Hey everyone - a few months ago I embarked on a rather significant full system makeover, starting with building a pair of the excellent Bitches Brew open baffle loudspeakers. These are a three-way high efficiency design that rely on a MiniDSP digital crossover and DAC. I recently changed my amps to a pair of Audiophonics Purifi 1ET6525SA Class D amps. These amps replaced a Aleph J and a McIntosh amp I was using. Initial impression of these amps is...pretty amazing. Anyway, I love these speakers and the flexibility they are giving me to tailor the response to my room. But, from a digital front end perspective I'm now locked into a single DAC, the MiniDSP. I'm running a stock Bluesound Node 2i as my streamer with a Pangea digital coax cable. I used to use a Schiit Gungnir multibit DAC. The Bleusound 2i does not support USB out. Questions:
- Would it be worth upgrading streamers to one with a USB out to feed a USB signal to the MiniDSP? I'd be looking at something like either a newer Node or a Wiim Ultra. Does USB offer an audible difference over coax in your experience? This would also open up the option of inserting something like a Denafrips IRIS in the chain down the road.
- If I don't do that, I'm thinking of upgrading the power supply in the Node 2i using one of the Teddy Pardo kits, and maybe the digital cable.