Which DAC is better?

Hello,
That is totally true about the room acoustics. When I did the tests I was doing near field listening to try to take the room out of it. Also, to give those DACs a chance I worked up to $1k worth of cables on the separate DACs and kept the BlueSound stock using a modest $100 stereo RCA cables. I have listened to the BlueSound Node 2i on several expensive DACs all the way up to $14k. It sounded awesome and they did not support MQA. The one that I thought sounded the best was the Ayre QX-8. It sounded the most real to me. This is still a $5k DAC but it kept up with and surpassed much more expensive DACs. I wonder if you upgrade to a linear power supply would it surpass a $700 DAC? Since the new NODE might have USB out I would rather upgrade to a NODE and the LPS in it since it would require a different power supply model. 

Best investment i did in almost 60 years was buying a measuring mic for less than 100,- euro. I’m using Mathaudio room EQ for free with foobar2000. The results are astouding.
Have a look here under at my room measurments Grey Curve. I can assure you that any Gear like cabels DAC’s etc etc will not compensate that by far not coming close. Roomcorrection (the horizontal White Line) will be the best solution that will creat a level playing field. .
https://i.imgur.com/T0I1hrT.jpg

Glad I came across this discussion.  Have a Bluesound Node 2i going into an NAD C388 analog RCA with Mogami cable as recommended by the dealer.  After reading this thread I plugged an old monster cable between digital coax in and out then flipped back and forth.  Definitely like the digital connection better.  It seems sharper and even louder.  Guess it might be the same with the Hint.  I was actually looking at that integrated amp originally.  Now thinking about a Pass amp but likely wait.  This little tweak will buy me some time before I become discontent with my system again.

You are splitting hairs and spending a lot of money over DACs, when you are actually hearing the pre-/post-filter.  Unless the DAC is really bad.

Try swapping that (if possible) and hear the true difference.

Cheers. 

Between those two options, Hint 6 DAC would be a lot better, Bluesound Node 2 is a very cheaply made product and going through default RCA just degrades the sound even further. Much better to transport digital signal over a quality cable into the Hint 6 DAC. If you don't want to spend money on a decent cable, use optical.