Streaming questions

Congratulations on joining the world of streaming. While you can use Macs and PCs to stream, it is not recommended. I have streamed off of about every platform possible in the last twenty years. You want a dedicated streamer... made for the purpose of similar quality to the rest of your system. With this you will then use an iPhone, or iPad, (you can use a PC as well) to control your streamer... search and ID music, etc. 

I recommend looking at Blue Sound. Optimizing your system typically results in each component in your system costing (you must identify the best of class for each) about the same... with the speakers around 50% more. So your Streamer ~= DAC ~= Preamp ~= amp. Since your amp is integrated... then you would be looking for a Stream and DAC of roughly the same budget range. Not a hard and fast rule... but always round up if you have a choice. 

Bluesound makes some great Streamers / DACs I recommend the best you can afford. I have one, I also have an Aurender N150 for my headphone system ($3.5K + a $4K DAC) and an Aurender W20SE for my main system ($22K and a $18K DAC). I have experience with many more. So I feel pretty comfortable in my recommendation. 

You can see my systems under my userID under Virtual Systems. 

as per the above comment...

bluesound node (or node nano), with a linear power supply to feed the power (there are plenty of modded nodes out there, get a n130 or n132 generation node, don’t get a node 2i or older)

no regrets/no brainer move to start streaming with excellent sound quality AND a pain free all smiles user experience

We went from a Mac to a Wiim Ultra to stream.  Inexpensive sounds pretty damn good even with the built-in DAC.  Easy to use software.

I also use Qobuz.  I went from my IPAD to a Volumio Rivo+ with a separate Linear Power supply for streaming and the upgrade in sound quality with Qobuz and the same outboard DAC was outstanding.   If you are building your playlist on the Qobuz app, you will be able to access it, and tell it to stream to the Volumio Rivo+ with either the Qobuz app, or the Volumio app. .

If you don’t want to invest in a standalone DAC, I suggest looking into the Node ICON ($1.2k), which has received high praise from TAS, Tarun and Hans.  In particular, TAS compared it with a $37.5k setup consisting of the Aurender N200 ($7k) and the Berkeley Alpha DAC Reference Series 3 ($28k), connected through the Alpha USB Series 2 input module ($2.5k, essentially a DDC), and found the difference to be “subtle.” How subtle is “subtle”? I can’t verify his rather surprising claim since I’ve never heard the Berkeley, but I suppose you could take Tom’s word for it.