than happy to compare the Ifi being feed by an Inuous Zen vs your PS any day of the week. 

The fact that this gentleman likes the sound of the Ifi headphone amp means he will also love the sound of the Ifi DSD which is just an incredible little dac/streamer, yes it is bit more however, the option of running cheaper dac, plus cable plus streamer won't be that much less expensive.

Rbsterno we carry a ton of dacs, Mytek, Lumin, Nad, Naim, Ifi, Lumin, Nuprime, Innuous servers and others. It is our speciality.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ 

chip if you really want to experience what your Chord can do, listen to an Innuous Zen you can upconvert PCM files to approximate high res and accomplish much what the Mscaler can do and you get a Roon core to boot.

The quality of the signnal being feed to the dac makes a huge difference. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Innuous dealers