Next Best Upgrade for Tidal MQA?

Here are preamp, streamer and dac to check out or read up on. Someone mentioned the Schmitt Freya which runs 6sn7 tubes is a great suggestion. Also mentioned was PS Audio. I owned a PS audio PCA-2 preamp with outboard power supply and thought it sounded better than many tube amps I've owned including BAT, Bruce Moore, Audio Research plus others. I think the ps audio stuff sounds like tubes it is a little colored in a good way. For a dac check out chord qutest, RME adi2, Orchid, Denafrips, Musical paradise. Streamer an old Auralic Aries mini or Aries or lumin mini would all be nice. If you going to spend your hard earned money take your time.

It seems to me the weak link in your system is the BluSound Node.  I would look into a new server/streamer.  Innuous Zen or Zenith will be a significant upgrade over the Node.  After that you can consider a DAC upgrade but the DAC you have now is very good so I would start with the server and go from there.  Other components also seem decent.  Good luck!

@richdirector  I have it connected via optical right now and the passthrough is enabled so that the internal DAC in the Node 2i is bypassed.  My MyTek Liberty DAC is MQA-certified.  Regardless, I have read elsewhere that the Note 2i will still only pass through at 96khz.

@paulcreed   Thanks for the suggestions.

@snackeyp  Thanks for the suggestions, although I struggle to believe that the streamer is the single, next-best, upgrade versus the Pre-amp.  As of now, all the Node 2i does is act as a digital source, it is not doing the digital-to-analog conversion.  

@bruxesq Don't rule out the streamer.  The quality of the source with digital is huge.  The DAC is also hugely important.  Cheers

@snackeyp thanks for the input!