Sorry to hear you are having problems. My digital has been rock solid playing pretty much any format for at least 5 years. Listening to peoples woes I think that people try and put together a system out of spare parts they have lying around and that is what ends up having problem. If I would give you advice it would be this.
- Put all you music on a NAS, that is on 24/7. Who care if it is uses 15 watts when it is idle, leaving it on all the time will elevate any issues with drives spiingin up ro down when you are tryting to listen to music.
Put in a hardwired network, don't run it off of wi-fi.
Get a dedicated Streamer/Player/server, leave it on all the time too. The streamer should be able to connect to the NAS via the hardwired LAN.
Plug the streamer into the DAC, enjoy digital music.
Playing around with jriver, foobar, media monkey, etc is fine when listening to music at you PC. but if you are trying to integrate digital streaming with your main rig it is much better to get dedicated solutions. Yes in the long run it is more money that just putting together a digital streaming solution from odds and ends you have lying around the house. But the dedicated gear makes things work so much smoother.
Jim, I have extended an invitation to come over and hear my system before. Sometime when you have time send me an email and come over, I can walk you through my whole setup.