Recommended streamers/servers?


Up to $5,000. At present I have a SILENT ANGEL RHEIN Z1 V2 MUSIC SERVER connected to a PS Audio DS DAC via USB CABLE.
erastof
We have a lot of experience in this area

We have sold most of the major brands of servers 

We have had Cambridge, auraylic,Naim, innous, Sotm, Baetis bluesound,

Take away roon based servers sounded the best

Innous beat all others till we found 432evo servers out of Belgium

This server sounded even better and was an upgradeable platform

The 7500 Aeon competes with the 14k Statement and in terms of design and technology stands against the best on the market

The aeon offers complete data isolation with a seperate cpu board, clock card, and sound card,all.powered by two independent SBooster power supplies.


Dave and troy
AUDIO INTELLECT NJ
US IMPORTER 432EVO MUSIC SERVERS
I would check out the Antipodes S40.  Sound is very clean sounding and delivers a great signal to your DAC.  They have a very good USB connection and it definitely facilitates getting the most out of your DAC.  

It is a nice unit and has a clear and manageable upgrade path in terms of renderer, power supply and clock. 

I have definitely bought into Antipodes philosophy.  I am a dealer but do a ton of research and you will find my opinion is not inconsistent with owners, largely because I use the K40.  
I went with a BlueSound Node 2i.  When I purchased it, I added a DAC and the bass really thinned out.  I removed the DAC and I found the DAC built into the BlueSound Node 2i to sound much better.  It would be interesting to be able to compare sound quality by switching back and forth in a matter of seconds to compare.

I haven't used a single CD since I began streaming using Tidal.  Their library is enormous.  Only thing I didn't realize is it looks like Tidal removes albums overnight.  For example, they removed several Vincent Ingala albums.  I was particularly fond of his song Nasty.  This is one of the best songs to demo a sound system for sound quality.
You can put a Roon ROCK Intel NUC together for about $400.00. It will have equal or typically more processing power than other off the shelf servers. I followed Roon’s instructions to the letter and for a good year now the Roon ROCK NUC is rock solid. But you are committing to using Roon.

https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/roon-optimized-core-kit#ROCK_For_Small_to_Medium-Siz...
I use an ASUS ROG laptop as my streamer hooked up to my PS Audio PerfectWave Mk II DAC. Using Qobuz I have compared several 16/44.1 titles to their corresponding CDs played through my PSA transport. They sound identical. I figure that's about as good as I can expect.

My point here is that even streaming from a dirty, disgusting, EMI laden, noisy PC the performance equals playing a CD through the same DAC.

Your PSA DS DAC buffers and reclocks all incoming data (as does my PW Mk II). That feature should make the choice of streamer less critical. You didn't say if you plan to use Roon but I can't imagine buying a new streamer that wasn't Roon Ready. The rest of the equation is more a matter of dollars vs. pride of ownership.