Moving up from a Node 2i

Right, the consensus is the Node 2i is the perfect $500 device. I had a basic Emotiva XDA-2 and had been focused on upgrading speakers and amps. Once that was done, I was in a dilemma into how much more would be needed to show notable performance over the Node. The answer seemed to be more like $1,500+. Wanting to stick to the $1,000 range I found a used Lumin D1. Wow, that is very much a sweet spot of performance value. 

I almost bought a Lumin D2. But I was afraid the on board DAC would not be the equal of my Pagoda.

Oz

I found a Bryston Pi for ~$600. Took a few weeks to get it up and running, had to get a new OS snail mailed from Bryston. Manic Moose interface is spartan compared to my Sonos. iPad Safari is particularly annoying.  Nice not to have another app to deal with.  I am comparing it to various digital sources now (Wyred for Sound mod’s Sonos, iPad streaming 16/44 radio). So far I really like it. The big knock for me is the Radio Paradise app that plays FLAC does not work and it only appears to stream Tidal and Qobuz. Prolly find another place to use the old Sonos zone player until Sonos kills it with a software update. Use my iPad to stream Radio Paradise FLAC. Use the Pi to stream Qobuz and play Higher Rez file purchases.

A little late to the party but thought I would mention that I went from a Node 2 to the Cambridge CXN v2 and found it to be a solid upgrade. The Node was always a little flaky but the CN has been rock solid. The onboard DAC performs well and the unit supports running things balanced which is a nice bonus. 

Running a Node 2 here for close to a year. Mine has never been 'flaky'. I'm specifically posting this in response to the previous poster who reported his was 'flaky'. I do not use the built-in DAC and have always used coax digital to an external DAC.

The Bluesound app is another issue altogether. On Mac the latest version as of the date of this post wouldn't load all my favorite albums so I had to revert back to an older version. The app uses a ridiculous amount of CPU on Mac and Windows which I'm guessing is due to the constant polling of the device. The iOS app also has a bug where it flips back to albums at the exact same spot (albums starting with C) so even if I've already scrolled down to albums that begin with with a letter further down in the alphabet, upon going 'back' through the UI the app has to reload all albums further down in the list alphabetically instead of returning to the exact same place of the album I had selected to view the tracks of.

However these are minor bugs that I can deal with as other streamers lack the ability to stream as many internet sources, or they have ridiculously high price tags.