A CD PLAYER whose sound quality NOT AFFECTED by the DAC?

2psyop-  if Tidal MQA sounds good, imagine how much better Qobuz would sound!

 I currently run BALANCED to the NODE, whose DAC has been better than most.

I've never heard of a Node with balanced inputs.

One person's experience regarding your question:  I recently swapped my system CD player from a Jolida to a Classe Audio CDP-102 CD Player.  The difference was of an order of magnitude.  Imaging was improved greatly.  The clarity and realism of the instruments was much greater.  I had recently installed a pair of Magnepan MG3r speakers replacing a very old and tired pair oa Maggy Tympany 1Ds which I had since new in 1975. Add a newly rebuild Nelson Pass Threshold 400 amp and a new preamp (CJ Premier) I was still not happy with the sound of the CDs.  I stream hi res via Bluos Node and the stream was better than the CDs.  Once I installed the Classe player, voila!  I had the sound I had hoped for from my CDs.  So my point is in answer to your question, I believe the Classe player to be significantly better in all its works than the Jolida (which is not a crappy unity).  My experience bore this out.

BTW, the stream of Hi-res Quobuz, Idagio and Tidal via my Bluos Node is superb. It is one of three sound sources:  CDs, Vinyl and Bluos stream.  It gives up nothing to the vinyl or CDs.

The Node2’s streamer is good and the interface is decent. When I went from the internal DAC to an MDHT Orchid (utilizes an output tube) improvements were across the board. The Node2’s DAC I characterize as a bit dull. It’s just ok