Looks like you have gotten some pretty good advice.
My recent experience down this route --
I got a Pontus 15 the beginning of this year and connected my aurender a10 by usb to the Pontus 15 via WyWires platinum usb. The Pontus 15 is connected to my preamp with cardas clear interconnects. It took 800 + hours of continuous burn in and it really sounds great in my speaker system. It took this amount of time and even more before the brightness in the upper register smoothed out the way I prefer. I stream qobuz and tidal through the aurender conductor app. Note that the a10 cannot be used to connect to Roon.
I also have a headphone system using the aurender N150 connected to the Linear Tube Audio Aero dac with an LTA headphone amp all tubes upgraded to Ray Reserve and connected via WyWires platinum USB and WyWires platinum in interconnect. The N150 is roon ready.
The headphone system is a step up or more but I am amazed at how great the a10 and Pontus 15 sounds.
You can get a used a10, I think online, from The Music Room, Audio Mart etc. for around $1700 or so. Highly recommend with the Pontus 15, but suggest you get solid usb and interconnects like Cardas.
Good luck