spend on the streamer or on the DAC ?

+1, mgrif104.

Node 2i is and will be a average sounding device even with an upgraded DAC. A good streamer (check out Lumin, Aurender, Innuos) and a separate DAC will be a solid investment if you’re serious about exploiting the true potential of high resolution streaming available through Qobuz.

Both Lumin and Aurender also offers streamer with built in DAC within your budget.

I've found that both the streamer and DAC are of almost equal importance when streaming music. I moved from Node 2i to Sonore opticalRendu streamer in my 2 channel system and the improvement in SQ went above and beyond my expectations. At least in my case, the biggest impact was a noticeable reduction in the noise floor.

i agree with other posters on the importance of figuring this out for yourself, in your house, using your network or wifi internet signal-feeding setup

i disagree with others saying there is a significant SQ improvement going from a BS Node 2i as a streamer (digital out only) to more expensive streamers (I have tried Innuos, Brooklyn, Auralic) -- at least that was contrary to my experience

in my experience... using the Node 2i as the base case, the DAC upgrade rates a 7-8 (10 scale) on its impact on SQ, whereas a digital streamer change rates 1-2

my house my system my ears my internet connection

to op ... you have node 2, not 2i... i am not clear on the sq upgrade involved there, either in its streamer or dac sections

“in my experience... using the Node 2i as the base case, the DAC upgrade rates a 7-8 (10 scale) on its impact on SQ, whereas a digital streamer change rates 1-2.”

@jjss49,

To put things in perspective, would you please share which model did you try from Innuos, Brooklyn, Auralic? And what DAC you were using?

IME, going from Vault 2i to Aurender N100H was quite a leap in streamer performance. I was using Modwright Elyse DAC at that time.

I think this depends a lot on the DAC and how it is connected to the streamer. The Node 2i, for example, only has SPDIF and TOSLINK outputs. A DAC that derives its sample clock from these digital inputs will have SQ much more influenced by the quality of the streamer.

If you are using a DAC that buffers the data and generates it's own internal clock, then the SQ will be less impacted by the streamer. That's not to say there won't be a difference, but I think the differences will be more subtle.

For example, I noticed a bigger difference between my Node 2i and my Bryston BDP-2 streamers which using the Yggdrasil (SPDIF from the Node 2i, AES3 from the Bryston) than using my Denafrips Terminator DAC using the same input connectors. The Terminator buffers and reclocks the data using its internal clock and is much less sensitive to which input is being used (including USB).