New streamer? N150 vs U2

@rockrider thank you for that link!

@leorousseau best way for decent higher resolution jazz on BlueSound is to program in a custom URL on TuneIn custom stations using JazzRadio Premium. That way you can get 320k mp3 streams. I use these streams for music discovery and there’s a direct link in BluOS from TuneIn to the album or artist on Qobuz and Tidal.

Decision made. I pulled the wallet-trigger on an Aurender N150. I’ll investigate DACs and decide whether to upgrade that after I evaluate the N150 on the Chord Qutest DAC. 
 

@marco1 did you find that a specific USB output on the N150 sounds best?  Any other advice is also appreciated!

@txp1. Congrats I think you'll be very happy.  The 150 is at my vacation house so I'm doing this from memory but you'll use the vertical USB port.  The other USB ports are for data (outside drives, etc.)  My initial suggestion after the unit breaks in, which you can use a printer cable for, would be to use a good USB cable.  I tried 3 different cables but ended up with the Cardas high speed cable. Whatever you try, give the cable ample time to break in as you will hear subtle changes for the first 100 hrs or so.  Differences in the cables will also be subtle.  I happened to like the Cardas as it seemed to smooth things out a little more than the others particularly with the Qutest, without loosing any of the detail. 

@marco1 thanks!  I have an AQ Carbon currently on a Mac Mini that I can use. I may change to something else. I heard cable differences using different digital coax  cables on the Node 2i.  I had a AQ Carbon digital coax and much later bought a Nordost Silver Shadow. 25 hours for barely decent listening burn-in, 80 hours for bass to improve. It’s a silver clad cable.  It’s better than the AQ Carbon!

I tried the Carbon coax and liked Cardas more.  But then I'm a Cardas guy :-)  i've used Nordost as well but didn't care for it.  Pretty much the opposite of Cardas.