Looking for best streamer without DAC under $3500

@sfseay What "break in" are you talking about? The Bricasti is just taking bits on network, de-encapsulate / uncompress the payload and send it out to DAC. It's as simple as that, just digital bits in and out, no more no less.  No

@bfleetwood  Put all on DAC, the streamer just does bits in / out and it provides interfaces for DAC, control and input/output.  The DAC makes the Digital to Analog conversion, not the streamer!

@owl

The computer’s background processes create a ton of noise and so do the power supplies which feed back into your electrical grid.

No noise whatsoever, you don’t seem to understand Analog / Digital and computers.. And your streamer is just... a computer!

Versatile and quiet which is way better than the Mac I used to use - its more settled and quiet

Ha ha ha! "Way better": You had Mac / Software bad setup then!

https://volumio.org/get-started/
Volumio doing great on my Raspberry Pi 3b+ hooked to my Rega DAC-R, below 10% CPU usage for FLAC HiRes playback.  Super-easy setup!


https://www.24bit96.com/hifi-music-server/bitperfect-linux-with-mpd.html
I installed / configured that on an old Intel D510 Mini-ITX board.  Working very very well, below 10% CPU usage for HiRes FLAC playback.  Hooked to Ayre QB-9 via USB.