Top music streamer for 2019? Aurender N10’s?

Good questions hgeifman.  Also good considerations Audiotroy (about the Gryphon DAC module having the older chip in it).  However, another HUGE dimension for me is not only sound quality, but sonic signature.  The Gryphon DAC module had a sonic signature that I really enjoyed when I auditioned it, vs other external (albeit much lesser) DACs I tested.  My takeaways were were aligned with pro reviewers who said the Gryphon DAC had a midrange that was well “grounded” and solid vs a more light and airy signature.  Also I noticed the sheer 3D largeness of the vocals to be highly enjoyable.  So even with a potentially outdated chip I find that these sonic signature qualities are most important to me.  I also found all the other “quality” metrics to be excellent as well.  Also, I don’t have any Lumin dealers near me so an audition wouldn’t even be possible.  Finally, this could be psychological bias on my part but I feel like the Gryphon DAC signature is perfectly matched to the Diablo 300 amp.  Which is probably true and no accident.  In fact, in some pro reviews of the Diablo I think that some qualities mentioned are more specific to the DAC than the amp itself.  For example I had know clue what one reviewer meant by vocals having a “golden” quality to it when auditioning the Diablo with an external DAC.  But it somehow immediately made sense when I heard the Diablo with it’s DAC module.  So, given that the Diablo DAC seems a firm decision at this point, the  Innuous seems to do all I need it to do:  Tidal integration, internal storage, good sound with good detail, at half the cost of the N10.  The Ripper and Roon support are bonuses, but to be honest I don’t get what is so great about Roon vs other players unless you really care about meta content (I don’t).  It’s not like it has better sound.  Maybe someone can explain why I should care about Roon?  Lack of AEB/EBU is a minor drawback for me on the Innuous, but a trade off I can live with because it seems to have everything else I need at a good price.

@nyev,
I have a Moon MiND2 and a Bluesound Node2. Had the Node2 first and it was convenient for using my NAS based library. But something always seemed missing in the Node2's playback; the sound seemed compressed. Always used the CD player for serious listening.

I've played both streamers through the same DAC using a high-quality digital cable, so the comparison is head-to-head. The MiND2 is easily superior to the Node2.

The MiND2 has been a breath of fresh air. Enough to inspire me to order a new upmarket DAC to compliment it. New toy next week!

I use my iMac as my Roon Core server. I leave it on all the time.

I thought Roon was some silly thing. But after having it for six months or so, I am hooked. The interface is great. And I like the radio feature. It is also great to have so much information so well organized.

I only use it for Tidal streaming, since I don’t have a digital downloaded library. Maybe it is just me, but I don’t see the benefit to ripping all my CDs. Most of which have MQA versions right on Tidal.

Another big big plus is that Roon presents a uniform interface across all my streamers. I have a PS Audio DirectStream Junior DAC (a Roon endpoint) in my main system and a Bluesound Node (Roon endpoint) in my second system. These typically have different interfaces to control them, but with Roon it all works and looks the same. If I want to continue playing an album from my main system to my second system it is easy. I just tell Roon to switch to any of the Roon endpoints.

I also like that that the Roon controller can be my iPad, iPhone, iMac, MacBook, or even my Windows 10 PC.

What I don’t like is the price. I better start saving my pennies and upgrade to the lifetime version. 😀

Jsonsim, I guess I don’t have the need to consolidate multiple streamers, so based on your feedback I still don’t see the value of Roon.  How do they get to charge so much more than their competitors- some of whom offer free software players?  People pay it, so there must be some value there.  When I quit my Roon trial someone from Roon reached out to me and tried to justify the cost.  Their argument was all focused on the metadata stuff that I guess doesn’t interest me.

I have been of the mind to separate the processing/computer/network/usb activities. Since experimenting and removing all of the above from the listening room I settled on a microU as the final output before DAC with excellent results. As opposed to a laptop or noisy computer directly attached to DAC. I understand the microU is a "computer" but not the same generally speaking.
Having a high end wkst running HQP and ROON core to a fiber switch (all in laundry room) and then running fiber to listening room to microU (or equiv) seems to be the way to go IMHO to isolate all the crude. The new optical mU would simplify things even more.

However, it seems like a lot of the newer products are putting the design philosophies (power, noise, fiber in some cases, EMI etc..) into these products and would be fun to to try. The Innuous is interesting and I wonder if there would be a benefit over my config / similar config

Seems like one is either a set it and forget it / all in one type (lumin, aurender) or one wanting some more control (NAS, seperate DAC, endpoints etc..), which I am in the latter.

Being my mU is from the orig design (was updated though) I am starting to look as some possibilities. ROON is key (lifetime) for me, don’t care about the MQA bs at all.
This stuff moves too fast, its never eding.