best $1000 digital front end options for home streaming?

You certainly don't need to have an external DAC with the Bluesound Node 2i. Depending on the rest of your system, you might be perfectly happy using its own internal DAC and feeding its analogue outputs to your integrated amp. In this case, you'll also get full MQA on TIDAL if that's important to you. An iOS or Android device can easily be used for control. They also have a desktop app as well.

I have a Vault 2i and its very much like the Node but with storage ...  the Node has very good sound quality on its own.   I love my Vault 2i and will get a Node 2I down the road for another room

Happy Vault 2 owner. For under a Grand not sure you can touch it for the convenience and sound quality. Onboard DAC is very good and agree for most it’ll be just fine. If you’re good not having the latest 2i version the previous models can be had on Bluesounds site directly at a discount. Very happy with my refurbished unit if that’s really what it was. Buy a refurbished unit and with the money you save, buy a better power cord and Ethernet cable as they do improve these players.

apologies, I may have misused the term "streaming" and perhaps my understanding of these things is not quite there
my intent is to have a playback device with a display permanently connected to the amp alongside a high quality dac, so phone/tablet or even small laptop for tidal with no more than 2 pieces in total including dac
none of the items need to be portable or battery powered but I would prefer smaller pieces

would most of my budget not be best spent on the dac portion?
if I was using say a smartphone with a mojo or or SMSL SU-8 DAC would that be a sound quality upgrade over the Vault suggestions?