For those that have separate Streamers & DACS

@cleeds  Only saying streaming dac CAN be good choice.

I do like the NUC servers, if only they had two network ports. There are some builders out there supplying various atx motherboard builds with customer requested options such as optical ports, optimized rendering ports a la usb, spdif. two ethernet ports with all of them. Also choice of Linux, Windows OS. Costs all over the place depending on build. Biggest issue with any atx build is power supply, atx boards require multiple voltages, big money for the good lps, probably reason for rare off the shelf examples. 

Extremely experienced streamers at audiophilestyle.com using either diy or contracted custom builds based on atx boards; or servers in Taiko Extreme, Pink Faun echelon. Ultimately, I believe in going the ultimate server/streamer route, no external streamer necessary. The all in one unit will have been optimally integrated with clocks and power supplies, result, likely less noise and jitter than mixing and matching various components from different manufacturers.

The all in one unit will have been optimally integrated with clocks and power supplies, result, likely less noise and jitter than mixing and matching various components from different manufacturers.

i think this is an important advantage of combined units... the interface can be managed using two separate units, clocking, cabling etc but a well engineered single unit would lock in a high quality solution

The Zenith Mk3 USB output is noisy.  You don't know what you are missing until you place a very good DDC on the USB output of the Zenith.  I am using an Audio-GD DI20 HE, and the difference in quality is outstanding with the DDC.

Taiko Extreme