Aurender vs. Roon

@mrdon if I may offer a response to your question:

How do you feel about the Lumin D2 or Lumin U1. I already have a DAC (Prism Sound Callia)

Placing the U1 in front of your Callia would work great.

The D2 offers analog outputs, and will sound different enough from the Callia that it really becomes a question of your personal preference. If you preferred the D2 then you could sell or repurpose the Callia. If you preferred the Callia, you'd be spending a little bit extra for analog outputs you wouldn't be using and giving up the other digital outputs found on the U1 (or U1 Mini).

In addition, while the Callia accepts digital inputs from a variety of sources the LUMIN units can only operate as a streamer. For example you could not hook up a CD player or your TV's optical output to the D2 for it to act like a DAC.

Troy / Dave is 100% right to recommend Innuos! It is a great server, one of the best out there, especially for the money.

And to be clear, you don't need Roon to use Innuos ZEN or ZEN Mini or ZENith. You can use use it with SqueezeLite endpoint, or any UPnP and DLNA streamer / controller.

If you do use Roon, it is an excellent Roon Server, AND, an excellent Roon Endpoint too. Something to keep in mind too. One solution  for Serving / Streaming.

I have the new ZENith MK3 for a few weeks now, and I am very happy with it. It is so easy to use, and excellent support from the company (when I needed some help with Backup to my NAS they did a remote session and fixed it).

Twoch, Roon is one big boat anchor? What are you smoking Roon rocks, if you notice more and more manufacturers are making their products Roon compatible endpoints, we just put out a new Krell K300i integrated amplifier for example and I can seemlessly send music to it from Roon as well as being able to send music to dozens of other devices all over my store.

Sure some people are not Roon fans, and yes it does suck to have to pay for software but Roon has a huge ton of advantages.

You may also forget we do sell and really like Aurnender products, and they make a fantastic little server, what we pointed out is that not having Roon compatibility is hurting their sales, their hardware is excellent which unit a client prefers is up to them.

Roon is getting more and more traction because it is fantastic software, if you are only going to stream Tidal or Qbuzz, or Spotify or Internet radio then the Conductor app is fine and it is free it does have some nice features. We do like the built in Airplay function of the Aurender servers and wish the Innuous would have that.

Thyname we do agree with you, we sell: Lumin, Aurender, Baetis, Innuous, Naim, and Nad servers and streamers plus a whole lot more, the Innuous is one of our absolute favorites for all the reason mentioned in this thread, is it perfect no it isn't but the company continues to make better and better products. 

Mrdon the Calia is supposed to be an excellent dac so unless you are unhappy with its performance I would concentrate on the sever part.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ: Innuous, Aurender dealers

Ok, so far it appears Aurender was kicked to the curb at some point in favor of the Innous then Lumin D2 or Lumin U1 in that order... Then I heard NDX 2 XPS 2 or a 555 [Nad?} which I am now going to look at.. I was favoring the Lumin D2 for the fact it has AirPlay and updates which the Innous? Hey 

mrdon are you looking for a server or a streamer?

The Naim Ndx 2 oor a 555 are expensive streaming dacs, the  NDX  is $7500 for example. The Lumin D2 is excellent but it also includes a dac while the U1 does not.  

The Aurender and Innuous products are mostly streamers, although the Innuous Mini has analog outputs and the Aurender A1 has its own built in dac.  

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ