New streamer or dac?

I think the worst thing with a single box is that streaming services are still changed and updated and some hifi companies may not be the best at updating software going forward. What if Qubuz and Tidal goes out of business and a new service takes their place?

This is my main reason to prefer a 2-box solution, especially using a computer or RaspberryPi. It might also work with Roon support but that costs extra forever.

Nice system, seems well chosen and synergistic. Given your system, an Aurrender A100 I would think appropriate. I am not familiar with what Aurender DACs sound like… my exposure is entirely to just streamers. I would recommend finding a place you can listen to one. If I were doing it I would follow the two box strategy below.

‘Alternatively a Schiit Yggdrasil DAC is outstanding for the money. I have experience with the Yggdrasil and the Schiit Gungnir multibit. For streamer an Aurender N100 (to reduce cost, buy used).

As I think you have already found… going cheap is a great way to be dissatisfied with the sound. I would save up if required. Get the DAC first and you could use your Denton as streamer only until you can afford the streamer. 

Going through a couple of interactions I decided to commit to Roon as my meta data manager and interface to my personal library, Qobuz and a couple of background Sonos systems.  Going that route I found my internet connection was intermittent at best when running the Roon core on my MacBook Air.  So If that is your end game I would also consider getting a dedicated music server.  I ended up with a SGC sonicTransporter i5 with a 4 tb ssd.  I migrated my music collection to the drive and did not look back.  As far as DAC and / or streamer I decided on a combined unit to eliminate interconnects, power cables and self space needs.  In my case I went with a Bricasti M3 with the network card option.  There are a lot of great solutions and as always listening is the only way to find what works for you.  After going through a few DAC streamer combinations I decided to go with a vendor who really knows networking.  I find the professional recording studio hardware vendors to be the best.  Again there are a number of great options.  Do your research and going the "slightly" used route is a pretty good option.  Sorry for running on.

@bikeboy52, All I can offer with regards to a recommendation is sharing my process. I did recently buy my PS Audio Perfect Wave with Bridge II network card and in doing so I spent a lot of time educating myself on the technology and feel I made a good choice where I arrived. I am biased toward PS Audio partly because they are local for me. I purchased it from The Music Room for under $2k. I also really like iFi Zen stream and V2 DAC which I use in my studio. The Zen Stream is also compatible with Tidal connect which I believe to be key. Tidal has a list of compatible devices if you check the tidal connect button. I believe the bridge II card could be rebranded and possibly tweaked Conversdigital because it uses mconnect, but not sure.

@lordmelton , Yes you would be correct if I had a PSA DS with bridge II. I actually have the Perfect Wave MkII with bridge II, which does not process DSD, so my card is using the I2S communication protocol. For $3k, I can upgrade my PW with a kit including new boards to fully convert it to a DS. I would postulate that feeding DSD directly from the streamer card has got to be the best solution. It is interesting to hear your experience with AES/EBU. I have read I2S is not great over any length of cable, so that could explain. I my mind, the card is just a more eloquent solution but as you say, it all depends on your setup...