Here is my thoughts - no conclusion though. I am of the opinion there should be no difference in sound, subject to the following. Note: When comparing items, it is important to specify the items. Is one item a 35$ streamer and the other a $1000 steamer, are are two $600 streamers being compared?
The streamers has to do 3 things and has basically three general sections to do this.
First, it has to receive and properly decode the Ethernet data. After a long trip over cable, the digital data looks alot like an analog signal and there is some type of signal coding to increase bandwidth. This is usually error free and the error rate is very very small and I believe there is error correction coding built it. However, if the streamer is really terrible or the incoming data is terrible, it is possible have a high bit error rate - usually this will crash the stream though, making it non-functional.
Second, processing occurs on the decoded data so that it converted from Ethernet protocol output to whatever format is going to be send out over the digital output of the streamer. This should be error free, but again, if this is ******, there could be errors.
Third, the stream needs to be transmitted over the digital output, so there is more processing such as a USB output driver to driver the signal over the usb output port and cable.
IMO, all of these things typically occur with such a low error rate, in a properly built and functioning system, to have the data output essentially be the same.
Finally, I want to mention that it is my opinion that errors in the digital data can cause a different sound. For example, the digital value 10011, if experiencing a error, could be after the error 10001. Absent error correction, I don't think the DAC is going to know there was an error but will blindly convert the signal to an analog signal, which would be different then intended. This is just one sample of many though. I think Ethernet has error correction, however, I can not comment if bit errors that could occur inside the streamer or as part of the transmission from the streamer to the DAC will get caught. Thus, I think it could change the sound, but the chance of an error is tiny. I read about a USB data transfer test and if I recall correctly, there were gigabytes of data transferred without any errors. If I am wrong on any of this, please provide correction. Thank you.