Looking for best streamer without DAC under $3500

@bfleetwood  Put all on DAC, the streamer just does bits in / out and it provides interfaces for DAC, control and input/output.  The DAC makes the Digital to Analog conversion, not the streamer!

@owl

The computer’s background processes create a ton of noise and so do the power supplies which feed back into your electrical grid.

No noise whatsoever, you don’t seem to understand Analog / Digital and computers.. And your streamer is just... a computer!

Versatile and quiet which is way better than the Mac I used to use - its more settled and quiet

Ha ha ha! "Way better": You had Mac / Software bad setup then!

https://volumio.org/get-started/
Volumio doing great on my Raspberry Pi 3b+ hooked to my Rega DAC-R, below 10% CPU usage for FLAC HiRes playback.  Super-easy setup!


https://www.24bit96.com/hifi-music-server/bitperfect-linux-with-mpd.html
I installed / configured that on an old Intel D510 Mini-ITX board.  Working very very well, below 10% CPU usage for HiRes FLAC playback.  Hooked to Ayre QB-9 via USB.

Wow

Staggering

I was using the Auralic Aries G1 and then G2 with a Hugo TT2 and they were both great. I found it a bigger improvement than the mscaler. I have since upgraded to the dCS Bartok which I find better than the my old setup by a large margain. Also maybe look for a used dcs network bridge. 

Looks like everyone has forgotten the request of this post.
Apart from the Mytek Brooklyn mentioned, nothing above comes close to the iFi Audio PRO iDSD, a true "Swiss-Army knife" unit that sounds incredible. I put it up against many DACs listed above in a Pepsi-Challenge...well under your $3500 budget. Has a tube stage that can be bypassed, streams, wi-fi etc....but apart from all it sound incredible.
I own two as I have an ATC system in my office and a McIntosh system in my living room / main listening area.

We use and recommend Lumin network streamers. Besides being very high quality, the hardware and software is designed and built like a real high-end consumer electronics (CE) product similar to most other audio hardware people buy.

https://www.audiogon.com/listings/lisa1g6c-simaudio-280d-da-converters

https://www.canuckaudiomart.com/details/649593869-simaudio-380d-dac-with-mind2-module-for-mqa-decoding/

As slow as USB 2.0 IS you can stream 8 hrs of HD music in about 23, seconds per theoretical numbers 

Hi James,
For stremaing purposes I am symply using a small fanless computer (Zotac ZBox - https://www.zotac.com/us/product/mini_pcs/overview ) which is hooked on my high-end preamp/dac and further amplified by power amp. I only have minimum software installed on it (windows, DAC drivers, tidal and netflix). 

With this setup I can stream all online content (including master quality and 360 Tidal content) as well as all ripped CD's stored on my local NAS. Not to mention that TV set serves as a high-res big screen monitor.

The whole setup works perfectly fine and I see no reason to spent thousands of bucks on fancy streamers, provided of course, that you have a very good DAC/ pream down the stream. The only possible upgrade I would see is perhaps better power supply.

I have the LUMIN A1 which has an external power supply. It’s extremely quiet and has a very dynamic sound. The chassis is solid billet aluminum and gas pretty substantial weight to it. The app interface is pretty good and there’s occasional updates that automatically come via the network. I think the built in DAC is very good although you said you would prefer an outboard a DAC so you could get Lumins streamer only and use your DAC and I’m sure it will sound great.  I think it sounds as good as my analog setup but it is different sounding. 
Rick

I don’t think anyone mentioned the SoTM SMS200 Ultra Neo with an outboard power supply. That’s what I use into a Chord Qutest via USB.
It’s not too expensive ($1200), works and sounds great and is Roon Ready plus a large number of other connection options included.
Unlike Lumin or Auraiic it doesn’t come with a player software, just ways to connect to all the favorite kinds of players over the network.

It’s basically a small, silent Linux computer optimized for audio that becomes part of a wired Ethernet network and outputs clean USB with a solid clock. The OS is on an SD card but you don’t really have to do much but select which player software you want to use.

Lumin U1 Mini is hard to beat for the price.

Stereophile reviewed a couple of servers in the two most recent issues, Innous Statement and Wolf something or other, with the cheapest being about $10,000. Both of them were compared to the Roon Nucleus+ with an upgraded power supply - total cost about $3400. The Roon more than held its own.

You can't output to an external DAC with the D2 correct? The T2 has the ability, but the D2 has to stay in the box?

$3500 budget for a streamer to stream Spotify?? Ummm, ok, lol.  Sounds like a serious set-up... why not use qobuz, tidal, amazon hd?  $3500 streamer and spotify go together like a 911 turbo and 85 octane 👍

@creativepart  Have you ever had the firmware corrupt on you  requiring you to burn a new microsd and put it on? I find that a bit annoying.

@creativepart  Have you ever had the firmware corrupt on you requiring you to burn a new microsd and put it on? I find that a bit annoying.

Actually, one time. I originally had the SMS200 before getting the SMS200 Ultra. I don't remember exactly what I did, but I was messing around with the SD card and a reboot button on the rear of the unit and it corrupted the SD card. I didn't need to buy a new one. I copied a safety copy to my computer and downloaded a new disk image. After I applied the image to the SD everything worked normally. This was back at version 4.2 of the firmware. I was only down for half a day while I figured out what I needed to do. SoTM support (May) was responsive and helpful.
I never had any other similar events and I went on to upgrade to the Ultra version of the SMS200. I've not had any issues with it at all. It's just plug and play.