A quick question on what streamers to consider.......

@ghdprentice could you say which Wi-Fi extender you’ve used. I’m looking for one. Thanks.

@toneranger58

I tend to buy the same brand as my router. I have used a number of Net Gear extenders. I gave in and finally had Xfinity put in their router/modem. My NetGear extenders work fine with them.

I just get them at Best Buy.

Wait, Aurender is all proprietary hardware and software, not Roon Ready, and no WiFi? Not for me most likely if any one of these is the case. Roon and WiFi should be standard. If it is Roon compatible, then that solves the proprietary issue.  Unless Harman decides to go down that path which does not seem likely at present. 

OP

your first post says you will be listening on your back deck (apparently from your living room speakers-not exactly the sweet spot) or while cooking in your kitchen (background music) or while entertaining guests.
When I have guests over, unless we are expressly listening to music as the main activity (a very rare event), my wife is usually dialing the background music into the inaudible range because the main purpose of being with our guests is conversation.

Likewise a quality component is going to be wasted on the patio, or competing with cooking noises. I mean, it’s your money, but most of the finer points other posters are making here about the differences in SQ between different streamers are beside the point for your application.

I use a CA CXN60 in my living room. The app works great, it sounds so good that I use one as a transport into a better DAC in my main system, it’s great with podcasts and internet radio ( which are excellent background listening choices while cooking). It has Chromecast and Apple AirPlay, which our guests use when they want to play us music from their phones, and I use for streaming Apple Music. It will natively play Tidal and Qobuz.

The Bluesound Node will fill your needs as well at half the price of the CA

I went with IFI Zen Stream, their upgraded power supply, and their LAN Silencer.  Total was less than $600.  Very satisfied.

Added Roon, and QOBUZ subscriptions.

Hesitated to reply, because of OP's desire for ease of implementation.  IMO, the setup instructions to use the Zen Stream in dedicated Roon mode were poor.  Took too much effort to find answers to setup questions in internet forums.  But, once it was setup, I use it with a laptop and the Roon software - very easy to use to listen to my ripped CDs or Qobuz content.