Streamer between Roon Nucleus Plus and DAC

Roon recommends splitting the core and endpoint, hence I run the core in a NUC in my server rack and another NUC also running ROCK in my hifi rack. This one is mounted in an Akasa case and it looks and sounds really nice. I feed my DAC via USB to a DDC for 2CH and my AVR via HDMI for MCH.

I assume this means you are using a Nucleus into the old USB Stream device from PBD and are going into a PBD, Nagra or BAT DAC.  I am very familiar with that converter.  If that is the case, you may get some modest benefit from upgrading from the Nucleus as it tends to be a some what noisy device but it won't be huge as the PBD unit takes that noise away.  A streamer in the middle is unlikely to have an impact.  The biggest impact would be upgrading to a PBD streamer but that is not an inexpensive proposition as the MPS-X is $11.5K.  

I am obviously one of the small number of PBD dealers in the US.  

@verdantaudio

Thanks for the additional details. I believe the PBD USB-X4 is identical to the circuitry in the MPS-X and should provide the same benefits of clock synchrony and noise reduction. If this is true, then the signal from the MPS-X should be virtually identical to that provided by the USB – X4 with an outboard streamer. The power supply of the MPS-X may make a difference but I am using a Swagman Labs LPS with the USB-X4.

I think I’ll hold for now. Thanks to everybody for your thoughts.