Got a Node 2i, what's next?

@vinylzone .... that’s very easily accomplished. If you have reached the point where your audio resolution is detailed enough to reveal the difference between interconnects and you want to put some time and effort in you will probably find your home brew is far from the best. If you are using the Node without an outboard DAC you have every right to a headache. Get a decent streamer, on a decent power cord, with a top tier DAC on appropriately auditioned digital cable and you may find your vinyl gives you a comparative headache.
It’s easy.. do cheap bottom tier digital and you get cheap bottom tier digital sound. No surprises there. FWIW, I’ve sold my share of cables that didn’t work very well on eBay. That doesn’t mean I make good or great cables.
As far as a DAC goes....   I'm using a Benchmark DAC 3b .. Stereophile A+ recommended component being fed by both a Cambridge CXNv2 streamer and the digital output of a Sony SA 5400Es .CD/SACD player.  I stream Qobuzz hi-rez and Tidal hi-fi as well as having access to Amazon Prime Music and Spotify, and my own complete CD collection via Chromecast..... and that is all at the tap of an app without ever leaving my chair.
As far as your vinyl..  you are comparing your vinyl playback system to a $500 digital instrument on home brew cables.  Somehow I think you have waaay more than $500 in your vinyl system, maybe way more in just the cartridge, without arm, without table.  You are totally restricted in what you can listen to by the medium you have chosen. For the cost of 5 or 6 records a year you can have access to almost anything in or out of print.... millions and millions, unrestricted.

I was really surprised how dacs respond to better feet. If you want to try to squeeze a little more resolution out of your node give it a try. I know my CD player benefits due to the transport but had no idea how big of an improvement some fairly cheap footers could do. I had some old Golden Sound jumbo's and some black diamond racing cones laying around in a box so I gave it a shot. Not a small improvement either, very noticeable as soon as I hit play. 

@midareff, 
Nice observation. 
Particularly, 

'It’s easy.. do cheap bottom tier digital and you get cheap bottom tier digital sound. No surprises there.'
Charles 

@midareff

  @vinylzone .... that’s very easily accomplished. If you have reached the point where your audio resolution is detailed enough to reveal the difference between interconnects and you want to put some time and effort in you will probably find your home brew is far from the best.

Again I'm not looking for world beating digital right now.  And yes, I don't have anything in my system that cost me less than $500 except some accessories.  

I've had systems that easily reveal differences in cables for the past 40 or so years.  That's why I make my own.  Not that I've tried thousands of cables, but I've compared them to some very costly cables, and what I've found is that either some very expensive cables are meant to fix problems with certain components or system sonics, or they're really very good and but extremely overpriced.

I use some of the best copper and connectors available, and I use an interesting geometry I stumbled onto around 30 years ago.  I also built my own cable conditioner device.  They measure 73pF per meter and take me about 8 hours per meter pair to construct.

So yeah, you can spend thousands on a cable that works well in your system.  I don't have to.