To the OP: As you can see, there’s an ongoing debate among a number of us who’ve responded to your question that sometimes gets in the way of clarity. So I’ll speak directly to you in order to clarify my position, rather than have it cartoonishly misrepresented by others:
1) Streamers work solely in the digital domain, and as such have no sonic signature of their own. That doesn’t mean there aren’t differences in the sound across different streamers, because streamers do differ with respect to the noise they produce or suppress. This noise - or its absence - can affect the extent to which you hear the true sonic signature of your DAC. Many mistakenly attribute this interaction to the sound of the streamer.
2) There are relatively inexpensive streamers that are state-of-the-art in terms of minimizing noise. This is relatively easy to measure.
3) There is a wide variation among DACs regarding the extent to which they may be affected by noise from a streamer. In the prior thread I shared with you, a general consensus emerged that the OP’s ARC DAC was probably highly insensitive to streamer noise, in part because all signals were reclocked. Having said that, his DAC was very sensitive to RFI/EMI, so he could hear a significant difference between an $80 vs. $230 coax cable connected to his DAC.
4) Because of #3 above, you might be able to get away with a Bluesound or Wiim and experience great sound, depending on your DAC. But because of #2 above, you can spend a little more than what a Wiim or Bluesound costs, but definitely under $2k, and have a high end streaming system with any good DAC.
5) You do not need to spend $10k (or $29k for gods sake) to have a high end streamer. But there are $10k+ streamers out there that are beautifully made and wonderfully engineered that will sound great if you have a great DAC.
Hope that helps. Good luck in your journey.