The primary benefits of a network streamer without DAC are ease of use and convenience. In other words, making it so listening to music is more enjoyable. So checking out the software user interface before hand and doing some research on how the unit performs and integrates into your existing music library and streaming sources are a good place to start.
We recommend Lumin in large part for those reasons. But there are many other good options.
Past that, there is an argument to be made about a streamer's digital audio connection to your DAC being less noisy and therefore having an impact on the quality of the reproduced sound.
An example I often use is when we found a popular brand-name sound card was improperly grounded and sending out extreme amounts of noise over the digital coaxial cable. The noise can be rejected/mitigated by the DAC's receiving circuit, but of course it's better if there isn't any noise to begin with.
We recommend Lumin in large part for those reasons. But there are many other good options.
Past that, there is an argument to be made about a streamer's digital audio connection to your DAC being less noisy and therefore having an impact on the quality of the reproduced sound.
An example I often use is when we found a popular brand-name sound card was improperly grounded and sending out extreme amounts of noise over the digital coaxial cable. The noise can be rejected/mitigated by the DAC's receiving circuit, but of course it's better if there isn't any noise to begin with.