Going through a couple of interactions I decided to commit to Roon as my meta data manager and interface to my personal library, Qobuz and a couple of background Sonos systems. Going that route I found my internet connection was intermittent at best when running the Roon core on my MacBook Air. So If that is your end game I would also consider getting a dedicated music server. I ended up with a SGC sonicTransporter i5 with a 4 tb ssd. I migrated my music collection to the drive and did not look back. As far as DAC and / or streamer I decided on a combined unit to eliminate interconnects, power cables and self space needs. In my case I went with a Bricasti M3 with the network card option. There are a lot of great solutions and as always listening is the only way to find what works for you. After going through a few DAC streamer combinations I decided to go with a vendor who really knows networking. I find the professional recording studio hardware vendors to be the best. Again there are a number of great options. Do your research and going the "slightly" used route is a pretty good option. Sorry for running on.
New streamer or dac?
So when I put my system together the idea was strictly vinyl,I eventually added a budget streamer thinking I’d use it for background music or puttering around the house when its not practical to listen to records. I became immediately consumed with it after subscribing to Tidal ,the idea of being able to listen to anything that pops into head is just fantastic,Im enjoying music like never before.Im ready to swap out the $600 unit for something a little more inline with the rest of the equipment in the system but am not sure if another option might be better. So my question is would it maybe be a better idea to buy a Dac and use the inexpensive steamer with it as a transport until I could afford to change it out also ? or would it make more sense to just buy a new streamer/ Dac unit ( I like the Aruender ) any thoughts on that would be appreciated,thanks in advance.