Gents,
Whew, a bit of light is shining on the issue so thanks very much for all your comments. My pal with a similarly good system as mine used to stream from his iMac and went to a streaming/music server (NAD I think) and I noticed zero difference in SQ before and after. I did notice that his bank account was noticeably depleted after the purchase. It is really hard for me to imagine that I would get ~$6K worth of SQ improvement adding the suggested Lumin or Aurelic device recommended above. I do use the USB Disrupter ($150) in place of the ultra-fiddly Micro-Rendu device and it does improve the sound to a degree. Odd that nobody mentions the MR device which seems to function to clean up computer noise, but at a hefty price. I most often sit at my iMac while streaming music to my system and I have never experienced a hiccup or drop out... no difference if I have several programs running at the same time or not in terms of the effect on SQ.
I am going to take mapman up on the offer of a private chat to further my knowledge base. The modestly-priced iFi Zen Stream might be a place to start, but spending $6K on a streamer is not in cards unless is radically improves the sound of my system and I really doubt that is possible given how great my system already sounds. Thanks again for everyone's contributions.
