The dacs that soix recommended are entry level dacs and for a little bit more money can do better. Also, if you do get a quality dac, get 1 with mqa support, then compare qobuz to tidal masters with mqa. Tidal is so much better sounding with mqa music and equal to quboz with non-mqa music. I also don’t take recommendations from people that say to stay away from mqa when they don’t have the equipment to actually try it.
As for 3rd party streamers, you don’t need 1. The bluesound node 2 is an entry level streamer. I use Roon on a headless Mac. You can’t get anything close Roon’s GUI and its sound is equal to audirvana. All 3rd party streamers are computers and the only reason you would want to use 1 is if you want to hook it up directly to a dac which I wouldn’t do or you don’t want to support a computer. Why have a computer in your audio room? Been there and done that.
Get the best dac you can afford with a network interface and use your computer to run Roon. Then use Ethernet to hook to your computer. Don’t use usb, you’ll be spending money with 3rd party products to make it sound decent. For around $2000 or so, get a used ps audio ds jr dac with network bridge ii and mqa support.
As for 3rd party streamers, you don’t need 1. The bluesound node 2 is an entry level streamer. I use Roon on a headless Mac. You can’t get anything close Roon’s GUI and its sound is equal to audirvana. All 3rd party streamers are computers and the only reason you would want to use 1 is if you want to hook it up directly to a dac which I wouldn’t do or you don’t want to support a computer. Why have a computer in your audio room? Been there and done that.
Get the best dac you can afford with a network interface and use your computer to run Roon. Then use Ethernet to hook to your computer. Don’t use usb, you’ll be spending money with 3rd party products to make it sound decent. For around $2000 or so, get a used ps audio ds jr dac with network bridge ii and mqa support.