A cheap computer and an opticalRendu I think is the best bang for the buck. Analog noise cannot travel on fibre optical wire. Run the ROON Core on the cheap computer (i5+) and get a network hub with fibre optical.
https://www.ui.com/unifi-switching/unifi-switch-8-150w/
Hookup the opticalRendu to the network switch at one end and the other end to the USB input of your DAC. Done.
Your thoughts on using a SonicTransporter music server also does the same thing but you have the option of using it with fibre optical.
https://www.smallgreencomputer.com/collections/audio-server/products/sonictransporter-i9-optical
This is more money than I would pay to setup ROON Core. That is why a cheap computer is my choice.
Using fibre optical, you eliminate the analog noise getting into your DAC. In the future I expect more DACs to be like the LUMIN X1 which has a fibre optical input. However, since no one else does we have to use convert fibre to something like USB.
https://www.ui.com/unifi-switching/unifi-switch-8-150w/
Hookup the opticalRendu to the network switch at one end and the other end to the USB input of your DAC. Done.
Your thoughts on using a SonicTransporter music server also does the same thing but you have the option of using it with fibre optical.
https://www.smallgreencomputer.com/collections/audio-server/products/sonictransporter-i9-optical
This is more money than I would pay to setup ROON Core. That is why a cheap computer is my choice.
Using fibre optical, you eliminate the analog noise getting into your DAC. In the future I expect more DACs to be like the LUMIN X1 which has a fibre optical input. However, since no one else does we have to use convert fibre to something like USB.