used as streamer feeding outboard dac, node 2i is just fine, works very well if you like the blu os (which i do)
the onboard dac of the node 2i was definitely low-grade starter kit... easily surpassed by other (even modest) units
Agree. I think the 2i DAC chip sells for around $3 in quantity. The new one is a slight step up. It does support 384K and balanced outputs, but the Node doesn't have balanced outputs. It has better signal to noise measurements. Perhaps there will be a small improvement from the analog outputs. But as there were no mentions of improving the power supply or the analog output stage, I don't expect much of a difference.
I'm not aware of any external DAC using the TI PCM5242 DAC chip found in the new Node. Maybe something down in the $100-$150 range?
I would like to see a Bluesound streamer with a better DAC, better power supply and better analog section. It would be interesting to see what they could put together at a $749 price point. But perhaps there isn't enough of a market to make that feasible. I'd like to see a streamer from SONOS which offered higher quality. These companies offer ease of use, good software, compatibility with many streaming services, but not high quality sound.
As is, it does provide 24-bit streaming plus MQA decoding, but the benefits of those higher resolutions are lost unless one spends hundreds extra for an external DAC.