Looking for best streamer without DAC under $3500

Hi James,
For stremaing purposes I am symply using a small fanless computer (Zotac ZBox - https://www.zotac.com/us/product/mini_pcs/overview ) which is hooked on my high-end preamp/dac and further amplified by power amp. I only have minimum software installed on it (windows, DAC drivers, tidal and netflix). 

With this setup I can stream all online content (including master quality and 360 Tidal content) as well as all ripped CD's stored on my local NAS. Not to mention that TV set serves as a high-res big screen monitor.

The whole setup works perfectly fine and I see no reason to spent thousands of bucks on fancy streamers, provided of course, that you have a very good DAC/ pream down the stream. The only possible upgrade I would see is perhaps better power supply.

I have the LUMIN A1 which has an external power supply. It’s extremely quiet and has a very dynamic sound. The chassis is solid billet aluminum and gas pretty substantial weight to it. The app interface is pretty good and there’s occasional updates that automatically come via the network. I think the built in DAC is very good although you said you would prefer an outboard a DAC so you could get Lumins streamer only and use your DAC and I’m sure it will sound great.  I think it sounds as good as my analog setup but it is different sounding. 
Rick

I don’t think anyone mentioned the SoTM SMS200 Ultra Neo with an outboard power supply. That’s what I use into a Chord Qutest via USB.
It’s not too expensive ($1200), works and sounds great and is Roon Ready plus a large number of other connection options included.
Unlike Lumin or Auraiic it doesn’t come with a player software, just ways to connect to all the favorite kinds of players over the network.

It’s basically a small, silent Linux computer optimized for audio that becomes part of a wired Ethernet network and outputs clean USB with a solid clock. The OS is on an SD card but you don’t really have to do much but select which player software you want to use.

Lumin U1 Mini is hard to beat for the price.

Stereophile reviewed a couple of servers in the two most recent issues, Innous Statement and Wolf something or other, with the cheapest being about $10,000. Both of them were compared to the Roon Nucleus+ with an upgraded power supply - total cost about $3400. The Roon more than held its own.