New streamer or dac?

Going through a couple of interactions I decided to commit to Roon as my meta data manager and interface to my personal library, Qobuz and a couple of background Sonos systems.  Going that route I found my internet connection was intermittent at best when running the Roon core on my MacBook Air.  So If that is your end game I would also consider getting a dedicated music server.  I ended up with a SGC sonicTransporter i5 with a 4 tb ssd.  I migrated my music collection to the drive and did not look back.  As far as DAC and / or streamer I decided on a combined unit to eliminate interconnects, power cables and self space needs.  In my case I went with a Bricasti M3 with the network card option.  There are a lot of great solutions and as always listening is the only way to find what works for you.  After going through a few DAC streamer combinations I decided to go with a vendor who really knows networking.  I find the professional recording studio hardware vendors to be the best.  Again there are a number of great options.  Do your research and going the "slightly" used route is a pretty good option.  Sorry for running on.

@bikeboy52, All I can offer with regards to a recommendation is sharing my process. I did recently buy my PS Audio Perfect Wave with Bridge II network card and in doing so I spent a lot of time educating myself on the technology and feel I made a good choice where I arrived. I am biased toward PS Audio partly because they are local for me. I purchased it from The Music Room for under $2k. I also really like iFi Zen stream and V2 DAC which I use in my studio. The Zen Stream is also compatible with Tidal connect which I believe to be key. Tidal has a list of compatible devices if you check the tidal connect button. I believe the bridge II card could be rebranded and possibly tweaked Conversdigital because it uses mconnect, but not sure.

@lordmelton , Yes you would be correct if I had a PSA DS with bridge II. I actually have the Perfect Wave MkII with bridge II, which does not process DSD, so my card is using the I2S communication protocol. For $3k, I can upgrade my PW with a kit including new boards to fully convert it to a DS. I would postulate that feeding DSD directly from the streamer card has got to be the best solution. It is interesting to hear your experience with AES/EBU. I have read I2S is not great over any length of cable, so that could explain. I my mind, the card is just a more eloquent solution but as you say, it all depends on your setup... 

Ok here my suggestion to you and someone mention already about Denafrips Dac. Here's my setup for streaming.

Aurender N100h (Streamer) USB out to Denafrips Iris DDC get a better USB

Denafrips Iris DDC to Pontus ii using i2s cable also get a better i2s don't be  cheap in cable if you want hear good details,  soundstage, good base etc. And I also I change all my Power cable.

Good luck and I hope you can get a good advice or help here.

Thanks again everyone ,really interesting thread lotta info for me to dig into.I would love to be able to go relax in a comfy chair and A/B compare the Schiit the Denifrips and maybe something thats double or even triple in price to those two units. There’s just no place to do that in my area especially with brands like those ,Im sure you all have the same problem. I do however feel that info given to me in this forum is extremely valuable  ,nobody’s trying to sell anything right?  Btw I was a little surprised that it took that long to see Denafrips come up ,anybody?? Just sayin, brand gets   great reviews but i dont see many or any on Agon. Thx everyone again!