@rabbottmke
you have gotten plenty of input here...
i would only add one more thing - you said this:
your node 2i internal dac may be more evolved than the one in the marantz avr but as dacs go, that internal node 2i dac is not very good -- the sound is tuned to be innocuous and smooth (grey sounding) at the expense of clarity (dynamics/prat, resolution/extension, air) - so if sound quality improvement is your only priority, you should get a $1500-2000 proper hifi linestage and a $700-1000 outboard dac, and use the node 2i to feed the dac a bitstream
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/spend-on-the-streamer-or-on-the-dac?page=3
you have gotten plenty of input here...
i would only add one more thing - you said this:
The AVR does NOT have a good DAC, as I understand it. The Bluesound has a much more evolved DAC, so I’m running unbalanced line out (relying on the Bluesound DAC) with some "TIMBRE" series Kimber interconnects.
your node 2i internal dac may be more evolved than the one in the marantz avr but as dacs go, that internal node 2i dac is not very good -- the sound is tuned to be innocuous and smooth (grey sounding) at the expense of clarity (dynamics/prat, resolution/extension, air) - so if sound quality improvement is your only priority, you should get a $1500-2000 proper hifi linestage and a $700-1000 outboard dac, and use the node 2i to feed the dac a bitstream
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/spend-on-the-streamer-or-on-the-dac?page=3