Point of higher priced streamer?

I have used a Chromecast Audio feeding a Benchmark DAC2 and the noise floor was dead silent, as I would expect with any optical connection to be. That said, I was using ROON, and I have no idea what you were using. Unless your sofware was ensuring bit-perfect output, you may have been feeding the Chromecast a very poor signal.  The biggest issue is optical out can limit you, but the Benchmark handles jitter quite well which is not universal.

Thought the Bluesound Node2i was broken till I discovered the audio clock trim setting and turned it off.

Chromecast Audio is (was) a very good, convenient device for modest systems. It does the job well in freeing up your laptop for streaming functions. That’s where it ends.

@lalitk 

Seriously laughing along with you!

LOL!!! This is very funny. I totally missed this part. Hilarious! Especially if “backed” by the world famous & renowned ASR. How do you know? Or you just KNOW?

if connected via optical to a "decent" high performing DAC (e.g. Topping D50), it will outperform many higher-priced streamers 

Funny enough, ASR did measure the Chromecast audio and showed that it had somewhat high jitter on the optical output, and that final performance would be DAC dependent. Maybe I am selectively remembering the review, but I am too lazy to look it up again :-)