Bluesound Node 2i vs Upscale streamers

This topic reminds me of the great “transport debate” of 10/15 years ago.

Given the same DAC, would a $2k+ CD transport deliver meaningfully better SQ than a stock Oppo, a stock Sony or a used Pioneer Elite...?

those seeking incremental performance improvements would invariably say “yes”. Those with systems and/or ears not attuned to the difference would just shrug...”meh”....

the argument here is subjective.
what we would love to see/hear is objectivity in the debate.

otherwise, the juice may not be worth the squeeze.

Ozzy62 great topic, However my curiosity leans more toward a server having recently purchased a three piece digital stack with a streamer that is scheduled to be released soon. However I have second thoughts of purchasing a stand alone streamer ....

i understand the immense convenience at your finger tip streaming music and if someone told me 30 years ago something like this would be part of main stream choice I would of been sceptical of it .

Anyway my apologies for the rambling though my thoughts about your question how dramatic differences are there with say an entry level streamer to one double the price and so forth ? I have no doubt’s there are .
However I view these components as just computer parts in a nice looking box with many selling for thousands and some tens of thousands , is it a fast track to diminishing returns ? 

I transitioned away from using a transport to wanting to use a server to rip the many thousands of CDs that are available to me including my own collection.

Having listened to a borrowed server in my system last year I immediately liked the sound quality over my CEC transport and this no name home built server not only surpassed the performance of my transport it did it at less then 1/2 the price and of course I wanted him to build me one for the past 18 months .

Finally I’ve been chatting with a member whom owns , by the description and looks of his system a carefully thought out expensive system .
The source he uses for the majority of listening is a very inexpensive Cocktail Audio server which had me stop and rethink what I’m doing .So over the weekend I purchased a demo model Cocktail Audio server X50 for $1,650.00 , my initial budget before ever listening to a server was 6 grand , so the journey begin’s.

Everyone has a smart phone to download the Bluesound app. It’s great they have an app for music file management and playback which Sonore does not.  Bluesound is a nice one box solution for for those  who can’t spend more than $250-$550 and want a complete one box solution. I just purchased a Node 2 for $250 used.  Hard to beat at that price. 

In my system, Bluesound Vault 2 serves as source for Parasound JC2BP and A21 driving Quatro Wood CTs. Very happy, really delighted, with sound. Note use of Wireworld Starlight 7 ethernet net cable and Mini-Electra power cord with Vault produced improvement in resolution, soundstage, and presence of sound for under $500. I know that's half the cost of the Vault but modest relative to cost of my system and to a higher end DAC/streamer.Could be better? Maybe for beaucoup bucks. But happy with sound now.

I have had both the Bluesound  node 2i and the AURALiC g1 . I loved the build quality of the AURALiC, but sold it and kept the node 2i. AURALiC is too limited for streaming services, and keeping it wasn’t worth the small sound quality improvement , which wasn’t much of any.