Best Server To Run Roon Core

@newtoncr, 

You have a beautiful system. Thanks for your feedback. 
Enjoy! 

@jmarshak  --- your Esoteric K-01 is a SACD/CD player but it is also a USB & S/PDIF DAC. You can get a Roon Ready streamer that has USB out to your K-01. That streamer can be anything (depending on how much money you want to spend), including something like what I mentioned earlier, Sonore microRendu or ultraRendu. Then you Server (Roon Core on roon's lingo) will stay in a different machine, such as NUC, Nucleus.

That's the two-piece solution Roon often recommends. But only because people tend to use noisy general purpose computers as both Core and Endpoint, which degrades the sound. If you do use a great one-piece solution, optimized for audio, such as the Wolf or Innuos mentioned above, you certainly can, it's definitely a (good) option.

@newtoncr - thank you for sharing your experience and findings. Very helpful. I actually wonder how the Lumin X1 would compare with Wolf and Statement.

@thyname - I understand what you are saying. Splitting server and renderer is recommended mainly to isolate both sides from cross process noises and I well built single chassis machine should be able to handle isolation better internally.

This is an option of course.

I don't think you ever specified a budget.
If the rest of your system isn't $35k or above, you'd be hard pressed to do better on sound quality that the Innuous Zenith Mark III,  It's stunningly good and you can rip your entire CD collection with it.  It also handles USB audio output to your DAC, which IMO, is the best.

I use a fanless SD linux unit supplied in the UK by Inside Tech for £638. which has worked perfectly for a year with Qobuz (30,000 albums). 

Fanless Roon Rock Music Server - Intel i3 7th Gen 7100U

RAM4GB DDR4 (1x4GB) Storage128GB