Thoughts and suggestions please

You might just be another perfect candidate—dare I say, guinea pig—for the Node ICON ($1.2k, might be w/ a good LPS like you said), which The Absolute Sound praised for sounding only “subtly” different from a $35k rig that included a $28k DAC and a $6.7k Aurender N200 streamer.  Note that N200 is highly raved by the Agers here.

And if it is good and you decide to keep it, report back pls and also teach Agers a good lessen here that a hi-fi gear does not need to be expensive.

@limomangus  I was like you — I had a good collection of CDs and PCM titles and albums, and I refused to pay for a subscription. But sometime last fall, I gave in and subscribed to Qobuz simply because the abundance of streaming sources gives you a kind of freedom everyone should have — the freedom to listen to anything you’re interested in, right at your fingertips. No fuss, no muss, and it works out to literally about 35 cents a day. 

Remember, your collection might be large too, but it’s still only a tiny fraction of what’s available from streaming services. I mostly listen to classical and jazz, and even within classical alone, think about how much you could possibly have in your own library to compare different versions by conductor, performer, and orchestra.

Whenever and wherever I travel, the music is always there for me through my iPhone and earbuds. I think that’s worth it.

And when Wi-Fi drops, I still have thousands of titles to fall back on — though that only happens maybe once or twice a year at most.