dac and streamer or seperates

@vonhelmholtz 

saw a Bryston BDA 3 over on USAudio for $1.5K that might pair well with the Air Lens. Bring you in under $4K. 

The Krell DAC is not that bad (ES9028PRO Sabre) $1K option correct? and I can only imagine they wouldn’t slack on the implementation, check it out here where they compare it to a comparable priced external.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/krell-k-300i-integrated-amplifier-page-2

You might want to get a nice streamer and run it through there first. Then demo external  DACS 

I’ve just finished my journey down the same path as you’re heading now. I started with a modded Cambridge cxn v2, modded by ModWright. Excellent sound and the streaming end is absolutely seamless. I’ve never had a streaming glitch in over a year. 
I decided I wanted a little different sound and now have separates. I spent more on the dac, by a lot, and decided to go with the LUMIN u2 mini as the streamer. Great unit and it will sell quickly when I upgrade in the future. Definitely keep resale in mind when purchasing. I would spend the bulk of cash on the dac. I purchased the Rockna Wavedream and it’s a tremendous difference. Hard to tell how much the LUMIN added. Anyway, you can always spend a grand or so on a good streamer. Try to find a new model since improvements are coming fast and furious in that price range. 
Perhaps a Benchmark/LUMIN u2 mini would be perfect?

Definitely separates, but you can always start with a great streamer first and see if you are happy with your current DAC.....if not then upgrade. I a higher end streamer will definitely impress though

Moors Law is something to consider:  DAC/Streamers are changing for the better very rapidly. As such they are depreciating rapidly due to almost instant obsolesce. Think flat screen TVs. 

If being smart with your money matters at this point in your HiFi journey you would do well to buy "pretty good used" and wait for the tech and prices to move in your favor. 1 year from now your $5K new unit (s) will be worth 1/4 of what you paid and the new stuff's sound and features will blow the one year old stuff away.

Now, if you have money to burn buy the best DAC and streamer you can find and understand that it will not hold value and worse it will be rapidly obsolete relative to the new stuff's sonic quality and features. 

I think it's manifestly clear that the DAC/Streamer/Preamp future is going to be Chinese all-in-one solid state and controlled from your phone. Maybe a few US manufacturers like PS Audio or ARC will have a competing version that "feels American" which I personally would prefer as I like to spend my money locally. 

I have a HiFi buddy who's an MD with cash a-plenty. He idled his ARC REF5 preamp and plays his music from his PC into a chifi DAC with balanced outputs into his tube and SS tri-amped towers. I have to admit it sounds surprisingly good with the 256 bit MP3s he uses. I would never have believed it had I not heard it myself. DACs can digitally emulate that LP sound now too.