If someone handed you this system, what would you change?

Two thoughts from my point of view

1.  Recognize the feeling of desire to spend money - it can be something you continue to save.

2.  My transition from a good system to listen to music to to a system I made time to listen to started with a new pre-amp.  I can honestly say I don't understand why it made so much of an impact - but it increased my music enjoyment.

Enjoy the process!

I feel a hole burning in my pocket for the next upgrade if needed. What do ya think

I think this is the crux of the issue. There are so many people willing to spend more and more money seeking that "perfect" sound that doesn't exist. Reading about new stuff, seeing glossy pictures and reading flowery words and we succumb to the temptation. Well, I realized a while back, that's a losing proposition. You'll NEVER get as much for your previous stuff as you paid for it unless you've got something that is vintage and rare so you spend even more get less. Certainly not sound financially and likely not much, if any, improvement. But hey, it's your money, spend it like you want, but until you (generally) decide you've had enough and realize there's no end, you'll always be looking for the next great thing.

As ghdprentice said, room treatment. The room is the biggest part of the sound. Secondly, get hold of a power regenerator. NOT a conditioner. This will take care of any money burning a hole in your pocket, and will make every item you have already purchased stand up and be noticed. I have a basic psaudio one, but they have 3 options, I think.

Enjoy.

Hard to give a quick answer.  My first thought was to replace both the older Node and Deezer, but then my thoughts went to “Are you using the DAC in the Node? I have the newer N130 and it really sounded okay until I hooked up an external DAC. The difference between the $3 DAC chip that is part of a Swiss Army knife and a single purpose DAC made an amazing difference for me.

All the best.

I am using the external DAC that is in my Mini DSP device that gives me Dirac Live. My source is lossless streaming FLAC files from Deezer HIFI. One thing I can tell you is that when I switch in and out of what Dirac Live did to room corection;  it is noticable to anyone that sits in my sweet spot. I do not have the luxury of lots of different speaker placements. They sound great at about 7 feet apart, toed in, with listening position at 11 feet. Only inches to play with on speaker placement, not feet. (19 inches from wall)