What's a really great Streamer/DAC box for just streaming Tidal?

If you can stretch your budget a bit more I'd like to suggest a combination of: Bluesound Node 2i streamer ($500) + Chord Qutest DAC ($1,895). Caveat: you'll have 2 separate boxes but the bright side is that they're both quite small so minimal footprint. The Bluesound BluOS app is quite snappy and easy to navigate and the Chord Qutest is the bees knees. I think you would have to spend a whole lot more to best the performance of this combination however admittedly aesthetically speaking its not the best. Also, I realize the price of the combination is close to $2500 which can get you a  one-box solution as the Auralic Altair G1 but I doubt that its internal DAC will sound better than the Qutest (granted I have not heard the Altair G1 but have read glowing reviews). 

If your budget is fixed at $1500 I have a friend that is very happy with the Cambridge Audio CXN 2 but I haven't personally heard it yet (though I trust his ears) and as mentioned above the app leaves much to be desired.

Thanks, yeah the aesthetic is super important since it's in our main living space, hence the need for a one box solution. 

Chip the Chord is an excellent dac but the Blue Sound will not perform optimially with a superior dac that shoudl be run via USB especially for the higher sampling rates.

Interesting Rbsterno, we had the Auarlic Aries and found its sound quality to be very lacking. 

As per ethernet being better it depends on the dac and how you are feeding it. certain dacs will sound better via usb while others via ethernet.

Also using a standard computer to feed your streaming dac does not equil nirvanah, we have tested extensively standard computers running Roon on the network via ethernet and then playing the same feed from a dedicated server also via etherent and the server sounded far better. 

So the take away is that just because you are running via etherent doesn't mean you will get great sound.

Part of the reason the Lumin makes such sense is it is an optomized one box system no cable streamer directly feeding the dac. 

Our two recommendations for inexpensive streaming dacs are the Ifi Dsd and the Lumin D2 both are very hard to beat, be more than happy to compare the Ifi being feed by an Inuous Zen vs your PS any day of the week. 

The fact that this gentleman likes the sound of the Ifi headphone amp means he will also love the sound of the Ifi DSD which is just an incredible little dac/streamer, yes it is bit more however, the option of running cheaper dac, plus cable plus streamer won't be that much less expensive.

Rbsterno we carry a ton of dacs, Mytek, Lumin, Nad, Naim, Ifi, Lumin, Nuprime, Innuous servers and others. It is our speciality.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ 

Hi Dave/Troy,

May I ask why the Bluesound Node 2i will not perform optimally through USB? You would be bypassing the internal DAC (which sounds decent) of the Node 2i to the better Qutest DAC. Provided you have a really good USB Cable (iFi Gemini, Audioquest or Curious) going into the Qutest I don't see why the combination would not work as well as suggested. 

The blue sound nodes usb connection is for memory sticks input only.