New DAC or New Streamer?

My long term thoughts are I'll keep Roon even if I find my proprietary music player to have superior sound quality at some point. Roon SQ good enough to be totally engaging and even more important, the great interface has turned me on to so much great music and artists new to me. Qobuz and Tidal also offer this, but Roon far superior, Roon radio is simply awesome with it's analytics,  graphics suggestions same awesomeness. Finally, I don't know how well the other proprietary players organize local libraries, but my Stylus players completely destroys organization of local library on NAS, makes library unusable. Perhaps it would do better with streamer internal drives?

Bottom line for me is Roon cost so little it would always provide more than commensurate benefit. Being able to transfer it to nearly any brand or custom build streamer is another added benefit.

@kennyc

Smart thinking on holding off to Roon lifetime subscription. Is there a reason why you’re not using Sense App? I subscribed to Roon lifetime membership 2 years ago, barely used it due to inconsistencies with SQ. 

@sns

No issues with Conductor app managing my library. The playback is seamless streaming from my library or Qobuz/Tidal. If you wanna see how everything neatly curated, take a peak at my ‘Digital’ system - Pic 19 & 20.

@sns ​​​​@lalitk 

You both are experienced audio streamers. What cable modem and router do you use? I have gotten suggestions from a very  trusted source and I’m just trying to further extend my database. As I tend to do.

Charles 

@lalitk  It does appear your local library is neatly organized. Perhaps my issue is  cd rips are on NAS, and Euphony OS/Stylus imports files from NAS differently than drives within streamer or usb drive, maybe a direct connection vs. going through network may help the situation. Stylus does fine with my Qobuz, Tidal libraries, play lists. Just don't get it, Roon imports NAS files just fine. In any case, this issue means I have to continue to use Roon for the NAS music. I'll have to do some experimentation, try the usb drive I use for NAS music library backups  direct connection to streamer.

@charles1dad

My cable modem is from Xifinity (formerly Comcast). Since my modem is about 30’ away from my dedicated room, I use a pair of Apple Extreme routers in a mesh network configuration to feed my Telegartner M12 Switch Gold. If you would like to see my network configuration, please visit my ’Digital’ system page and click on Picture # 22.

You can avoid mesh network if you place your cable modem in the same room as your audio system. This would mean, running a short LAN cable from modem to your choice of streamer.

I am going to be soon comparing another network switch in my system. It will be interesting to see how this switch compares to my existing switch.