I keep coming back to favourite albums and finding more and more
Its like some sort of wonderful dream

It is on now! Not really familiar with it.

Thanks!

...and recorded in 1975 when I was 17.

In general, you are right. Early improvements tend to highlight detail, impact and soundstage. As you climb the ladder of improvements, what you notice is that everything becomes more fluid and lifelike, every note has 'shape' and timbre. Sometimes more resolution leads to harshness and then you need to look at supports, power, cables, grounding. Remember that digital noise does not generally manifest as analogue noise, it's more a degradation that creates harshness.

When your system is performing really well, music just pops at you and you can be startled by things that are almost unnaturally vivid!

You're also right to give attention to the analogue domain, too. You will always need a power amp and speakers or headphones. In the case of the speakers, there's room interaction, too.

I also want to be really clear that I realize that the DAC will make a massive improvement, in most areas. (despite me creating the "Is the DAC overrated" thread...)

This is overly expensive in my current setup, and not really fitting my current budget, but this review from yesterday got me more exited to buy a DAC than ever before!
To me, there is something about the Weiss brand that just pushes the right buttons for me. (yes, it is all about synergy and what type of sound you like. But still, some brands appeal to some people more that others) 

 

Does the Weiss DAC204 have remote controlled digital volume? If not, it would be a non-starter for me.

I actually have zero sense of nostalgia for the analogue sound whatever that is - what I want is superb digital. I actually get way more in terms of dynamics from my digital streaming system than I ever did with my vinyl set up.

This became a long post but I hope someone is interested enough to read it 

This is probably already said by someone somewhere...But hopefully this is a clear write up that potentially helps someone else to understand some basic concepts that I now think I understand?
I have to share a thought that is emerging in my head. For some context I will give some background information about how I got here.

Since I now have kept my cheap streamer/dac/pre combo all the time, as a baseline, and then added different noise suppression gears step-by-step, I have come to realize what is happening that I think can explain some weird things that I have found hard to understand or explain.

I knew (or at least I was convinced) before entering this forum that noise in the digital domain seem to have a big impact on the dac clock and causes it too not run perfectly (drift).
I first started to understand this concept when Hans Beekhuyzen explained Why digital circuits influence the sound quality and then I also listened to two podcasts where two different manufacturers talked about the same things: Why isn´t digital audio simply a matter of ones and zero´s and Mark Jenkins goes deep into digital audio. One thing that is said in these podcast´s is how amazing a simple dac can sound behind a very expensive streamer (that isolates the noise).
Then I also saw the Alpha Audio Switch blind test video and here I got a good understanding for how they test.

After having consumed all this very convincing information I felt that I had to try something! Somewhere in the middle of all this I also came in contact with people like MartinT who helped convince/explain that this could be true.

I implemented things in this order:
1. Netgear gs105e with cheap amazon recommended CAT8 cables.
    The switch was selected based on the switch blind test above
2. Ifi Ipower X Power Supply for the above switch.
    This one they recommended in the switch blind test above. For some reason, that I don´t remember, they said a good switch mode PS was preferred for switches event though normally linear power supply is preffered.
3. WiFi Extender (the cheapest one I could find. TP-link something...)
    This is to physically disconnect ethernet from the dirty ethernet source.
4. IFI LAN iSilencer
    This one is installed in the WiFi extender to fight the power noise from the extender.

My setup is explained in my signature.

The difference from step 0-4 is monumental, even with my cheap streamer/dac/pre combo, or maybe more accurately, because of my cheap streamer/dac/pre.
The cool thing I realized (which you already knew) is that depending on how much of the noise you manage to suppress different things happens.
In the beginning you get more of things (details, soundstage, imaging, black background...) since you suppress the majority of the noise pretty quick. But it seems your brain still isn´t convinced since the clock is still drifting (since there is more noise) and the timing is still not perfect.
Once you manage to suppress enough of noise you start to affect/improve the dac´s timing so much that it starts to reveal what it is capable of and it starts getting as "Analogue" sounding as it can become (within its limitations).

Ok, let´s now say that my conclusion above is correct...?

To me, based on pure logic, this should mean that if you start to play around with ethernet cables into your streamer, those cables will make your system sound differently depending on where in this noise cleanup path you are!!! (ok, many of you probably knew or realized this already)
What I am saying is that the same ethernet cable, between the exact same components, can cause your system to sound VERY different depending on how dirty your ethernet signal is that goes into that cable.
I have seen this in other forums where people that try the same Supra Ethernet cable (just an example) come to totally different conclusion: (this has always been troublesome for me to "accept")
-one guy says that it gets more detailed but it is harsh sounding. (to me, he has too much dirty signal going into that cable)
-the other guy says that the same cable made it more analogue sounding. (to me, he had less noise and is closer to have "everything" removed)

If you agree that this is to some degree correct, then I start to understand a lot of controversy around cables (all sorts of cables even?) since we are all on different noise levels and it might not have anything (or at least not so much) to do with what gear we are running or our gear synergy.

Any thoughts or comments on this would be very much appreciated! If I got something completely wrong, and does not match your findings, please tell me.