In response to some other comments/questions in the thread —
I disagree with the suggestion that it’s better to invest more money in a DAC than in a server. DAC technology has been advancing rapidly for a decade or more now. As a result, a lot of things have been figured out and a relatively inexpensive DAC can perform at a very high level.
With streamers/servers, we’re only a few years into the learning curve—it’s a product that didn’t even exist until 2009 or thereabouts. A lot of money is still being spent on research and development, and difficult challenges are being addressed by trial and error to identify what works. That drives up costs for manufacturers and those costs are necessarily passed along to the consumer.
I expect 10 or 15 years from now, high quality servers will be much more affordable. But for now, a server will likely cost more than a DAC if the two devices are of comparable quality.
Second—someone asked what justifies the extra expense of a server/streamer over using a laptop as your audio source. Servers typically cache the audio data before sending it on to the DAC. That is, they read the digital file in advance and store it in RAM or an SSD before sending it to the DAC, which (as far as I understand it) reduces read and timing errors.
Most servers use RAM and store just a few seconds of information ahead of playback. But Aurender uses a 240 GB SSD to store an entire playlist in advance of playback. This is advantageous (Aurender claims) particularly if some of the songs on the playlist come from internal storage while other songs come from Roon, Qobuz or Tidal. During playback all the songs are handled equivalently since they’re all coming from the SSD cache.
Aurender has also introduced what they call Critical Listening Mode. When you switch it on, the display switches off, and so do any background processes that are a source of noise. I don’t believe Critical Listening Mode existed when @essrand carried out his evaluation a couple of years ago. Reports are that it makes a significant difference in sound quality.
I’m not trying to promote Aurender here. I’ve been researching music servers—I haven’t bought one yet—and I’m using Aurender to illustrate the advantages (theoretical or actual) of using a streamer/server instead of a laptop computer.