Aurender

aurender no doubt makes real good stuff, as does innuos, auralic, lumin, red rose, grimm and so on -- roon users can go the nuc/nucleus route with 'a la carte' endpoints such as sonore products, bypassing the expensive all-in-one boxes sold by the 'luxury digital system integrators' named above

each company has worked hard and developed excellent solutions to streaming/digital music management... each of course has also made strategic choices on how to handle the software aspect, and each is wary, to varying degrees, of roon seizing control of the end use customer

i would think given how each company has developed its solutions, each company’s products may favor certain connection protocols, external clocking protocols, and so on... some thus may play better with certain other downstream dacs and how they implement connections ...

@vonhelmholtz 

Whichever ‘digital’ output you end up preferring from any of the Aurender transport (streamer) is largely depends on your DAC implementation of USB and legacy digital inputs like AES or SPDIF.  As a long time Aurender user, I can say with utmost confidence that they are built to very high standards and no matter which digital output you use, Aurender will faithfully render the digital bits to your DAC. Another important consideration while choosing a streamer is the app interface. Once you get your replacement DAC, reach out to Aurender dealer for in-home audition. Good luck! 

@lalitk 

Sounds like a good plan.

My problems with Aurender mimic'ed @cleeds  and I had to cut my losses.

I replaced an N10 with a Roon Nucleus with an IFi Zen Stream endpoint at a lower price point and am experiencing better sound quality, excellent stability/reliability and a better user interface.  YMMV.

As jjss49 said,  there are many good streamers out there. There’s never been a better time to embrace streaming if you have been on the fence 

I bought a Bluesound Vault 2i a few years ago and it totally changed the way I listened to music.  In a few years I discovered more new music than 40 years of CD and vinyl….

That Aurender is perfect for me, it’s primarily what I do now, stream.