Auralic Vega G2 or Denafrips Pontus II 12th + streamer?

Highly recommend keeping them separate for all the reasons you raised and more.  Put it this way — would you buy a turntable with the phono pre built in?  Why not?  Because they’re both critical components and just because you might like the turntable it doesn’t mean you’ll like the phono pre as much, right?  Same thing with a DAC and streamer.  They’re both critical and very different components, so what are the odds that a combo streamer/DAC is going to be optimized on both counts for your specific tastes?

As far as specific recommendations, that really depends on what sound characteristics you’re looking for because, just like in analog, the flavors are all over the map so we really need to know what you like.  Specify what sound characteristics are most important to you and you’ll get some great recommendations here, otherwise you’re gonna get blindfolded darts at a dartboard.  FWIW.

True. Ideally, close to analog sound. I prefer large soundstage, great midrange and vocals, tight bass.

I have seen suggestions to use something like a bluesound node as a streamer-only so the app experience is more robust, but I'm not sure if its outputs bypassing the built-in DAC are great. I tried looking on their website but it keeps glitching out on me when I try to look at specs - go figure. I see the Lumin U1 mini recommended a lot in other threads, so that may be an option on the used market. Looks like they can be had for about $1500 - not cheap, but not wild either.

I've been looking at these in particular:

1. Denafrips Pontus II (12th can be had new for a pretty fair price)
2. Lampizator Amber 3 (a bit pricey, but used it isn't too too bad)
3. MHDT Orchid (can't find too much info on this though)

Great info! Given what you’re looking for my first thought was an R2R DAC and was gonna recommend the Pontus but you beat me to it. With your budget, and to borrow a phrase from Emeril, you can kick it up several notches by adding a DDC (like the Denafrips Iris) so you can take advantage of the DAC’s i2S input, which gives a very significant performance bump. For the streamer I’d recommend the Innuos Pulse Mini because, in addition to being a very good streamer (and a good step up from the Node), it comes with their Sense app that gets excellent reviews for both usability and sound quality and is continually being upgraded. And Innuos offers top-notch customer support as well. If it’s in budget I’d get a linear power supply for the streamer (good ones can be had for $200 - $300) as a good LPS will significantly up its performance. I believe all this can be had within your budget even new, so if you can get some of it used you should come in well under and have a pretty killer streaming setup. So glad you’re getting into streaming — it’s literally life changing. One last thing — go with Qobuz for a streaming service.  Hope this helps, and best of luck.

Im comparing the Pontus 2 to my Orchid Dac right now. Pontus 2 needs alot of break in time. Been listening for a few days and needed to give my ears a break for a few days then go back and reevaluate. Both have there strengths amd weaknesses. Pontus 2 has alot of Clarity and no fatigue but the Orchid has great tone and not as clear. Will come down to which is more important to me

@evank - what does the rest of your gear look like? Do you use tube amplification or SS? I was a little concerned with the Orchid given I'm going to be running it through tubes. I feel like it might get a little too warm sounding overall.