The time has come and I request advice...

ghdprentice

6,188 posts

03-11-2024 at 09:09am 

+1 Aurender.

Seems honest opinion. Okay.

I would not go the Roon route, costs, adds complications, not much of a long term future. Aurender Conductor app is well regarded. It is improving as well. 

Disinformation / sway. C’mon now. Really?

There’s no flattering way to say “Aurender’s not Roon Ready,” but no need to discount one over the other, hey? They don’t play together bit-perfectly, why not leave it at that? 

Disclaimer: I don’t use either of those items, want either of those items, or profit from either of those items.

+1 for the Innuos Zen Mini.  Just plug in and go, not a second of trouble, works flawlessly and sounds amazing.

Lumin D 2 with upgaded PSU @ TMR. Retuns accepted but you will not need too. 

My personal judgment on Roon is from personal experience with it (complicated) and forty years of implementing information technology. I have experienced generations of operating systems, hardware, and dozens and dozens of software suites and hundreds of single purpose software products. Software like Roon has a very limited life as streaming becomes. Main stream and major vendors produce their own better and better products and the revenues dry up for Roon and they get purchased and disappear into the history of software. There is a question of how long it will take… but the time will not be measured in decades but likely a few years.

Aurender for build quality, ease of use, support, reliability. Make sure your'e OK with the conductor app before you jump in, it's your only access point (for now)

Innous for sonics, roon capability and sense app.  Sense sounds better than roon and is better than conductor (IMO) as an interface.

These two companies are doing it best for now.