I started many moons ago with a Sonos connect. Then I added my first external DAC (Wadia), Big improvement. My neighbor stopped by one day and listen to a piano piece blind test between the Sonos with and without the DAC and he immediately purchased the same DAC, LOL. The Wadia retail for 4x the Sonos cost. Then I did the W4S mods to the Sonos and got a little more improvement and big improvement on some specific music. Then I added linksys wireless mesh nodes with one of the nodes right at the system and hard wired. Did not really test the SQ but it basically got rid of drops. Then I added a Bryston BDP Pi streamer and got a significant SQ improvement, GF got the Sonos. Then I added a SGC Sonic Transport running a Roon Core and switched the Bryston to a Roon Endpoint. Both Roon and The Bryston have the ability to play Radio Paradise 16/48 FLAC stream. One day I switched back to the Bryston as the streamer and fired up Radio Paradise and it definitely sounded better (alive,improved image), bummer. But streaming Qobuz sounds about the same between the 2. The only knock in the Bryston is the Spartan MM interface. If I was looking at an all-in-one solution I would certainly consider the Bryston BDP 3.14. The BDP Pi is a streamer only but can be had for $1.5k that leave purdy good chunk of $ for a good DAC. I also agree with other posters that the source do make a difference. the 50/50 to 30/70 streamer/DAC $ ratio is on the mark. Note: I found my Bryston Pi used for ~$600.
