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Welcome! Lots of choices, depending of course on your budget and preferences. For example, if you're looking to run something super reasonable running something like JRiver, you can get a Windows 10 mini PC for around $150, plus the ($60) cost of JRiver and hard drives to store music files (and of course a monitor to start up the program). If you have a bigger budget, there are a host of music servers/streamers either stand alone (assuming you're content with the rest of your system) or combined with a DAC and/or a preamp.
I currently have a Benchmark DAC2 L which doubles as my preamp. With the rest of my family being Spotify junkies, I am really intrigued with the newer generation of streaming DAC/Preamps like the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge or the Matrix Audio Element X. Are there others I should think about? I like the idea of less boxes in the system. I would sell my Benchmark to keep the wife happy, 1 toy in = 1 toy out .
If you are looking at all in one DAC/streamers I would stick with one of the established brands like Lumin or Auralic as they have been in the market a long time and have large support networks. They both have also developed and maintain their own software rather than rely on third party software as many of the upstarts in the market do. In those situations you are at the mercy of those software companies when there is a problem that the hardware supplier can't fix. A lot of these companies rely on mControl by Conversdigital as their streaming software and it is notorious for issues. Aurender also falls in the group with Lumin and Auralic but it's pricing for that type of product starts at a higher level.
welcomewhat speakers are you running with those lovely low watt tube amps?
The Aries Mini is a great little streamer and mine is still going strong in a secondary system five years later. The problem with it for someone new into streaming is that it is a discontinued product for several years and the internal DAC is it's weak point. Even still it will run circles around the Node 2Ci. In the price range of the two devices the OP mentioned I would look at the G1 Altair or the Lumin D2. Another alternative is the Teac NT-505 which is basically a Lumin streamer combined with a Teac DAC. Great sounding piece that operates on the Lumin software. Both the Lumin and Auralic software are best in and were developed for use with IOS. iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.
