First Streamer...

@charles1dad So you have experience upgrading your streamer while using a dime store DAC?  

If a cheap DAC is "good enough" for the listener,, the my thought is that they won't even see the difference in the streamer. 

@vonhelmholtz Good breakdown on your integrated.  My DAC is the most expensive individual component in my system.  I do have a custom amp on order that will be more.

Jerry

So you have experience upgrading your streamer while using a dime store DAC?  

Who has suggested that solution? A poor quality DAC won’t sound good with anything. Nor would a “dime store “ streamer. I was making the point that both of these digital path components are important. They work in tandem. If you have your own approach that’s fine if it works satisfactory for you.

Charles 

More important than a streamer is a DAC. 

Although I completely agree a DAC is crucial to getting the most out of streaming, I disagree that it’s more important than a streamer.  With streaming, IME everything is important and additive so if you cheap out somewhere — be it cables, streamer, power supply, etc. your results will suffer.  I’d also highly recommend the iFi Zen Stream with an upgraded power supply as a first step, although go hard wired because its Wi-Fi is not good and their customer support is basically non existent and sad.

@ghasley I agree.  I've heard a couple of very good streamer/dac combos and a couple of good DACs in integrated amps.  However, there are lots of aspects of a DAC to consider and it is likely to be a component that will be upgraded somewhere frequently.  The separate DAC is more convenient to upgrade.

This is a different and much less important concern that what I was talking about above.  Is less expensive combo's the DAC is likely to be much lower quality than the streamer--because a moderate quality DAC is much more expensive to make than a moderate quality streamer.

Jerry

@carlsbad Agreed. One bright spot is that an average dac today is so much better than an average dac of 10-15 years ago. Its a great time to be in the hobby.