Ouch. I hope the tone I'm reading is simply English as a second language coming across much harsher than intended.
I'm sorry if my answer sounded harsh, because that was not my intention. You have been helping me a lot with my query, so it would be far from me to be harsh, particularly with heathen.
Maybe I misunderstood his expression that we might have a "disconnect" over this matter. I thought he thought I was not understanding what he was proposing, and I just said that it seemed I did. And that it seemed this conversation might turn into a discussion about the sound quality of a Raspberry Pi with its own DAC socketed in versus a Rasp with an external DAC. I did research that option for me several months ago, when I was assembling my own audio streamer.
Yes, a high resolution player, like the fiio, does seem to be a very valid option, in fact the first I had thought before recorders coming to my mind. The question is to pick the right model, as from feedback I see from fiio users in Amazon, only the very expensive models seem to fulfill audio high quality demands.