Suggestions for a top flight streamer/Dac around the $2000 mark?

Decided to go with an Aurender N100H for now.
Hopefully will be a good move.
Thanks to all for their useful and helpful suggestions

@uberwaltz,

Congratulations on your purchase of N100 and QB9. You’re in for a very nice treat. Did your N100 came with MQA upgrade?
Enjoy!

Lalitk.

I am not sure on mqa but I really only stream Qobuz now so not truly a consideration for my purchase.
But I will find out definitely.

Well this is another fine mess indeed. Lol.

While waiting for the N100h to arrive I picked up a Bryston bdp-pi and had been using that through a very cheap simple meridian explorer 2 USB DAC.

Set up the n100h today and hmmm, what's the fuss about?

The Bryston bdp-pi sounds a lot better to my ears. A lot more bass and body.

Now the only big difference I can see is the USB cable.
Because the meridian DAC us s a mini USB b port that has a different cable, a WireWorld Starlight 7.

The n100h into qb9 regular USB cable which is just a Pangea one costing about $50.

Could it just be the cable or?

Next I am going to try the n100h through the meridian.
Which only has a 3.5mm output so using a Audioquest adapter to twin RCA.
Really should be a lot worse than qb9 via XLR cables!

Perplexing.

Think I just answered my own question.
Found an old Straightwire usb cable and swapped that it and a fair bit of difference.

So I guess the next question is what usb cable can anybody recommend that is not going to break the bank!