Higher End DACs

Vacuum tubes in a dac truly add to th3 realism of a bigger soundstage
and image depth especially when having a tube rectifier converting 
the AC to dc in the dac. Lampizator makes world class dacs starting at just under $3k their New Amber 3 which got a 5 star rating in enjoy the music.com to their $26k Flagship Pacicic dac and several inbetween 
depending on Your budget.and will give you 2 weeks to Audition in most cases. When needing a a Digital cable I have tried everything under $1500, the Final Touch Audio digital cable, and interconnects are the best as far as naturalness Ihave heard to date 
the dac cable is retail around $850.
at least check out the information 
you would be glad you did after 1 listen.

For DAC/streamer you must avoid expensive product like dcs and mbs and you should start with well engineered product. For amplifier you can stretch as they may sound deferent compare to dacs.

I would suggest matrix dac/streaming x https://www.matrix-digi.com/en/products/321.html

Or DAC only like Topping D90.

if you can afford dcs just go for it. there are other good brands(mbs, lampizator,chord) especially in that price range but none has the dcs consistent top position in the audiophile world. it’s always been the safest bet for big money dac’s .make sure to use a proper usb cable. since you are new to this sort of sound, ide try a tube dac like the lampi or add a tube buffer like the ifi itube 2 (350$)after the dac, it softens and opens the sound a bit to take the edge off .i’m using all the help i can in that case: ifi isilencer>ifi mercury cable>ipurifier 3 >idac2>itube buffer +6db>schiit loki eq all wired with cardas rca cables. the best digital sound ive heard is mqa through tidal . dsd is also great but i reckon analog oriented people will prefer mqa. you have a mac system and you ask about esoteric and dcs (which makes sense)and someone suggests topping...so yeah you can also use the current topping flagship with it’s generic ess sabre chip ,usb printer cable and smartphone power supply  and play mp3 files if you want to know which sound to avoid. btw does ess stands for extremely sterile and sibilant?

I use Bluesound Node2i for network streamer connected (optical) to the new version of the RME ADI-2 DAC FS. $550 + $1,100. IMO *any* competent network streamer would do. Competent: passing on FLAC bits w/o errors, and having a good user interface. Similarly, you don't need to spend more than 10 bucks on optical or coaxial connection (if they transmit the bits w/o errors). The heart of the system will be the DAC itself. The ADI-2 plays wonderfully for me and I am not sure if it can be beaten by DACs costing more. More important will be your amplifier, speakers, room acoustics. If the amplifier has balanced input: even better -- use it. My CD player has a digital output which I now feed into the RME DAC w/ a coaxial cable. CDs have never sounded better! I mostly listen to Qobuz HiRes, but I have some CDs they don't have.

Its a bit more coin, but the Emm Labs DA2 v2 gets a lot of review accolades for being one of the most analog sounding DACs in the market.