Top music streamer for 2019? Aurender N10’s?

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.

Nyev Roon isn't for everybody and not everybody gets its brilliance,

What Roon does well is a number of things it is a lot more than just pick and artist and play music software yes it does that but that is not the core of what is does.

Roon is about discovering new music and discovering or rediscovering artists you love, personally we find that a stored library plus Roon and Tidal or Qbouz is paradise.

Your stored library is a memory device to remember all the artists you have ever purchased not to mention not all CD's titles will be on Tidal, or Obouz.  The streaming services will then also help to round out your library.

One feature we love is Roon radio which finds new music based on what you were just listening to and then plays it automatically.

Another cool feature through Roon is the ability to upsample or cross convert so you can upsample Tidal to 24/192 or 24/384 up to 768k and DSD to 512 depending on your dac and the server Roon is running on.

We have found that certain dacs sound amazing at higher freq or playing DSD.

Yes Roon is expensive, at $500 lifetime or $119 a year but $119 a year is roughly $10 a month, go to Starbucks twice and you have paid for Roon.

Roon spent over 10 years developing its software it was Soolos originally and the softwares meta data and enriched surfing experience is why most people buy Roon in the first place.

Roon requires a lot of playing time and using time to see just how amazing the software is. 

Roon may not be for you but many people find it fantastic. If you go for an Innuous they are Roon cores and really should be run with Roon vs iping or Squeeze player which Innuous also supports. 

The conductor software is very good, we find Roon to be vastly better, also if an Innous Zenith matches a Aurender N10 yet sells for half the price don't you still think you may have a better deal on your hands even if you have to purchase Roon?

Just food for thought

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ innous dealers

Audiotroy, you make a stronger argument for Roon than the guy from Roon did when I quit the trial!

Hey guys what do you think about dCS and esoteric ????

We have sold both Esoteric and DCS in the past. 

Personally we feel that Esoteric's products are very good but are being surpassed by things like Lumin's awesome X1 which is a reference class streamer/dac which is $6k cheaper then the Esoteric version and the Lumin still sounds better.

DCS is a sound which some people like others don't they don't sound particularly liquid the DCS sound is clean, quick, and very detailed. 

In terms of Dac's we are very fond of the Aqua Hifi Dacs for a number of reasons:

1: They are very liquid and analog like
2: They are the most up-gradable dacs on the market they are both FPGA based with R2R ladders and the dacs are built on all discrete cards for every function of the dac: analog boards, power supply boards, incomming data boards, outgoing dac boards, 

if you look at the $8k Lascala XHD it has a total of 7 individual replaceable boards, this allows the entire unit to morph into an entirely new product over time as the Aqua engineers figure out new tricks to boost sound quality.

Our ultimate flagship dac the $32k Light Harmonic Davinci is also upgradble and we have had clients upgrade the older Dual Dac to the ew MK II Dual dac for a nominal charge.

It ultimately comes down to the sound quality and feature set you are looking for, all products in this discussion are excellent it will come down to personal preference.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Aqua, Lumin, Light Harmonic dealers