New streamer or dac?

Moon 280d is the perfect solution.  It's both a high end DAC and a high end streamer.  I was running a Blusound Node 2i as a transport feeding into my McIntosh DAC, and the Moon was a major upgrade.  Well worth the money spent, and you actually save when comparing to running a $2k streamer into a $2k DAC.  

Consider the digital end just like the analog end. Each component is critical and must be of equal sound quality… and upstream matters most. If you have a high quality turntable, phono stage in front of your preamp… digital is the same thing (streamer and DAC).

Today’s streamer can perform on the same level as analog… so nearly infinite music for nearly no cost (after initial purchases). Typically it can cost a little bit more to get a digital end to sound as good… although highly variable say 10 - 15% (not by randomly choosing by cost… carefully chosen compatible devices). If you are slowly working towards a better system, get separate DAC and Streamer… skip the CD player… they are on the way out.

So with that in mind. I highly recommend Aurender. I still own two… a budget N100 and their flagship W20SE.. Truly remarkable devices. Your strategy could be to get an integrated streamer, Streamer and DAC… then after a while, get a much better DAC… then in a few years upgrade to a real high end Streamer. Or pick out a high end DAC and streamer at once… more than twice as hard. But like most high end systems…. Research… Research… Research. Happy to help further… but need to know what you got now and what kind of budget you have. But in general, A $25K streamer sounds significantly better than a $10K… which sounds better than a $5K, and a$2.5K, and a $1.25K streamer… same for DACs.

Streamer dac preamp would be my recommendation.  And one that can receive tidal connect. The best way to get the most bits. A streamer dac eliminates the need to convert outdated transmission protocol (spdif,usb,coax) to a bit perfect signal. My understanding is I2S is currently the best protocol for this transmission. I think most Streamer DACs have this built in....  I use PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC MKII with Bridge II, but Cambridge CX always seemed interesting when I was shopping on a more limited budget.

Thanks everyone for your interest. My system is as follows. Prima Luna evo 400 power amp, Prima Luna evo 200 pre amp ,Kanta number two’s.Anolog playback is Rega p6 with Aptheta moving coil run through Gold Note phono pre with its matching linear power supply all that thru Torus power conditioner ,intercnects and cables a mixture of Acustic Zen,Kimber and AQ . No Dac currently just the Denon streamer/ dac combo which doesn’t quite cut it . Budget for the dac would be in the two thousand range. Thanks again for your input.

@pwayland If you are using a PSA DS DAC with built in streaming card you have already done away with the I2s unless you want to connect a CDT by I2s.

There is an advantage to having a streaming card in a DAC, Mola Mola and DCS do this also but I seriously don't believe this setup could compare to a full blown streamer with or without separate DAC.

The jury is out on eliminating "old tech" such as AES/EBU which GENERALLY gives better sound even over I2s and mostly over USB depending on your setup.

The PSA DS upsamples everything to DSD, it's not a bad idea but you can't select individual frequency settings.