DAC Apps/Software

op - you mean software and user interface as pertaining to streamers, not dacs

streamers may have dacs attached... or not...

I went with Roon in large part for this.  It had a free trial period.  The other consideration for me was that it was constantly being maintained.  I am not a big fan of subscription software models, but when it comes to software in embedded systems I've changed my mind.  I worry more about streaming services coming and going than I do really about DAC's getting better anymore.

Today I use Tidal.  In 3 months it could vanish.  2 more services could appear. It is very hard for me to tell if a particular DAC company has a really active software group, that can respond to these changes rapidly or if they contract it all out, maybe 1x a year and maybe never update older units.

For these reasons I don't mind supporting Roon.

I've used Tidal and Audirvana (the latter is a bit buggy).  Do you use those from your phone/ipad/computer?  Is there any loss when sending from those devices versus streaming directly from a DAC w/ built in streamer?

I think I need an education on this.  I thought I understood it but perhaps not.  I want to stream Tidal tracks at the highest quality w/ MQA unfold but don't want the phone/ipad/laptop to be the source of a degrade in quality.