Hi guys!
I have a hard time to find a obvious upgrading-route. As a recent lifetime member of Roon I’m eager to get the best of my audiophile experience with Roon.
I have, at least what I think, a highly competent system hardware wise, in a Heed / Trenner & Friedl stereo
(Heed Obelisk pre-amp with sepatate power box [PX], and monoblocks [PM], D/A converter [DA] and CD-transport [DT], speakers: Trenner & Friedl Art). I really love the synergy of the Heed electronics and the lovely T&A speakers, it really suits my room like nothing else I ever have owned. But I would really like them to shine and play their best, even when listening through Roon (as they do with my cd-transport DT or LP12).
Today I’m feeding the DA directly from my mac mini (roon server) through Nordost blue heaven Usb-chord and iFi purifier.
My thoughts of upgrading have circled around this
a Roon ROCK core
sotm sms 200 ultra
sotm tx usb ultra
a pre-owned auralic aries
What du you think should be my priorities? Is just a sotm tx usb ultra the easiest way to audiophile quality or should i aim for a streamer like sms 200 ultra or auralic? And how much is the Roon ROCK nuc improving things?
As far as sound quality is concerned, a dedicated NUC with ROCK should make zero difference. That choice is more about other aspects. If you get on ok with your current Roon core arrangements I don’t see the need to spend anything on changing that. I must admit that I prefer to use Ethernet networked, rather than USB, Roon end points (no worries about contamination, purifiers etc and I’m serving more than one location) but the case for sound quality aspects is arguable there too. My simplest system is Meridian 218-Meridian DSP3200. In my multichannel room I have a Bluesound Node 2 connected by analogue to my Arcam AVR550. On my laptop I have a USB connected Meridian Explorer 2 which I can either attach to headphones or via analogue into another system. All supplied by ROCK NUC with internal storage (it’s tucked away and runs 24/7). To me, it seems that your choice of end point/DAC, amplification and speakers is your real arbiter of sound quality here. That field is wide open.
I’m pretty much in agreement with @jobseeker re the NUC/ROCK. So long as the Mac mini is doing everything you want it to, I don’t think the NUC is likely to yield an improvement in sound quality, especially if you move the mini outside the listening room.
Also, it’s not immediately apparent to me what the Aries Mini would offer with the system you’re contemplating.
The SOtM gear seems fine if you’re comfortable with the cost.
You are along the right lines in extracting quality with a high quality network device. If your Mac is up to spec then stick with it if is not needed elsewhere. Not entirely sure if the Auralic is of any benefit, you would need to make some objective comparisons to see if it is worth going with if displacing what you have.
Thank you all for advice. I believe some kind of render, like the sotm sms 200 ultra would make a great improvement, so I think I’ll try that if I can afford it . But I wonder if the same quality raise would occur if I’d connetc the Mac with a USB enhancer like the sotm tx-usb Ultra, wich seams to get as high praise as the sms. Any thoughts about that?