Setting up a streamer for a frien

Honestly, you’re not doing any favors by suggesting Node 2, which will end up in a huge disappointment for your friend. He is bound to compare his high quality CD playback with Node 2 and guess what….

“My friend compared streaming with CD and streaming sucks.”

For his system, a Esoteric dedicated streamer like N-05 or N-03T is more in line and going to give comparable streaming performance with his existing CD player.

Regarding the previous post.    "...Honestly, you’re not doing any favors by suggesting Node 2, which will end up in a huge disappointment for your friend...."

Respectfully, I strongly disagree.

Put a decent DAC in front of it...and you’ll have as good or better sound than other stand-alones.

It’s weird the way people compare a $500 Streamer to multi thousand dollar ones and seem surprised or disappointed in the budget unit.

Using a cheap streamer and good DAC seems to make much more sense to me...

My node 2i and Qobuz has been life-changing for me... seriously...have never enjoyed so much different music at my fingertips.

But...your money ...your ears...

^^^Do you own a Esoteric CD Player and Integrated?

It’s all comes down to your expectations and point of reference. For some people, a system with Node 2 or Raspberry Pi & Topping DAC is more than adequate :-) 

What’s CD player? 😉

Re. Expectations, point of ref... Agree 100%

But the OP mentioned a DAC budget of $1000... You can get a hell of a DAC these days for that money... especially used.

I’ll posit that a $500 Blue sound and a carefully chosen $1000 DAC can keep pace with ANY higher end Streamer.

Bryston BDP-2 on here for $1.5 K.  That be better SQ than the Node2.  Could work if CD player has SPDIF  input.  Manic Moose interface is spartan but works with Qobuz and Tidal and various radio stations that stream Redbook quality.