Chorus,
I have three streamers in different systems and have been able to do direct comparisons of each. I have the Bluesound Node 2i, and Aurender N100H, and and Auralic Aries G2. The Aurender is audibly better than the Node 2i and the G2 is audibly better than the Aurender. They are priced accordingly as well. There are other users in these forums who have gone much farther upstream in performance (and price) than I have and report additional gains in performance. And, having read their various posts on these forums, it would appear there’s general agreement that that the server/streamer is at least as important as the DAC. Happy shopping and let us know what you decide.