What’s the latest on pi based music steamers?

Looking to set one of these up. I played about with some of these a while back but couldn’t get any to play ball with a large (2TB+) network stored library. I’ve realised the inconvenience in such a large library and have separated a smaller one. Aiming to store this split between the USB stick it’ll boot from and a micro SD card in the slot, but have a few questions.

Is a Pi 3 or 4 and RAM size going to make any performance difference? Would playing the files from the server be any faster?

What is the best software to use at the moment? I vaguely remember Volumio being the most prominent, with Moode being another favoured unit.

Is there a favoured approach to the DAC? I have a Allo digi one hat available as a transport to feed either a D10S or E30 but either of those could go straight from USB avoiding the digi one in the chain. Don’t mind picking up another unit if quality can be improved. I have a cheap 5v 3A linear power supply that could power either the pi, DAC or maybe both.

Is there any DSP with mic available?