Thinking of taking the plunge.

@reubent  .. +2

Spot on. Great place to start. Unless you know your gonna love streaming (you are by the way) then cheap and quick intro and your hooked. Then, spend some months reading (while listening to ANYTHING &EVERYTHING) and a little educating, and then you will spend your $2000 with confedence. The Node 2i is a great option. So to the  Audiolab 6000N. Both sell like hot cakes, which means you see a lot of used (testing the waters streamers) for sale on Audio sites like this and others.

I agree Bluesound Node is the best bang for the buck. Simple, overall great app, Roon endpoint. The newest Node’s onboard DAC is better than the 2i’s was. You will get a bit better performance from Node running coax out to a DAC, but overall for the $ and ease of use, the Node is hard to beat.

Adasdad, the OP already said:

"I have a Wadia 26 DAC, no USB port. It is older technology but still sounds good fed by a transport. 2000.00 all in is the most I can afford"

I have to agree with the Bluesound recommendations. 

Good sound quality, stable and intuitive app and good, quick resale if you get the bug for an upgrade. An upgrade might get you slightly better sound but chances are it won't give you as good a UI or software.

You have a nice DAC, so you can use the Bluesound DAC or compare it to your present DAC...and go with whatever sounds best.

If you start with an iPad, use the digital out and go into Settings to select hi res.

‘The iFi zen streamer has a lot of fans and costs less than Bluesound.