Here's what I'm doing. You can find it discussed in this thread:
Can you recommend a high quality DAC less music streamer?.
First of all, I already have a QNAP 2 TB NAS Drive. It actually has two 2 TB hard drives in it but one backs up the other so my storage space is 2TB. I may upgrade this to a bigger one one day when I need more storage space. The house has wifi and ethernet in some rooms so I can access the content on the NAS drive (mainly movies and music) from anywhere in the house.
Next I am replacing my PS Audio GCC 500 amp with a
Peachtree Nova 300 or 150. It's an ice (gain cell) amplifier like the GCC but much newer and with many more capabilities and features. The awesome thing about this amp (besides all its great features and quality) is that for the month of September Peachtree will give you 25% off on the amp with the trade-in of ANY working amplifier. That means I can go on Kijiji and purchase a $40 10 watt POS amp and
so long as it's working, Peachtree or it's dealers will give me literally HUNDREDS of dollars off on the price of the amp.
This offer is valid in Canada and the USA (I'm not sure about other places) but only until the end of this month. I think that if you look at everything these amps have to offer you'll see they're underpriced in the marketplace and with the 25% off deal that's on right now, they're a real bargoon. (Note: that I'm not in anyway associated or afilitated with Peachtree or any of its dealers - I just think they're good.)
One of the best features of the Peachtree is that it's got a high-end ESS Reference 9018K2M Sabre DAC built in. To take advantage of this I've come up with a solution that allows me to stream FLAC files off the NAS and feed the digital output directly into the DAC on the Peachtree. To accomplish this, I went looking for a high quality network streamer that DOES NOT contain a DAC or an audio output stage because I will not ever use those parts so I don't want to pay for them. I wanted all of the money in the parts I will use and none in parts I won't. I also wanted something that came with a really nice full-featured Android App so I could run everything from my tablet and smartphone. I couldn't care less about iOS/Apple.
It took a LOT of research and homework but I finally found the perfect device to meet my needs; the Simaudio Moon 180 Mind network streamer.
This is a link to an informative review on the device. It has no DAC or analog output stage. No money wasted on components/capabilities I won't ever use.
So like the Rasberry Pi/Digi Board solution, the 180 Mind will do the streaming via WiFi and convert the FLAC files to a digital stream which I will input into the Peachtree's ESS Reference 9018K2M Sabre DAC via coax or optical. Not sure which is better to use here. I'll probably try both and see if there's any difference. I'll run it all from my tablet and smartphone using the very full featured Android App that they give you (they have an iOS version too).
The trickiest part of this whole endeavor was finding a 180 Mind still for sale. The manufacturer discontinued them a while ago and replaced them with something more than twice as expensive. At the end of it's run, the 180 Mind list price was $990 CAD (not sure what the US price was) but before that it was around $1300 - $1400 in both countries. The new models are $2300 CAD.
If you read that other thread you'll see that after an exhaustive search across almost all of Canada I did manage to find one dealer that had two left in stock. I bought one of them. Anyone who wants the other can PM me and I'll tell you who the dealer is so you snap that one up. It may be the last one left in Canada. Not sure if any of the US dealers have any left but my guess is it'll be hard to just as hard to find one in the US as it was to find one in Canada. There was a used one listed on Audiogon today, not sure if it's still there. I don't expect it to stay available very long.
Anyways, that's how I'm solving the problem. Time will tell if I did right spending the extra money on the 180 Mind streamer vs going the Raspberry Pi/Digi Card route.