I just went through the journey of demoing new streamers. Your question is a good one and though the answer is counter intuitive, yes there are very discernable differences. Even with the same streamer, different digital outputs will sound audibly different. USB will likely sound different than SPDIF out of the same streamer into the same DAC. Demo, borrow and listen to everything you can get in your room. Take your time and find the piece that suits your tastes. Good luck and cheers.
Sound quality differences in streamers
Can there be sonic differences between moderate and high priced streamers when used for streaming only. I will not use or engage an onboard DAC or any other feature, just stream from Tidal or Amazon to DAC. If the unit is just transferring zeros and ones to a DAC can there be differences in say a $300 WiiM and a $3000 dSC streamer? Thanks