Would this be a good starter system for streaming?

Op there are a number of ways of building a great digital front end.

Part of this discussion is what is important to you and how you are planing on using the system.

You have two options one is to buy a great dac that will elevate the sound of the system signifigently, really great dacs are in the $2-3k price range and really amazing ones are about $5k and above.

If your budget is eaten up by the dac then you can use a laptop to get you started with streaming and then circle back and move into a much better sounding server such an an Innous or Aurender at the next go around.

Or you can look at a really good streamer/dac with or without the addition of a server, you only need a server if you want to store a CD library or have to add streaming music sources such as Tidal or Obouze to a dac that does not have a network streaming card.

Most streaming dac's will play Tidal or Obouze, Spotify and similar popular sources via an app.

There are a few very good affordable streaming dacs, the Teac NT 505 and the Lumin D2, the Myteks,  the next class up is the Lumin T2 and a few others on the market, then the uber class dacs like the new Bricasti M3 which is quite extraordinary but with a streaming card would be more expensive than your stated budget, we don't sell the Auralic but they also make a good dac/streamer.

Our advice would be to purchase the best dac you can first, use a laptop for now or get a really good streaming dac like the Lumin. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Lumin, Mytek, Bricasti,

Elfedone, 

As you can see above we are recommending the best dac in the price range. The Denefripps is supposed to be a great dac, however, for the same price as that Dac,  there is  T+A DAC 8 DSD which is outstanding and if you can run DSD 512 via a computer server running Roon,Jriver, or HQ player  will beat most $10k dacs.

The new Bricasti M3 which is just amazing, and it is made in America and it has a host of great features including a pure analog volume control a streaming card option and a headphone option the dac is mind blowing completely raised our expectations in great digital that is in the 5k price range according to Bricasti the M3 is 80-85% of the sound of their reference M21 for 1/3 the price.

The Innous servers which start at a bit over a thousand bucks also streams and rips so you can get a great ripper/HD storage system that is not so expensive.

We are not saying that the server doesn't make a huge difference the servers do just if you have to get started you can use a laptop first and then replace that with a dedicated server.

Other considerations are do you look at a real marvelous streaming dac like the Lumin T2?

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Lumin, Innous, Bricasti, T+A dealers.

Rbach you are also free not to read our posts. 

You are encouraged to add to the conversation why dont you try to add to the discussion

Rbach the dacs we have are very highly rated, we sell, Aqua Hif, T+A, Bricasti, Lumin and many others.

Try to find a Denefrips professional review, not too easy very few reviewers have heard one in the reviews, could only find three reviews, Six Moons, Audio Bacon and Audio Stream,

We could find one review where the Terminator was compared to a Chord which was a bit more expensive and also had a volume control and was better in some ways and bettered in others.

The issue with Denefrips is the direct model takes away the possiblity that the Dac in test will be compared with Dacs that are allready well known in one location.

Rbach we are not saying our dacs are better just that there are some really outstanding choices that the OP might not be thinking about.

The Bricasti M3 is amazing sounding, similarly priced and you have options of adding a nework card, it has an analog preamp stage and can be a headphone amp as well, very cool feature set.

The T+A also has a resitor analog volume control, is also a headphone amp, and comes from one of the best digital engineering departments in Europe, The Aqua Hifi Lascala is 100% modular and completely upgradable, with the Terminator only one board can be changed easily.

Again considering that we are a very dac oriented store and continue to bring in and test many dacs gives us a pretty wide perspective in what sounds good. Again we have Ifi, Lumin, Mytek, Bricasti, Naim, T+A, Aqua Hif, Light Harmonic, to name a few of the digital lines we carry.

Rbach how about you extoll  for the rest of us your vast experience with all the dac’s you have tested?

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Yes Rbach out of the thousands of posts we are everywhere exactly?