Has Anyone Compared the DAC On a Bluesound NODE 3rd Gen to a Separate DAC?

I think you speakers may be limiting more than your dac. Belabor 8000 are not known to be high end speakers. I think you should try to listen to some other speakers and amps first.

I have a Bluesound Node 2i. I first did a LPS upgrade on it, which brought about more detail, was a bit more relaxed, more refinement on the top end, and more bass definition. I then upgraded to a SMSL VMV D1SE. Brought about more detail, and again a bit more refinement. Surprisingly the DAC upgrade after the LPS upgrade wasn't as big as I was hoping, but each step for me was about the same in terms of upgrade. But the LPS upgrade was certainly much cheaper. 

The Bluesound Node 2i has a slightly warmer presentation stock than any of the upgrades I did. 

If you like the Bluesound Node, I would first look at a LPS upgrade, as this will help you down the road, whether you use the internal DAC, or decide on an external one. Will improve the sound to either DAC. 

Hope this helps 

Yes, it’s an excellent DAC for the money. And part of why the node is such a good product. However, it’s easily bested by many better DACs out there. It will either satisfy you or get you thru “admirably” until you upgrade. 

this is a very good review of various common DACs

All this is a good reason Bluesound should make a streamer only (call it the "Point") without a DAC and knock off $100 from the price. I guess they are afraid it would cannibalize the sales of the Node. Sad, because everyone raves about their U.I. O/S being one of the best out there.

People could start out with a Schiit Modi, Geshelli Labs J2, or Topping E30 and move on up the food chain when their wife and budget allows or just go ahead and get an Ares II as their starting point gateway drug.

Note that previously on YouTube I heard some say the Ares II didn’t pair well with the Node for whatever reason. I never found out why that was observed. Some later said there was a setting "Audio Clock Trim" that needed to be disabled. For those of you who have used an Ares II with a Node was that the key or is there a "deeper" reason such as an impedance mismatch or something?