new to streaming- help!

Margot, I would start by taking Wi-Fi out of the equation. If you plug both the Node and your MacBook into Ethernet, can you see the Node when you run the Bluesound app on your MacBook?

soix - I have space constraints where adding another device will be challenging in my AV rack. I'm sure a dedicated streamer would sound better than my outdated PC. I just have nowhere to put an additional piece of audio equipment. Not sure what part of my post you are calling into question. Sometimes I make audio decisions not solely based on sound but based also on constraints in my listening space and budget. 

@motown-l My deepest apologies — I misread your post.  The WiiM Pro gets decent reviews for sound and is pretty small (5.5” square x 1.6”h).  FWIW.

As you can see from this thread the standard opinion is that PCs are not good for streaming. My experience has been different. I have an ASUS gaming laptop hooked up to my DAC with a USB cable (I'm using Qobuz). I have compared several CDs to their streamed counterparts through the same DAC and found that there is no detectable difference in their sound. It turns out that most people have not tried this themselves - they just repeat the conventional wisdom that you have to have a streamer to get good sound. Never mind that this "wisdom" is perpetrated by an industry that wants to sell you streamers.

If the streamed content through a computer sounds just as good as the CD then my position is that is as good as it gets. It's unreasonable to assume that you will get better sound from streaming after the WAV file is broken into packets, sent over thousands miles of wire and dozens of routers, reassembled into a streamed file, and run through another piece of digital gear as opposed to the simplicity of spinning a CD - a mature technology that the industry has had decades to perfect..

Before you do back flips and spend tons of money on a streamer I strongly suggest that you compare streaming from your iMac to a few CDs and see if you can hear the difference. If the computer sounds inferior then by all means get a dedicated streamer. But I think there's a pretty good chance that it will sound the same as the CD and you can be comfortable that your simple solution is just fine.

BTW, I do think that whatever you use for streaming, you should hook it up to the router with an ethernet cable instead of using wifi. I have 100 gig fiber and the wifi occasionally had dropouts so now I use an ethernet cable.

OP,

Keep at it, for the average person even an entry level dedicated streamer will best a computer based system.....though some techie types have figured out how to do it well. The BlueSound OS is excellent, and the Node X is a talented streamer. Yes if you can, go directly into the Node with an ethernet connection.....others can help if an extender or mesh system is helpful.