Apps could be involved in quality but the most important is to isolate the streamers noise from getting into your DAC. This noise is analog noise not 1 and 0’s that people say is bit perfect and all streamers are the same (not true).
ROON is a great streaming interface and for me sounds great. I use TIDAL and Qobuz via ROON and also have about 400 CD’s burned as FLAC files in my hard drive. I did the FLAC thing about 20 years ago and still listen to my LOCAL streaming music.
The ROON Core is a computer that runs the server software that clients such as a cell phone, iPad, computer, etc... can connect to via a web GUI. You ROON Core must be connected into your home network. You can use Ethernet or better yet Fibre Optical from your network.
If you use fibre in your chain, you can put the fibre just before the DAC and get the benefits of the fibre material, which is glass, and glass cannot carry analog noise. It acts as a moat. In my case, I use a cheap noisy computer to run my ROON Core. This noise is stopped in its’ tracks by the fibre as it approaches my DAC(s).
You can spend a lot of money to buy a completely silent streaming machine (computer) and the effects of fibre are likely not that great.
I use the Sonore OpticalRendu streamer to make the above setup work. I have 3 of these since I had 3 DACs at one time.
systemOptique – Small Green Computer
I have made a few posts on A’gon explaining this in more detail.