Tube DAC (Black Ice) Users - What Streamer Are You Using?

I have used both the Bricasti M5 and the iFi Zen Stream with LPS and optical cable with FMC’s on my BIA Glass Dac. The Bricasti is a definite step up but both sound very good.  I ungraded my main system Dac to a Lab12 Reference so my BIA Dac is used on my second system with the iFi zen stream. The main concern/issue is the iFi zen stream’s set up is a pain, glitchy and not intuitive.  Help support is just worthless.  Bricasti M5 is the mirror opposite with no issues. Replacing the Zen is on my future list so I am interested in what becomes of this thread as well.

@tksteingraber Thanks for the insight. The Bricasti looks well built. I'm not interested in ROON and it was unclear on their website if it has native support for streaming services like Qobuz?

Does it have it's own controller app and if so, how is it? (Bluesound's is decent)

The M5 does not have it’s own controller app.  I use Roon now with a sonic transporter i5 as my network server to both my streamers instead of my Macbook Pro that I used prior.  When I first bought the M5 I was not interested in Roon as well and contacted Bricasti to see what options I had.  They said Roon, Audirvana and mConnect were the main choices for streaming Tidal/Qobuz.  I tried all three and mConnect was ruled out.  I subscribed to Audirvana for 5-6 months and really liked it but decided to switch to Roon lifetime membership when I added my sonic transporter.  Glad I did it integrates seamlessly  and I like all the interface features and SQ is great.

@tksteingraber thank you