Anyone else feel like it’s the Wild Wild West?

Upgrade advice gleaned from my personal experience in no particular order...

Fiber optic either all the way from the router or as a breaker

LPS when possible 

Ethernet switches with OXCO clock

DDC if front end is under $20K 

Avoid ROON, apps from dCS, Lumin, Aurender, Auralic and Innuos sound better

Good but not crazy expensive cables of higher gauge

Power conditioning usually passive or battery are best but some active can be good and reasonable like Puritan 

Finally I want to share a totally biased opinion of the DAC manufacturer Lampizator, I just bought and installed a Lampizator Baltic 3 in my system and it is the most discernible upgrade to my system ever, particularly with respect to timbre, harmonics and soundstage dimensions. If you are serious about getting your streaming to match or beat pure analog playback, a good tube DAC with tube rectification is in my opinion a must buy alongside the list of things above.

My setup gives excellent sound with the following:

• Synology NAS for file storage, Qobuz for more
• Roon running on a Nucleus-like NUC
• ASUS RT-AX86U router, TP-Link managed switch, wired Ethernet
• Auralic Aries G1 streamer to a good DAC and system
• Furman and Torus power conditioners/surge protectors
• Decent (Billy Bags) stands

What I don’t use are the following:

• Special power supplies or power cords on any of it
• Expensive interconnects or digital cables; no optical LAN here
• Vibration footers, pucks, Ethernet filters, gongs, crystals, DDC, etc.

Maybe those things could make the sound incrementally better. But it’s already so much better than most systems I hear, that I am not motivated. I'd rather listen to music. When I’ve tried tweaky stuff, it’s changed the sound less than moving my chair back or forward 6". So for me, all those tweaks are a nothing-burger.

IMO streaming has still not matured enough, it is certainly frustrating but also exciting times, there is a constant stream of new companies / new products that sound better than previous generation products. Also the price should be driven down as competition hots up but for the time being there is global shortage of ICs which keeps prices high and availability limited. I just hope we are not going to end up like the PC market that once a product is released it is obsolete within few months. At the same time the software is still lacking, perhaps ROON is the best effort on the software side, it could go like the PC market, several hardware makers and two-three operating systems / front end products.

First, I'd like to call out that we need another word in our common vocabulary or we need to distinguish between streaming local files vs. streaming from a service. More confusion has been created by opinions about "streaming" without specifying whether they're talking about apples or oranges. 

TOTH to @mike_in_nc for format...

My setup gives excellent sound with the following:

• Synology NAS for file storage connected to a TP-Link switch in a separate room, Qobuz for more
• Roon Core running on a SGC SonicTransporter connected to a TP-Link switch in a separate room
• ISP monopoly-chosen modem, Eero Mesh router in another room, wired Ethernet
• Sonore opticalRendu streamer/renderer as Roon endpoint & Sonore LPS to a good DAC and system
• Macbook, iPad & iPhone as Roon Remotes

What I currently believe:

• Much of the progress in digital playback has been advancements in two areas: 1)reducing jitter(most recent gear does this far better than a decade or so ago) 2)reducing noise(low powered single purpose devices running simple OS & fewer processes, cable improvements & conversion implementations, better power supplies all are valid tactics to fight noise
• it always comes down to the mastering of the music. the best SQ will almost always be in the native format of the recording be it analog or digital. better-mastered redbook will beat lesser-mastered hi-rez. Streaming from a service gives you unknown provenance, often volume-adjusted by the service(says Bernie Grundman), so blanket pronouncements are pretty meaningless when comparing to known local files, CDs or LPs. 
• Macs & PCs are facing an uphill battle vs. streamers regarding noise. OS, multiple non-audio processes, low quality PS etc. make getting good sound from a regular computer more costly and troublesome than it's worth.
• Running a NAS, server, NUC etc away from the audio system helps reduce noise a lot. Optical conversion and some fancy filtering strategies help fight noise too.
• Wifi doesn't sound as good or work as consistently as wired ethernet. Network stability is a PITA and a more stable network will save any user from plenty of headaches and heartache.
• For beginners, getting a decent DAC is first priority, but not the only priority if you want high quality sound. Anyone who says a Blusound Node is equal in SQ to better streamers is in denial or needs to listen to some better setups for comparison.
• As a vinyl LP lover, Roon's UX is significantly more enjoyable IMHE than other software. It's a game changer and provides benefits that increase musical engagement. For me, it's worth the trouble to setup my system to optimize Roon's SQ(e.g. dedicated core in another room). While SOTA level alternatives(e.g. DCS, Aurender) exist, their cost of hardware ownership and depreciation is a huge factor that keeps me away from a closed system. 

Cheers,

Spencer

You'll only become more confused over the course of this thread as nearly unlimited presentation of best subjective results with various equipment and schemes.

Believe this due to a technology in fast growth phase, expect much innovation in coming years. I'd expect more consolidation over the long run as some equipment and/or innovations are proven to be more universally superior. Until then, we're running real time experiment, sure innovators observing our, and their own test results, correlation to certain sound qualities being determined.

I see vast majority of streaming equipment as pretty disposable at this point, expect the churning to continue.