I’m very satisfied with the sound of the $800 Pro-ject Stream Box Ultra S2. It’s based on a Raspberry Pi with the power supplies and analog sections optimized for low noise. It certainly sounds better than a laptop or iPhone that I used for a short while. At some time if I get bored with time on my hands, I’ll compare it to more expensive streamer/transports to see if anything else sounds better. I'm thinking Innuos or Auralic. I’ve heard the Naim NDX 2 used to play back local files from a flash drive through my Pontus II DAC. It sounded good, but wasn’t noticeably better (at least without comparing head-to-head with my Pro-ject streamer).
You can plug a hard drive, solid state drive or flash drive into the Pro-ject streamer so it becomes a transport for local files.
The Innuos Zen Mini is supposed to be quite good as well.
In theory, a dedicated streamer will have less EMI and RFI than a Mac Mini or other general purpose computing device. Maybe buy a streamer used and see how it works for your needs?
You can plug a hard drive, solid state drive or flash drive into the Pro-ject streamer so it becomes a transport for local files.
The Innuos Zen Mini is supposed to be quite good as well.
In theory, a dedicated streamer will have less EMI and RFI than a Mac Mini or other general purpose computing device. Maybe buy a streamer used and see how it works for your needs?