Jaw Dropping Improvement?

Thanks, jjss49...good points for me to contemplate!

I’d like the music I listen to to be as clear and as in-focus as possible within the capabilities of my integrated amp and speakers.  If I can compare to optics, I want to be looking at things through an immaculately cleaned and top-of-the-line Zeiss lens!  However,......I want this hyper-focus to reveal “euphonic” 95 times out of 100 and “clinical” on only the five remaining occasions.  If a given singer is sounding overly sibilant via Tidal, I want to be confident it’s an inferior recording and not artifacts originating at a weak link in my system-chain.  All that considered, I want lower-frequency “punch” and a certain, undefinable “energy emanating from the speakers wall” to induce the same smile on my face I had two weeks ago when I got the Node 2i hooked up and playing....that sense of “Yeah......this component purchase was a gamble that sure paid off.”...but taken to the “final frontier” within the parameters of my Node2i>integrated amp >speakers.

Might be chasing phantoms here but one may as well aim high!

@lg1

your add’l comments are helpful

i would suggest you try a chord dac... a qutest or a 2qute... reasons being:

- your system is only moderately revealing in the midrange and treble but has good bass response
- the onboard dac in the node 2i is voiced to sound innocuous... meaning it is smoothed over at the expense of detail, clarity, transient response, and incisiveness - ultimately it is a lens that is cloudy and substantially dulls the image of the real thing
- the chords (along with the rme-adi2 and better toppings) have great clarity, speed, slam and ’air’ in their sound character
- the chords are somewhat better than the rme and topping d90 in they have more subtlety and refinement while providing great clarity, lend more ambient 'air', and throw a more well defined, larger stereo image

qutest used is $1300-1400, 2qute is $800 -- both are excellent, and i would venture to say if you keep your current system with the jbl’s, you will not hear much (or any) difference between the two... but the improvement will be significant and immediately noticeable going from the dac of the node 2i -- whether it is 'jaw dropping' you will have to tell us :)

good luck

IMHO...With your system and you wanting to stay under $2000.00 for a streamer nothing you can buy will give you a jaw dropping impact.

You can improve the Bluesound by swapping out the stock PSU with: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Bluesound-NODE-2-2i-upgrade-low-noise-PSU-interface/324146967047?hash=item4...
Then power it with a good 5V linear power supply.

Also upgrading your Ethernet chain makes a huge improvement such as a Gigafoil V4 (powered with a 5V LPS) and Network Acoustics ENO with a high quality Ethernet cable. 

If you decide to go with an external DAC and use coax the iFi SPDIF Purifier 2 (powered with a 5V LPS) also makes a nice improvement. 

Everything matters when it comes to your digital front end. 
-Alex

Using the Bluesound Node 2i with native DAC - not great.  Added Cambridge Audio DAC Magic - much better soundstage and like the overall presentation better.  Had been using a CCA and DAC and honestly am not seeing a whole world of improvement with the bluesound.  I like the convenience and the Aptx and the CCA will be obsolete in the near future but...  I hear things with CCA on recordings that seem recessed on Node 2i.  Am hoping that unit breaks in a bit and that I don't have to sink more funds into the rabbit hole but suspect that won't be the case.