why expensive streamers

I guess the digital transmission theory states that the bitstream from a high quality PC USB stream vs. an RPI4, both feeding the same DAC, would be identical, therefore sounding the same.

Boy was I surprised how much better the RPI feed sounded.

Not sure why.  But it sure does.

If all the opaque but purportedly game-changing technical differences in capability from increasingly expensive streamer models is so audible, why is streaming not doomed from the get-go since it’s sourced from audio-firestorm data centers? Those places are certainly not set up mechanically or logistically to cater to audiophile concerns as a priority.

there are two separate camps on this topic lurking here on this forum.  One argues that spending a significant amount of $ on a streamer can be a waste of your precious resources, because the science, measurements and their experience tells them that beyond a basic level, there’s no difference in sound.  The other camp argues that based on their experience, there are clear differences, and therefore recommend spending upwards of $10k in some situations in order to optimize one’s system. I'm squarely in the first camp. So here’s my view:

Putting aside reclocking and oversampling, the only distinctions across streamers  have to do with levels of jitter and other sources of noise.  These are easily measurable.  Anybody who tells you that a more expensive streamer is less noisy while simultaneously claiming that measurements don’t matter is not credible.  If your DAC is good at rejecting noise (e.g., filtering, reclocking, etc.), you can assemble your own streamer for as little as $150 and it will sound great ( I’ve done this as an experiment myself).  However, if you want something less kludgy than a Raspberry Pi, and you want a streamer that measures and in some situations with some dacs may sound even better than a Pi (and measures and sounds comparable to some of the extremely high $ streamers out there), then there are a bunch of well regarded products that cost between $400 and $1k.  They include the iFi Zen, the Volumio Rivo, Holo Red, Pro-Ject Stream Box S2 Ultra, the Primare Np5, and a few others.

Has the OP actually compared different streamers?

When I began my audiophile journey I connected my laptop to my dac via usb, using my Maxbook pro as the streamer with Audirvāna. That sounded good to me. Then I got my first streamer, the Sotm sms 200 ultra neo special edition. That was a huge sq upgrade. The I added their usb ultra, another improvement. Then I added a lps to power those units, another improvement. Then I added an I2S ddc to that chain…everything kept making sq improvements. So in my system a streamer made a huge difference. Now I’m building a DIY Taiko Audio Extreme clone, and so far it’s the best I’ve ever heard my music. I still am tweaking this latest server/streamer, but so far I’m very very impressed with it.