Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Will do Ketcham. Thanks. I need to do something. I gave my neighbors Aurender back and miss it terribly. Time to 

You might look into Trinity DAC as it got rave review about its PCM capability. Better than MSB/DCS stakcs as everyone been saying. 

I liked the Trinity when I heard it, but honestly, it didn't blow me away as some of the higher price DAC's have.  JMHO, but I have a friend who had one last year and sold it.  Not even sure what he's running now, but it may the the full DCS stack as he was going on and on about how much he liked it.  

Ketch, thanks so much for those links. Time for me to start learnin bout new wave digital again....thought I had been doing this over the last two years, but I guess not enough, lol.  

Ketch, that thread is a bear for a novice like me.  I don't fully understand what an optical network is and why I need it.  I don't have any ethernet cable runs in the townhouse. My main system is on the second floor and my bedroom system is on the first floor.  I have a full basement where I'm wanting Comcast (when I get it installed next month or so) to bring everything into the basement as the coax runs are all set up there going to each room in the house. I will most probable have the Comcast modem and router (most likely Apple Time Machine) running in one of the upstairs bedrooms as that will be my hub as the noise won't affect my listening room.  I was hoping to just install the new QNAP 471 NAS with the router and use the Airport Extreme from both systems to the NAS that would host Roon and hopefully HQPlayer.  

I was told that Roon will help the sound quality vs using a local drive (i.e. Aurender or Melco) directly to the DAC and not worrying about my second system as it already streams Tidal so I don't care if it's on a network or not.  I can afford the N100H and possibly even a used N10 Aurender.  The problem is that it won't be Roon and if it's the N100h, I believe it would have to the a usb connection.

If I only care about sq first and I only really need to have my main system being fed, what are your personal thoughts as to which products I should be looking at and how should I set them up?  

Right now I'm seem to have a Melco N1A running as a NAS only (Roon is working hard on trying to get their core to run on the Melco's OS) and then a NUC for Roon and HQPlayer, or an Aureneder directly into the DAC or getting the Qnap and setting it up the way they say to run Roon off of it.  

Anything I've missed so far?  Any thoughts are appreciated.  Matt, what set up are you looking at doing?

Try the Chord DAVE.