Yes you can spend 10’s of thousands of dollars setting up a streaming system and it will sound very good. You can also spend only a few thousand and still get really good sound. Mid level dac and streamer will get you to 85% and then you sit back and ask us $10,000 more worth that last 15%? I use both Qobuz and Apple Music and I can tell you Apple Music just does not sound good. I have it set to hi res lossless and it just sounds muddy like there is a blanket over the speakers. I don’t know what they are or are not doing with their systems but wish they would address it. One thing though you do need to dig into the setting under general > music and make sure you change the defaults to hi res lossless.
Yes bits are bits but jitter and noise introduced into the signal affects the end sound. When using your left brain that is how you need to look at streaming. Thing is that you can’t hear the noise until it is eliminated. I as well was using my MacBook to send Qobuz to dac with usb and thought is was great. Then I tried a dedicated streamer and was quite shocked at the difference. This is with a Gustard r26 $1600, then $500 of mods to it, eversolo streamer $800. I am very happy with my streaming set up and do not feel I have to add $1000’s for that extra 15% that is out there.