New DAC or New Streamer?

There is a lot more to be gained in a DAC. Until you have a flagship dac of your dreams, you can get by on a $300 streamer.

In other words the differnce between a $1000 and a $10000 dac is huge but the differnce between a $300 and a $5000 streamer is much less.

Jerry

I understand everyone has their own opinions and perspectives. I have to say that I patently disagree with this take. The quality of the digital source is very crucial to the overall sound quality of a digital front end. Yes, without question the DAC is an important component but it does not over ride the source component either.
 

A mediocre source will impede a good DAC. The “bits is bits” attitude is trite and superficial. A better quality streamer/music server will clearly make its contribution very apparent. In the OP’s scenario I recommend upgrading the streamer source  first. I believe that the current DAC is of higher quality than the current streamer/server in use.

Charles

@kota1  My streamer I have is better than a Node already. I am not sure you are following what level I am at already. My current DAC is no joke, it's really good. 

@kota1

The OP is aiming at his end game digital front end. Your suggestions so far suggests an entry level streamer options which is clearly opposite OP’s goal.

+1, @charles1dad  “A mediocre source will impede a good DAC”. 

Trying to put myself in you shoes: if I had said that I thought my streamer was the bottleneck, and I had purchased a DAC prior to the streamer - I would probably be wondering about how much of a bottleneck my Cambridge is while listening to my new Terminator. Curious if that bottleneck would become even more pronounced with a better DAC? 

@fthompson251 , thanks, I was simply illustrating a point that the backend is a better value IMO than the front end. Streaming is what it is, convenient, but on a high resolution system it generally won’t deliver what you can get from ripped files. I would rather spend the majority of my budget on the dac. In my system I use my Onkyo DP-X1 DAP via USB to stream. It can convert ripped files to DSD/DOP then pass it off to the Sony where it "remasters" it in DSD. When you get used to DSD quality from ripped files the streamed versions lose a step if you know what I mean.

This is from TAS:

Sony’s new “DSD Remastering Engine,” which according to Sony “combines a high-performance DSP (digital signal processing) and FPGA (field-programmable gate array) to convert any signal (my emphasis) into DSD128 signals. It was designed based on the know-how garnered from Sony’s 8-times oversampling and Extended SBM (Super Bit Mapping) technology for professional recorders.” Yes, you read that right: the remastering engine can convert any and all PCM music files into DSD128 format, regardless of their original sample-or bit-rate.

@toro3 , on a highly resolving system the "bottleneck" starts with the network. Any noise on the network is passed downstream to the streamer and the DAC.