Mini PC as a streamer

If your goal is to play music files from local storage, I recommend you skip Intel NUC and go straight to Intel SoC mini-ITX motherboards, such as ASRock J5040-ITX.  The motherboard comes with Intel Pentium Silver SoC complete with fanless heatsink.  Using low-cost and low-powered mini-ITX motherboards allows you to upgrade to better power supply later on without breaking the bank.  Can also add audio-grade USB card.  Can have separate power rails for internal SSDs.  All these affect the SQ.

Intel NUC has limited upgrade paths.  Converting Intel NUC to fanless case is very expensive.

Not worth trying. For what purpose?

Good point about the RPi -- if you use the USB output, make sure you get a model 4 instead of 3.  The model 4 handles USB output fine.

I used to use a pi 3 with Daphile.  It was good, but a bit noisy on the USB.  I read that the pi 3 has the network and USB on the same bus.  That is not do for the pi 4, the USB is on a separate bus.  Less noisy.  I upgraded to an i3 fanless NUC with audiolinux OS and HQPlayer.  The audio is great.

I used to use the PI but switched over to the Kingdel Fanless Mini PC, HTPC with Intel i5 CPU. It was a lot cheaper a year ago.

I run Foobar and Fidelizer and it’s wonderful. I had to switch to a Windows PC because I’m a Amazon HD user and there isn’t an Amazon HD PI OS app. 

Volumio and the PI had a much slicker music server interface but didn’t sound nearly as good. I tried Chromcast audio, and BubblePnc but while they worked they didn’t sound as good and were clunky to use.

Controlling it with Remote PC works really well.

Danger Will Robinson, Danger

I use a Raspberry Pi 4B as a streamer with the Logitech Media Server (LMS) software. I stream Qobuz over the internet and also use an 3TB 2 1/2" drive for my local collection. Works great. This feeds two RPi based players, but one can add more if desired.

Or, if you don't mind having the RPi in the room with the stereo (they can be fanless), you can also use the one RPi as both server and player. There are lot options for feeding your DAC -- you can use USB output, or add a "HAT" to feed either SPDIF or even analog to the amp. Very flexible - lots of options.