Hi Paul
As a Meridian user since about 1997…and a Sooloos user since 2011…and an Ensemble user also…my advice would be as follows
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Do not buy any of their Control Units C10, C15 now in 2016…technology has passed them by…and there are now far better and cheaper options
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If you wish to stick with a Sooloos solution, then Sooloos now have a TouchScreen App…which will run on most Windows PC’s…several Sooloos users use this App on 17 to 27" Touchscreen PC’s in preference to running their C15’s
The App display is VERY similar to that displayed on the C15…and the whole “Touch” side of the UI runs far better on the Capacitive Touchscreens of modern PC’s [like your Smartphone], rather than on the Resistive tech employed by the C15
You could instead use an iPad with the Sooloos Core Control app to control what Music you want to play etc., etc
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Do not buy any of the Sooloos Storage Units [MD600, MC600, MC200]…older technology at elevated prices…to which there is ZERO advantage to using in 2016…they have never added or subtracted to Sound Quality…and as per Meridian’s own stated advice, Sound Quality is solely dictated by the quality of the “Endpoint” used
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The Meridian Endpoints [818v3, 808v6, MS600 and MS200] are great sounding endpoints…and all sound FAR, FAR better than the outputs from the C15 or Ensemble direct…they all employ Resolution Enhancement, Upsampling, Apodizing and jitter reduction techniques
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All the above Meridian Endpoints have ALWAYS worked seamlessly with Roon since its inception…and all sound great when used with Roon…remember that the Roon guys are the original Sooloos & Meridian guys
Ordinarily, I might suggest that you try an MS200 as a starting point…but MQA Tracks [think High Resolution tracks] will be available from Tidal in the near future…and neither the MS600 nor MS200 offer compatibility with that format…so I would advise that you wait until their successors are announced by Meridian
The 818 and 806 are already MQA ready and sound absolutely fantastic with MQA material, as well as CD Format, DSD and other High Res formats
So, in the short term, the best options might be
a) Consider the SonicTransporter mentioned several times on this board…this would act as your Roon Server [& if you wish, Storage]… [akin to your Ensemble]
b) If you’re already confident with Windows, Linux or Mac OSX, then many here run Roon on a NUC PC [with Windows or Linux]…or on a MacMini with OSX
Some here prefer to run with the Music Storage “local” to that PC…while others are happy to use Network Storage [NAS] to store their Music files
c) Consider one of the several Network based Endpoints discussed here on the Roon forum…including the Sonore options
I know what the list prices are for the various Sooloos options you list above…and even at good discounts, they are still likely to be expensive