Check in: How quickly are streamers and servers evolving?

this device category is limited by the DAC chips available and interstage or intermediary devices that control clocking rates and stability of clocks. Software protocols for running said aspects.

the rest of how to build one properly - is all well covered. (in the given engineering talk and data points)

The sound of the DAC is THE most important component of the scenario, to me.... I’d hope it is for others as well. This is high end audio and the search for perfection in reproduction, so it is core to all in hand. This is not the ’good enough’ camp, that’s down the hall or in some other building ---that the people here should not care about one whit. Don’t know the address of that location, don’t care. (Special DAC forces in an armored car. We don't care, we don't care...)

A crap implementation is going to sound like crap, no matter how sexy the interface, is the point.

IMO and IME, a streaming device with a clock stabilized output into a proper R2R or ladder DAC is going to be the way to go and that’s how I did it for the past decade plus.

If the interface and software is awful but the DAC is great, then that’s what I had as I won’t accept a poor signal quality over a tasty or simplified or intuitive interface.

Depends on one’s sensitivity to DAC quality, IMO and IME.

I want ’peak quality’ and will accept no substitutes. Thus, great interfaces and ease of use.... don’t tempt me whatsoever. Hold my ground, don’t go backwards. To know enough about DACs and internal aspects of dacs to know that any streamer in the $1500, or even $3k range is highly suspect and there’s about a 100% chance that it’s DAC is inferior..

There’s no price range really, only the one aspect as questions go: does the streamer have a R2R DAC for an output? The answer is no, I’m not aware of any streamer system having a discrete, ladder or R2R DAC in them. (discrete, ladder and R2R is three names for the same type of ’pinnacle’ in DAC quality, essentially)

Thus all streamers are off the list as primary dacs, where their digital outputs have to be up to the job of feeding a good high quality R2R DAC.

This means to get the DAC right, and then wait for or search for a better and well priced human interface device that is separate from that scenario.

Of course, this is a ’peak quality’ approach and does not fit any ’good enough for me’ scenario that others might come up with.

I feel that this is part of the question that the OP is asking, but is at the peak quality quest end of the pool, and should be spoken about when talking on the subject of looking for ’good enough’. It helps frame the range of potential.

There is zero new chip development the the R2R DAC area and the past 20 years of cheap chip implementation has been a fruitless search to try and get back to what we had with the better old school chips that pushed the limit, but were too expensive to be economically viable for large (quantities of) chip fabrication situations.