DDC or Better Streamer?

I much prefer the Harmony with Denafrips Gaia via I2S, this vs. optimized usb feed. Issue is many streamers don't provide I2S which isn't any great loss assuming most streamer I2S interfaces probably not of great quality, which means implementing a DDC for highest quality I2S.

@audiostick May be over your budget, but this is way I'd go in your situation.  Get Sonore Optical Rendu for your Roon Endpoint, keep the Bluesound, this will be Roon Core, you'll also need Sonore OpticalModule or generic optical conversion just in front of OpticalRendu. This serves three purposes, one is the OpticaRendu is superior streamer to Bluesound, two. you'll now have optical conversion which totally isolates noise from entering the streamer, three, Roon has superior sound quality with Core and Endpoint on two different devices. Now if you go a bit above budget, get the Denafrips Hermes or Gaia for the I2S to Harmony. I guarantee you this will be a significant upgrade to present setup, and for a very reasonable price.

Not for nothing but...I don't know of any high end DACs that rely on or optimized for I2S.  The top brands have some new connection technologies in development and none of them are I2S.  

@rick_n I have building cables all my life.   I2S had provided the best sound improvement in my journey.   Lets see how Laiv, Matrix, ES plays this out. As an engineer, clocking and signal is a no brainer.  Funny that some people think you know what you are talking about....

@audiostick 

As a Laiv DAC owner, I’m trying to figure out my stack.  Just sold the Hifi Rose RA180 integrated (actually don’t know why..) I have a couple other GaN amps and will miss the Rose.  

The TT-1 (with LPS) is crazy amazing.  I’ll probably settle on the Laiv streamer eventually.   Please don’t quote me on the upcoming EverSolo T8....

I never thought a connection could be that good.....I2S

@sns Interesting concept.  I'm not currently using Roon, but if I add a different Streamer and want to continue to use my other Bluesound products, I may have to.  Adding a Hermes is indeed intriguing as it appears that in addition to it being the low cost option, multiple sources will benefit from it.

@rick_n I see that Innuos Next Gen series is now offering i2s options, but $$$!

I would love to see LAIV bring the Harmony NET2 Streamer to market on time and at the price and delivery performance of their DAC.  This would make for the cleanest solution.  But this assumes that their i2s module would be on par with the Hermes performance.