Ready For Digital Source...Computer?

If you search, i have posted pages of posts on making digital good - its more than buying box(es).

You'll need both a server and a DAC.  What have you tried? what are your sound objectives?

You say "no Roon". Roon actually would be a srong suggestion of mine.  It wouldbe good to knwo your objection:  price i presume?  Certainyl not sound ( if done right).

I personally run Roon, on a dedicated server with a DIY LPS, to a raspberry Pi bridge with TWO DIY LPSes (one for the "dirty" RPi and one for the "clean USB I/F, isolated).  And into a DAC which cna generate tons of sunsubsantiated suggestions :-)  I have several - some ancient to whcih i have added USB and clocking, two new, mid priced, and punch way above their weight IMO.

You comment re: Spotify tells me sound may not be that high a priority.  There are so many better services out there. Like witgh cooking, you cannt make the best disjh from poor ingredients - and compressed music locks in mediocirty regardless of how much you spend later. 

Honestly, read up ont he chain.  Hans B is a good resource.

@high-amp   Can you share your current system, room, etc.?  Is it the one represented by the photo on your system page? Thanks.

Building a good streaming system with a computor can be done easly. Dont listen to the negative people who claim to her " noise " in the electrical wire because the power company uses a bad resistor 20 miles down stream. The first thing to consider is to have the best internet connection coming into the computer this should be done with a cat7 hard wire dont use wifi. Next is a good signal path to an external dac of your choice ( the dac option is unlimited). I use my mac book pro as my qobuz source and it sounds great. Look at this company for help to get the best signal into your computer.

https://www.smallgreencomputer.com/

For Qobuz or Tidal: Any Mac with Audirvana music sofware: This puts the music playback in hog mode which prevents the computer from doing things in the background which creates a lot of noise. It will automatically recognize and playback DSD files and or hi rez pcm: Plus, you can use it to up convert cd files to DSD or PCM. If you prefer Apple music, you can use Amarra SQ+ with Airplay but that only supports cd quality, for Hi rez Apple music you would need a direct connection to the DAC via USB. I used Bit Perfect for a time but it was buggy and at the time didn't support gapless playback. I have not used it in years so it might be better now.

I run Qobuz using an ASUS ROG (Republic of Gamers) laptop using Windows 7. I connect the laptop to my PS Audio PerfectWave MkII DAC with a regular (not expensive) USB cable. I also have a PS Audio PerfectWave Transport (I have several thousand CDs). The core of my system consists of Krell preamp an amp plus a pair of Thiel CS6 speakers.

I have compared at least a dozen CDs with their corresponding Qobuz stream to determine the difference in sound quality. I've been careful to make sure that the CD and the streaming file are the same version. In all cases the stream sounds virtually identical to the CD. Sometimes I think I can hear a very slight difference but in practical terms they are the same. I seriously doubt if I could tell them apart in a blind test. Just for the record, I've ripped my CD collection and I've also compared ripped files played through the PC using Foobar to their respective CDs and the Qobuz streams. They sound essentially identical.

One reason for this may be that the PSA PW MKII fully buffers and reclocks the incoming data. This step should eliminate any noise or other nastiness from the sound.

This result was a surprise to me. I figured that I would surely get a high quality streamer but now I'm taking my time. I'm probably going to spring for a Node but it will be mostly for the operating system and convenience.

If you don't have a CD player then it will be difficult to judge the sound quality of whatever you do. I firmly believe that in order to judge the sound of new components you need a control. Using a CD player as a control will help you to figure out if a streamer really sounds that much better than a computer. I honestly believe that we all hear amazing things when we spend thousands of dollars on a new piece of gear but often with careful controlled comparison those "blew me away" differences become very minor.