Wanting to upgrade my streaming sound quality.

OP, I was not in any way suggesting you spend $30K. What I was suggesting that in order to get to the same performance level it is likely you will have to spend something on the order of cost of your other components. Hence I suggested maybe a Aurender N100 might be appropriate… actually it is $2.7K.. not $4 like I said.

Happy hunting.

Well, here’s what I’d do — get an iFi Zen Stream with their upgraded linear power supply (yeah I know, but it makes a big difference at relatively low cost), and since you’re an analog guy I’d recommend a good R2R DAC like a Denafrips Pontus ll.  Beyond the scope of this thread, at some point I’d add an optical connection between your router and DAC, which can be done for only about 80 bucks.  And go with Qobuz, NOT Tidal with their silly MQA BS.  Best of luck. 

There’s a used N100 on eBay asking under $1800. I like to buy high-quality stuff used. If you could find a used Ayre QB-9 Twenty, that’d be a fine DAC to present balanced input to your MAC preamp.

It’s Roon and Qobuz for me, I rarely spin anything on my TD124, a handsome icon.

db

You have what looks like a good pre-amp with DAC (Mc) to start with, ie a pretty good digital setup, so you really have to be careful about knowing what specifically it is with the sound and/or streaming features you want to change or improve or you could be chasing (expensive) ghosts.

Are you comparing to your vinyl? Are you comparing apples/apples in terms of same release of an album on vinyl and available on Tidal?  Things like MQA with the streaming service alone could make a big difference in how things sound.  Could be better or worse...that's a highly subjective determination.  Not familiar with Tidal and MQA specifically so hard to say with confidence.

Often streaming services use more recent releases of albums than the original vinyl releases and newer digital releases tend to be way different at the source generally louder overall with a totally different mix. So the release you have on vinyl could be much different than the one provided by the streaming service at the source and nothing you do with changing gear alone will make them sound the same or even close.

So my advice is be careful and be sure you are comparing apples/apples before making changes.

BTW I am going through some similar exercises at present looking to maybe update my streaming to newer gear and my findings are you really have to be careful to avoid spinning your wheels both feature and sound wise.

Thanks to everyone. I’m seeing some thoughts that a dedicated streamer would be better than my iPad. Soix your suggestions sound good and might be close to my budget. Mapman it’s hard to know what recordings are what. I’ve seen some things that the dac in my preamp may not be the best. Db I’m going to check out that used n100 on eBay.