The Draco is an excellent DAC, especially for the price (I own the Pegasus, and according to the review on soundnews.net the Draco comes really close in performance). If it’s still under warranty get it fixed/replaced and focus on upgrading your steamer. I’d look at buying something used that’s much better than the Node (Lumin, Aurender, Innuos, etc.). While the Node gets the job done it just doesn’t suppress noise near the level of better streamers, and noise suppression is one of the key aspects of getting better streaming performance. And I’d definitely avoid combo units as both DAC and streaming tech are improving so quickly it would be better to be able to upgrade those separately when needed/desired. FWIW, and best of luck.
Upgrade Internal DAC of Node or go with Atoll ST120.
Looking at upgrading to a external DAC for my Bluesound Node or picking up a all in one streamer/dac like the Atoll MS120 or ST200 or another brand all together. My price for all in one would be around $1500 and DAC only would be $1000. I stream via Qobuz. Big question would be what option between these two would sound best.
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I would listen to @sfar regarding, as you already know, how great the Bluesound software is. Adding an external DAC is simple and made my Node Sing. There is the CD Creative board that can easily be switched into your Node but you will then need to buy a linear power supply, which all basically comes in around the same price as the Node itself. |
The blue sound node is very low quality,it’s fine if audio quality is an afterthought rule of thumb 25% on average goes into a product including packaging the rest overhead and markup meaning $125 , buy a $950 Denafrips aries2 dac even run through a computer ,night and day better sound ,my nephew had one at college it’s ok for streaming at a beginner level , I just use a purpose built computer for music and external dac , and for Ethernet a Uptone audio Ether regen it truly cleans up the digital incoming signal after the router at the end point , for usb a nice little ad on is usb perfect the usb cable plugs into. buya quality usb cable and ethernet cable , if on a budget a excellent model for both cables is, the Wireworld star light . I have been just working my way up in streaming ,,I am trying to buy the Denafrips Terminator + it’s excellent dac my personal favorite in its price class $6400, it competes with anything even at $10 k an-easy recommendation ! |
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