I realize the recent discussion was about the iFi, but I thought it relevant to elaborate on Raspberry Pi in the context of this thread.
Raspberry Pi is an excellent music source for less than $100. It's basically what is inside many of the high priced streamers from various brands.
I use an RPi 4B 4GB with Moode (
https://moodeaudio.org/) to feed a Gustard A18 DAC (->USB) which in turn feeds a Bryston power amp (->XLR). 2GB is actually plenty large for music streaming, saves a few bucks, and runs a little cooler.
I started out with Volumio, and also tested RuneAudio along the way. Volumio is amazingly easy, but a tad limited unless you buy their commercial version. It also ran quite hot for me, including when idle. Moode is incredibly feature rich, free and open source. I would recommend a voluntary donation for those who end up using it. But of course that's just my opinion.
I put most of our music library on the SD card. I had it on a USB flash drive at first, which is simpler when you update, but my wife said SQ was better when playing from the SD card. In theory it shouldn't shouldn't make a difference, particularly not on the newer RPi 4 models which have a redesigned USB bus. But I trust her ears. My own hearing has deteriorated due to a nerve disease.
We also use the RPi for internet radio. I gathered a collection of classical stations, and my life listens to radio from our home country of Denmark.
But we use it as destination for streaming Tidal more than anything else, with mConnect on our phones pulling the Tidal stream and casting to Moode through uPnP. It works perfectly: Moode has no active MQA support (and profess they never will) but supports MQA passthrough to the DAC. Works with all MQA tracks I have tested, including the 384 kHz albums from 2L as well as the infamous 16/44kHz albums from Warner, and everything in between.
If you're willing to pay, Volumio has Tidal streaming in their paid tier, and lets you can stream directly on the RPi. I don't know if they support MQA, I was too cheap to try their paid tier. But everything Volumio is super easy, and what I'd recommend to get started with RPi (
https://volumio.com).