Are "streamers" the new "transports"?

This kind of brings up something else.


DAC's are not equally indifferent to the quality of the input signal.

Unfortunately, audiophiles are often lured by "discerning" DAC's (and speakers). That is, they buy the DAC that lets them hear a difference in transports.

To me, the ideal DAC has such a great input stage that it is completely indifferent to any reasonably good source, and many have gone to extremes to do this. The Parasound CD player for instance would read tracks into memory and play from there instead of the CD to ensure the least amount of jitter in the output. Other RAM-centric players and streamers and DAC's have appeared with the same idea.


Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. :)

In digital, its always something new. The King is dead. Long live the King. 

Yes I think streamer’s and streamer/servers are the new "transports".

As far as things that contribute to better sound quality goes it’s the same basic things that are needed with other digital transports. Things like high quality audio grade parts, minimizing electrical noise by isolating components, minimizing jitter, better power supplies, controlling vibration etc. All that stuff applies to most all audio gear. Mass market computers are not designed for audio and so company’s are designing dedicated components optimized for audio performance.

Basically, "yes" but with one big caveat. For most of the time transports have been on this earth, they transmitted the data over SPDIF, in the original mode, which was isochronous. That meant that the timing of each sample transmitted was determined by the goodness of the clocking of the transport and the goodness of the recovery by the DAC.
So if there was jitter in the transport, the music is compromised.  I wont go into the math, but consider the "bits" the X-axis and the timing the Y axis, draw a curve and you get the idea.

USB, and a newer mode of SPDIF, are asynchronous.  In asynch protocols the transport, streamer, or well-trained parakeet just sends the data and the DAC gathers it up, reads it into memory, and re-times it.  So NOW the jitter is almost entirely under the DAC's control.  Other issues, such as digital noise enter the picture, but let's stay on the big difference for simplicity - and that's timing and jitter.
So the inference is that DACs today are less dependent on the goodness of the timing of the signal than in the older transport days. So my answer is "yes, exactly, but its less relevant today".
My two pence,
and I design the stuff,
G

I think that you left out the sweet spot 2.5
https://www.magnahifi.com/en/webshop/product/mano-ultra
or
https://www.minidsp.com/products/streaming-hd-series/shd-studio
Both in the $800-$1000 range.
I have the Studio, I like it better than my BluNode.
It uses Volumio which is easier to play my local tracks on SSD.
BluSound is a little easier with Qobuz.
Plus the Studio has DSP.  Maybe I'll get to it after Christmas.