Apple TV Streaming Sound Quality vs Streamer?

A very nice thread, the only one with useful advices I could find nowadays.

So, basically, the total: there is no a cheap dual-wifi/equal to HDMi-audi-connection device that sounds the same as wired HDMI/optical and doesn't have an inner DAC. So if I wanna use an external DAC/AV connected either way to ATV, I can't find it on the market with a low price as just a streaming device (only AEX/ATV/Chromecast) just to transfer audio. And the only way that I may try is a Synrcho-Mesh for low jitter, but nothing will make it as good as HDMI/optical, because the lower a bandwidth/upsampling still be presented.

And just a rhetorical question: why just there is no such a device that provides a full bandwidth and not being a DAC > 200$? What's the point if it's a really needed thing for hi-fi/MQA with either a Tidal/CD/wav/flac. I started to dive in all that not a long time ago, but this is the main issue I stuck with and now siting with HDMI Mac-->DAC :-D

audioengr | steve

Why do you say FLAC will never sound as good as WAV? My understanding is FLAC is 100% lossless. If a device were to decompress the FLAC input and place into a memory buffer which then feeds a DAC, shouldn't FLAC sound as good?

And regarding ethernet, it would seem the fix to all of this crap with sync/async would be to standardize on a protocol for audio that is similar to TCP/IP in that it features error correction built-in which feeds into a memory buffer (memory is cheap nowadays) which would then feed the DAC section. I have no idea why the audio community hasn't figured this out already.

Since adding the Benchmark Dac, I really enjoy the added detail but it seems to be a little brash in my system or at least to what I’m used to.  Would the synchro mesh mellow it out a little?  Or am I better off getting a more laid back dac? If so what are some good ones in the 1-2k used market?