I am looking at joining the Room family and have a server I can run Roon on to serve music, so I’m looking for a DAC/streamer which I can use with Roon.
I would like MQA and DSD512/768khz support so that I’m pretty future proofed should I ever have anything to play in those formats and my budget is up to around £750 as I need to buy an amp as well.
Does it need to be a DAC with ethernet input? I don’t know of any that support DSD512 & PCM768kHz on ethernet input, under £1000. I’ll think and come back later.
You can have those rates supported with a 2-box solution though.
An RPi4 (Roon Bridge endpoint) + USB DAC (like Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 DAC) would work really well and be well under your budget. Leaves more money for the amp you mention.