Any audiophile use computer (MacBook) as your audio streaming source?

 When a DDC sends a signal to a DAC that has reduced jitter and noise from the USB signal the DAC has much less processing to do.

.. "much less processing to do" is just like "do less work to clean up the incoming signal"

 The DAC is doing the exact same amount of processing whether the incoming signal has jitter or it doesn't. The DAC operates exactly the same either way. The DAC doesn't have a circuit that detects jitter or noise and then "does more work" when it detects it.

Again, I use a DDC so I'm not pushing back on the idea that they can improve the outcome, I'm just saying your explanations about how that happens make no sense. 

At the end of the day I realize my concerns don't really matter, how it sounds matters, but as someone with a background in electronics, it just bothers me when people offer explanations about how electronic circuits work when they really don't understand them. 

so I'll let it be

I stream from a $180 Windows laptop using MusicBee through a Paradigm preamp using PlayFi on one system and through an SMSL DAC on another. However, I stream through an Amazon Echo to those same devices 90% of the time. Bits are bits. I don't worry about how they get there and as far as the jitter argument, the data is buffered and any jitter measures far below the capability of the human ear to notice it.

I use a fanless windows mini-pc (MS-6) designed for streaming from Hollis Audio Labs (I think i paid around $600 for it).  Not sure how much was done with it, but it is leaps and bounds better than the (highly rated on ASR) raspberry pi design (with the reccomended "better" power source) that I replaced my Linn Majik dedicated streamer with. 

I was very surprised at how good it sounded.  The story I was told is that Paul Allen was a serious audiophile and besides money, one of his major contributions to the windows OS was demanding they got the sound right.  My ears tell me there is some serious truth to that story.

The dac I am using is part of a dsp processor based (Danville dspNexus 2x8) on the AKM AK4493 DAC chip set, which until recently was considered the top of the line.  This replaced my topping D90, which in it's own right is a pretty solid performer. 

I agree that the DAC is very important if not the most important part of the equation, but how you stream counts as well.  My experience/ears tells me that as far as computer streaming goes, Microsoft is the better performer over Linux and Apple. 

Toss Roon in the mix with some room correction and there are many options for squeezing every last drop of performance out of whatever pc based or dedicated streaming device you landed on before moving on to the next level.

My$.02

The DAC is doing the exact same amount of processing whether the incoming signal has jitter or it doesn't. The DAC operates exactly the same either way. The DAC doesn't have a circuit that detects jitter or noise and then "does more work" when it detects it.

@herman  I’m not going to go track down sources for this here and maybe someone else will chime in, but there are plenty of references out there that will show DACs sound better when fed a higher quality signal with lower noise/jitter, which is largely what a DDC does.  Just because you (or I) don’t understand exactly why that is the case doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and the fact that both you and I (and scores of others here) have experienced positive benefits from adding a DDC is pretty darn good evidence that feeding a DAC a better signal has material benefits.  If it’s not because the DAC works/sounds better with a lower noise/jitter signal from the DDC they why else would that possibly be?

Some would argue that some DDCs are "voiced", or that they add a little bit of gain to the signal. Either or both would produce audible differences.

You have to wonder why so many seemingly reliable and reasonable folks report that strictly digital components (streamers, DDCs, etc.) make a sonic difference when logically they should not. What if the differencse were built in by the designer?