Check in: How quickly are streamers and servers evolving?

Completely missing the point. But whatever. There's a lot to be said for, "Get off my lawn."  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NelBNtNm8l0.

   Most appropriate funny reply in a dogs life. Not exactly PC.   Right on Clint.

@rhodes My favorite Clint scene is when he yells at an empty chair.

We often talk about "as good as we will ever need". 24/192 really is as good as we will never need. Arguments can always be made that properly implemented 16/44.1 is already as good we will need (given that people can't reliably tell the difference), but 24/192 is so far beyond that, and so far beyond our hearing range, that yes, 24/192 as a data format, for stereo at least, is really as good as you will ever need.

Pick a lowish cost PC or MAC, somewhat modern, and it is going to run whatever version of server software you are ever likely to need for many years.

Pick a good DAC with a USB input, and you are now immune to data transmitted jitter, and contrary to popular opinion of those who have never designed electronics of any sophistication, creating a local clock for audio D/A conversion, of low enough jitter to be well below other noise sources, is not terribly difficult, and you certainly don't need an uber expensive 10MHz external clock, that is not an even multiple of the data conversion process and introduces jitter from cable transmission and edge detection.  If you want to read an article that shows total ignorance of digital audio, clocks in digital audio, and follows with an obvious stretch to say something positive, though quite clearly, there probably was no difference, read this drivel:   https://audiobacon.net/2018/09/26/sotm-sclk-ocx10-a-high-purity-10-mhz-master-clock-generator/2/

So what is left w.r.t. good sound?  Electrical noise on the USB I/F.  Invest in a good USB 2.0 High Speed Isolator (that does 480mbps), and a low noise power supply for the DAC side. Problem solved.

Assuming you have a good DAC, with a small outlay of money you now have something that has the ability to deliver audio quality that will match any server/streamer, and will keep doing so for many years. The only downside is the physical I/F, i.e. the computer, can be a pain to remote.

They are evolving at the speed of sound! 

Seriously though, I've thought about this, to the point where I sometinmes think about just giving up analog altogether.  

My digital front end sounds every bit as good as my analog front end already.

The cost ratio of analog to digital is ridiculous if you stop and think about it, not to mention the convenience factor of digital.

I've spent at least an order of magnitude more on the analog side.  I don't feel any need to upgrade my digital gear at this point, but I just bought a new (to me) turntable yesterday because I want to see if I can take things a little further.  

When I talk about what I've spent, that's before media, cartridges, etc.  I have thousands of dollars in cartridges and often spend more on a single vinyl record than I do on a month's subscription to four streaming services.  

Unless there's some dramatic change in the source material itself, I'm not sure how much more digital can improve. 

As a photographer, I saw a similar evolution...  Digital isn't as good as film.  Well, now it's getting pretty close.  Now it's as good.  Now it's better.  Now it's getting incrementally better. 

With a visual media, we can zoom in to the pixel level and see the tiny differences between a 16 megapixel image and a 24 megapixel image, but that's now how people normally view photos.  From four or five feet away, it's virtually impossible to tell the difference.  At some point things like dynamic range and sensitivity (how well you're able to capture what's there) matter more than how many pixels / bits are there.

At some point, it comes down to how much you can actually hear and how well the rest of your system is able to convey the level of detail captured by your source components and how well the recording was made. 

At the end of the day for me, it's the emotion of the music, not how pretty something looks or sounds.  Certainly, being able to hear the nuances of a singer's voice, or the talent of a musician wringing everything they can out of their instrument adds to that experience.  There are those goosebump moments where you hear something you never did before and I can get that with both digital and analog.

I love how vinyl sounds, I love being able to touch and look at physical media and the artwork, and I love the ritual of cleaning and playing records, so for now, vinyl stays.  

Maybe you were looking more for thoughts on how far digital technology can go.  I think we're very close to the point of diminishing returns as far as digital goes.

When it comes to streamers I care more about the user interface, and compatibility with streaming services.

It is exactly for the issue of keeping up that I decided to subscribe to Roon.  They do keep up. They have yet to embrace Amazon Music, but otherwise have a pretty advanced iPhone/Android/PC control ecosystem.