Fairly new to streaming. Where to start?

@artemus_5   I did not compare the two side by side. I have been told told by a knowledgeable dealer that upgrading from the Yamaha to the 2i would not be worthwhile. I am am currently looking at the microrendu or ultrarendu as a cost  effective and modular approach to improving on the Yamaha. As an aside I just started a trial subscription with Qobuz after having been with Spotify for the past year and I am really impressed with the selection and sound quality and even more suprising is the quality of the metadata they offer about the recordings, history, composer, sidemen, producer, etc. It all struck me as very Roon-like without the cost of Roon.

A hearty good day and thanks for all the info. I am digesting it all at this time.  As you can see, I'm not an impulsive buyer. 

I have considered the WXC 50 Yamaha, Node 2 and now Aurender as a server. Probably after that, a R2R Dac, I know the Aurender is most expensive. And maybe I have to go some over my budget w/ the Aurender and MHDT Orchid Dac. This is not written in stone. Still may go with the Node2. But I've learned that in audio, everything counts. I learned that, when I begrudgingly paid $175 for a Oyaide Power outlet & it DID make a difference. Then when I tried pumice stones as footers for my CDP and it made a great difference in sound stage. I now discount very little. Anyway, that's where I'm at now. And again I thank you all.

@bicu                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Forgot to thank you for the link to Volumio  Looks interesting. One poster said the Boss sounded close to his Yiggy & Ambre server. I do believe in giant killers. you can look at my amp and see that. Yet believe they are the exception, not the rule as some like to think.

1) I have a Roon server with a couple of thousand CD tracks ripped to ALAC, vinyl tracks also ripped to ALAC, several albums worth of FLAC content from HDTracks, and a TIDAL subscription. For me, if I’ve got local digital copy, I listen to that (less impact on my internet feed). If I have a worn (albeit cleaned up) track on vinyl and it’s available on TIDAL, I listen to the TIDAL copy. So, the advantage I find is I can always find the cleanest copy somewhere. Disadvantage? If you’ve got limited internet bandwidth, you’ll get choppy/crappy  quality from your stream.2) Um, no.3) AFAIK TIDAL and Qobuz highest quality streams are pretty much equivalent; I don’t have SACD, but I would say that in comparing my HDTracks content to the equivalent content on TIDAL, HDTracks wins. And certainly playing CDs on my H/K HD990/HK990 combo is better than TIDAL. But it’s the AMOUNT of high quality content on TIDAL that is the compelling factor in getting a subscription.4) You need a box with computing power that will receive a streaming signal, and an RCA stereo cable to connect it to an AUX input on your amp/receiver. I use a Sonos Connect and feed the digital output to the DAC in my HK990, and it’s great.