Rikhav
Looking at connecting it to powered external drive to play audio in the first stage, ideally controlled via Android phone. If that's tough, then will go via NAS and wifi.
Why not possible?
That's what we use it for
You have many free tailor made audio only OS available
It has its own control page. You just out the IP address of the raspberry pi on your Android device and all will show up. All should be in same network
You can also use mpd control app available on Android and iOS
Raspberry pi distros always need little bit of tinkering but everything is there on the web with commands , you just follow the instructions which are given step by step
I will suggest moode audio to you as now it has auto update feature. All this distros are updated regularly but till now one had to download the image and remove sd card from raspberry pi and connect to card reader and transfer image
Not anymore after this auto update feature
You can use external powered drive connected to USB , no need for nas
Now it's not advised to use USB to connect to dac as USB snd network share same bus. Maybe if not for crtical listening it should be ok
Alternatively you can use hifiberry digi plus card which will give spidif out to raspberry pi and then you can connect to external dac
Or
Hifiberry dac pro board which will make raspberry pi into a full fledged dac and you will have RCA line level outs
Hifiberry can be ordered from main company in Switzerland or from its resellers throughout the world , sadly none in India
Another option is to buy cubox which is something like raspberry pi but superior to it but comes fully cased and has spidif out capability from factory
Raspberry pi has the maximum software support though I.e. all developers make their softwares for raspberry pi. Some are also made for cubox and others
Don't worry if all this sounds very confusing to you. Was same for me when I tried raspberry for first time
Even now since I don't know linux some commands coke up for tweaking and it's all confusing.
All I have to do is to have patience and find a step by step guide
I am using my raspberry pi to output data stream from hqplayer to it and am happy with it