Ever since owning a Linn CD player I have been one with their philosophy of "source first- garbage in = garbage out"
It is not clear if you fixed at that price point:
With that principle if sound quality is a top concern you should be matching your source investment to your 10+ k amplification. If you are one to invest in a LPS I would assume that is you.
Why have you settled on those 2 choices?
If WAF is not a concern I agree with others-go separates*- more flexibility for sound tastes and options down the road to update either streamer/player and DAC. Of course you could use the Eversolo as the streamer only but why pay for the DAC part, and the pre-amp part since you already have an integrated? Most mid-range DAC’s do come equipped with a pre-amp function, and an endpoint for Roon (do you use Roon?) but one usually can do much better.
Some will say the DAC makes most of the difference, some have claimed they hear no differences in the streamer/player whatsoever, some of the people in the forum from my streamer manufacturer have claimed more difference in the streamer than the DAC, but that is at the upper end market.
So what is your budget? If you could demo some streamer/DAC combinations and you definitely heard an substantial uptick in sound with a 10-15k streamer/converter setup compared to a 5k all-in-one would you be inclined to pay for that? Or are you fixed on 5k for the source(s)?
There are plenty of choices out there, I have seen how these threads go on this forum for streamers- the majority: 95% of the responses- will recommend Aurender, Innuos, Lumin or Aries, and for good reason- nothing wrong with that, but if you could swing a Grimm MU2* or Playback Edelweiss*, I am sure you would be very happy.
*not separates
