Undoubtedly in the past DAC’s were very reliant on the incoming data stream . Comparing my original Hugo being fed by my ND5XS and then MacBook Pro left me in no doubt of the Streamers worth .
However , I feel that current DAC’s are becoming more immune to jitter and noise with the use of better reclocking techniques and the use of galvanic isolation .
The best sound I’ve experienced here was the Auralic Vega G2 DAC which has a clock that operates independently of the incoming source by employing a data buffer . Obviously there was more to it than just the clock but it sounded wonderful whether using the UnitiCore by Coaxial or streaming Tidal . These techniques will no doubt be adopted and improved upon by others in the future .
Streamers are still brilliant relevant devices but I think their overall influence on SQ will lessen as DAC’s continue to evolve and improve.