I know almost nothing about Statement.
It’s a tiny bit beyond my current budget level.
And I’ve never heard or seen it live, or even seen a photo of the guts of it.
But it looks to be so large and heavy that the psu in it could potentially be further away from the preamp (and perhaps better shielded) than is the case between 2 normal boxes on a rack.
Of course any claim of any actual piece of kit being ‘beyond compromise’ is hyperbole.
With the 272 there a couple of major advantages of having streamer, DAC and pre in one box:
You can use a 555DR to power all three sections, so not have to buy separate PSUs for a streamer and another for your preamp.
The output stage of the DAC leads straight into the analogue preamp, so the signal doesn’t have to go through a plug , out of that box along a cable, into another box to begin the amplification process.
I rather think our exchange has gone as far as it can! In essence I think we’re agreed that a separate PS makes it easier to minimise any adverse interaction, though that does not mean that a product cannot be made where interactions are designed out to such an extent that a separate power supply would make no difference.
The fact that Naim follow the former path, and Chord the latter, does not in itself make either better or worse than the other, and in reality I suspect that when talking about their respective top DACs the differences are more to do with the DAC and associated filtering design and implementation…
I should have qualified that I was talking in terms of sound quality - you are right that there are other considerations, including practicality and box count on the one hand, and a degree of lower start cost and upgradeability on the other.
So to conclude then, referring to the thread title….
There is no ‘good time’ to start music streaming……
BUT, no bad time either.
Take a deep breath, have a budget in mind, do the leg work (including much demoing) and get stuck in, with the help of a good dealer who knows his streaming stuff. The OP seems to be well on the path here.
One massive spin-off benefit from the convenience of streaming (once set up) is the ease of sampling new music or music/artists you are unfamiliar with (through subscription streaming). This has simply revolutionised my music collection, which has simply exploded over the last three years. In a way, streaming has reawakened my love of music.
Not having an NDX I don’t know - thinking back to when I had an ND5XS, maybe not possible, though my memory is a little hazy. My current source is Audirvana on a Mac Mini, and as far as I could tell when I tried that only has links for subscription services, however I can use the capability of the MM and through that access anything available online including free Spotify, though not playing through Audirvana, so ultimate quality may be limited by that in the event of a hi res service being available…
If your NDX has Bluetooth, I imagine you could use that to play Spotify from a phone, or a wired connection to the USB port.
For a small cost, an AirPort Express or Chromecast Audio would do it.
I could humbly suggest Groove Salad available at Soma FM, for example. Excellent music that can really show off a good hifi setup. Although only streamable at max Mp3@256 or AAC@128, it sounds splendid chez moi…and when I hear things I absolutely need I acquire the FLAC recording and add it to my Roon server. Currently killing my data storage limits!
OK if the style is to your taste… personally with the exception of classical I don’t like listening to any music stations, because I don’t enjoy listening to music I don’t like, and it is very rare to find a station or programme playing solely music to my raste.