Which device makes for a better digital music source? Computer or streamer?

really; there are three different circumstances regarding this question; "it depends".....

1--at the entry level it’s a horse apiece.....computers are servers. servers are computers. maybe a dedicated server has slightly less noise, and maybe a better power cord than a sever; but likely your network bandwidth, network switch, ethernet and usb cables will have a greater effect than other choices at this level.

2--mid level dedicated servers will outperform regular computers and laptops since they eliminate much of the peripheral noisy processing duties of the normal computers. there is a clear difference to go dedicated.

3--price no object server levels they far outperform any computer or laptop. but you are talking $20k to $100k for a music server. i own a $76k music server and it is awesome sounding and significantly outperforms my previous $30k+ music server. once i heard the difference i could not 'unhear' it. and took the plunge.

No surprise everyone has a different generalized answer.

The correct answer is still the devil is in the details so it depends. Cost or product category alone assure nothing.

I will say from personal experience that $3k spent wisely on a digital front end can get one very very far these days. Maybe less if your amplification is already in order. After that you are splitting hairs most likely. But only if spent wisely. That means sticking to the latest and greatest technologies from proven vendors because the technology has come a long way in recent years and still moving.

I went from node to a dedicated NUC computer to stream via roon.  I then tried an Allo USBridge sig streamer.  While sound seems to be slightly better, then more enjoyable improvement is seamless streaming.  Never does the streamer fail to deliver the requested digital bits.

I personally think the decision on if you should have a dedicated streamer or computer is dependent on what you are looking to do. If you want no fuss and your main concern is just listening to music then by all means a dedicated streamer will make your life easy with little hassles. On the other hand if you like to tinker and tweek things, you may be happier with a computer.

In my instance I wanted to do extreme oversampling (DSD1024X) with HQP and also wanted to use convolution filters designed for my headphones. This isn't possible with a dedicated streamer. I have a Holo Audio May KTE DAC that has a VERY GOOD USB implementation with very low jitter so using a computer for streaming wasn't as much of a concern for me. I think this choice will be dependent on your USB quality of your DAC. In my case my DAC has Galvanic Isolation. You could always try streaming from a computer and see how it goes. Startup costs to do this will be very minimal.