How much would I lose going to a Bluesound Node 2i


I'm considering going a much simpler route for digital. I play to a lot of vinyl on my Lenco TT and Era V phonostage, and so digital comprises 30-40% of what we typically listen to. My current setup is running Roon on a Synology NAS that connects wirelessly to an Auralic Aries LE, then connected to connected to my Metrum Octave DAC via Curious USB Cable and Audiophillio 2. That's a lot of links in the chain, thus the desire to simplify with a single box solution if I can.

I have really enjoyed what I've heard from MQA so far, even though I'm not getting all the goodness yet. My Aries will decode MQA but my Metrum Octave does not support MQA, so I'm not getting the full monty. I am using ROON DSP to convert streams to 96kHz and 176kHz when possible. 192kHz is not supported on the Octave.
It's my understanding that the Bluesound will provide Full Decoder support for MQA and that the internal DAC punches well above its weight, especially compared to the Node 2. So my question is whether I should expect MQA to sound better on the Bluesound than it does on my current setup, and how much Redbook will sound degraded, if at all.

I'm tempted to buy a Node 2i to compare for myself but before I do, I thought I would garner some opinions here.
Thanks!
smccull

Showing 2 responses by gdnrbob

+1 Mahler.
I think MQA is just another gimmick to make us buy an unnecessary product. A well recorded high rez recording holds up against MQA.
As others have said the Node DAC is good, but at least you can bypass it to a DAC of you own choice.
I use an Ayre Codex and have nothing bad to say about this combination.
@rbstehno ,
I am one of the MQA doubters. And, no my equipment is not outdated.
I just don't see any reason to buy into another patented codex (like Dolby), and give them my money when a high rez output will give me just what was recorded. I don't want something re-engineered, I want what the artist and recording engineer made. 
B