Headphone amp + DAC + Volume + ROON READY

It's going to take some convincing for me to pay for ROON + TIDAL when foobar2000 is FREE.

With Foobar2000 are you playing lossless music streams for free? You must be playing your ripped CD's for free.

After 4 years of using ROON my lifetime license is essentially free for me now. However, even if I had to pay I would for the following reasons:

- Great eco-system of gear that is ROON READY. So I can easily distribute my systems all over the house. I use Sonore Rendu products for the streaming work. 

- Great client GUI available in many device types (mobile phone, computer, tablet)

- Great discover feature in ROON. Most have this but ROON's one is what I know and like. I keep adding albums everyday based on the AI based recommendations.

- Ability to up-sample though I do not do so yet and it maybe better to do it in a DAC (due to network transportation issues with large data streams)

- Ability to run convolution files to taper the sound curve (bass) for your room. I plan on doing this with my next speakers which will be in a small room. JRvier is the other software that I know supports this. I plan on outsourcing the work to create the convolution files to professional sound engineers. They will do this with my microphone based sound measurement of the room.

- I actually pay for both Qobuz and ROON this year. I may continue to use both since I like how they play on ROON.

A little update to what I ended up with. The fatigue I was feeling with the Bryston BHA-1 was too irritating to ignore. Especially, since I listen to the BHA-1 in bed before I go to sleep.

I sold the BHA-1 and now have the Topping A90 headphone amp which is a great little headphone amp for $500. I pair it with a Matrix Mini-i 3 Pro DAC which has a great number of connectivity options. It sounds great with my Meze Empy headphones. It has volume (not used), it will be ROON READY soon and has a streamer built-in. It costs $899. A nice combo for the bedroom, which I prefer to the BHA-1.

Hi guys, I know that this is an elderly thread but when I googled my question, it kept coming up. Long story short: I am a roon user. Normally I listen in our TV room where my speakers, amp, Lumin T2, subwoofers etc are located. But sometimes that room is occupied by others and I just want to hang somewhere else and listen to music using headphones. @yyzsantabarbara mentioned the Sonore optical rendu and the lite version.
?Question: If I bought the optical rendu and plugged my IFI micro black label usb headphone amp into it using USB, could I use my iPad to connect to the IFI headphone amp? And is the extra cost of the Optical Rendu (not the lite version) worth it or should I spring for the linear power supply - or both. I am primarily using Sennheiser HD 650 headphones with an upgraded cable. But sometimes I use the Beyerdynamic 1990 Dt pro  or the Shure 1540s. (also with upgraded cable). So not super expensive headphones...

@atanarjua99 It would depend on whether your streaming client’s communication protocol is supported by the Sonore OpticalRendu. For example, if your streaming client is ROON then the protocol is called RAAT and the Sonore OpticalRendu does understand that. The OpticalRendu is classified as ROON READY which is the best possible level of ROON integration.

Your iPad will work with whatever streaming client you use. If you use ROON then there will be a web server installed on your network that will render the ROON client GUI to your iPad.

In terms of the OpticalRendu purchase options. I have 2 or them so I have compared the options. I have the expensive LPS and the cheaper one. I would have been better off just getting the cheaper LPS. I have 2 USB cables of varying price. I could not tell a difference in any USB cable. My DAC could have something to do with that.

Both of my OpticalRendu’s are the ROON only version for $999. I do not need the other streaming protocols since I only use ROON and have no intention of changing.

BTW - My post above mentions the Topping A90 headphone amp and the Matrix Mini-i Pro. I gave that gear to my buddy and now use the RAAL SR1a headphones with my regular stereo amps. The RAAL is incredible and more like 2 channels and not headphones.