Bluesound installed DAC - music killer?

Also upgraded a BlueSound Node 2i with a Chord Qutest (paired with a PrimaLuna Prologue Premium Integrated and Unison Research Max-2 speakers).  Compared this combo in my listening room with the $3500 Naim ND5 XS2 streamer and couldn't tell any significant difference if any at all.  Super happy with my choice.  Also agree that the Node 2i is great bang for the buck.  Enjoying the music!

The streamer in the bluesound is not that great either.  If you budget is up to it, looking into a comparable streamer with you your chord dac will bring more dynamics, openness, clarity...

I am looking at streamers.  Ideas?  Live and learn.  Not sure a stand alone streamer will impact sound that much vs existing bluesound node 2i.  

I’m fairly new to streaming as well. So I have the blue sound node 2i. At first it was hooked up to a new preamp via unbalanced rca’s and streaming over WiFi. It sounded good, not great, and not magical like I expected. So next I invested in connecting via a hard wire, and did so using a fiber optic bridge between it and the router. Big improvement! I then realized I wasn’t using the Vincent sa-t7’s onboard dac. Gotta nice 75 ohm digital coax cable and connected it to my preamp dac. Now I have the magic in spades. Took awhile and some education to get there but it’s worth it!

larry5729

"I really think the Bluesound Node 2i sounds great. I tried adding a DAC, but lost Tidal MQA and the Bluesound playing MQA sounded better. When adding the DAC the bass frequencies fell off and it sounded thin. I wonder if Bluesound increased the price to $3,000 if more audiophiles would buy more of them. Spending more doesn't necessarily sound better. Wonder how many have done a blind test. I can see it if the system is priced out at $100,000"

Wow...