432 EVO

@lalitk : cannot say it never crossed my mind to ask. But really I don’t want to do that before I am sure this is something I needed for my system. It’s only fair

@thyname   Can you elaborate on "I don’t want to do that before I am sure this is something I needed for my system"?

You list the Roon Nucleus + in your system...so I'm confused by the above statement.

I'd expect the 432 Evo to be a step or two above the Nucleus, depending on the level you choose.

I have not updated my system recently here under Systems. I am back to the ZENith MK3. My DAC also has a network bridge built in. So I have a couple of options. As it is.
 

I am really hesitant to make additional changes as everything sounds very good as it is. All the commotion, hassles buying and selling, money, and all that. I am a bit tired doing all that honestly. Sometimes we just have to sit back and enjoy what we have. Even if not permanently. I hope this makes sense 

@thyname  Yes, that makes sense.

I, however (being factual; not negative), believe you can do better than the Zenith Mk3...fwiw.

Fairly negative review of the EVO High End on Positive Feedback site:

The reviewer had a hard time discerning any differences between the EVO and his NUC, USB out to his Schiit DAC:

"

Where's the Magic?

After making all the connections with the Sbooster power supplies, USB cable to my DAC and external hard drive (which stores over 4 TB of ripped and downloaded music), I fired it up. Using the Roon Labs app on my iPhone to control it, I could not access music on my external HD, which was disappointing. I later read on their online manual that the music could be streamed from Roon, Qobuz, Tidal, and Internet radio stations or played from its internal 2 TB hard drive, but that ripped or downloaded files needed to be moved there via a controller such as iPeng or their online portal. Additionally, when I played music on it, I noticed a slightly warmer presentation than my Intel NUC Roon Optimized Core Kit music server, but the difference wasn't quite what I imagined; it still sounded very good, but the purported 432 magic largely escaped me. "

He also mentioned this in one of FB comments:

"All this said, I had the input of a computer engineer who built his own DACs encourage me to go the route of having a simple computer server linked up to the Yggdrasil for excellent results. And he was right. Save for the tuning and DSP, the Intel NUC with a great DAC like the Yggie is quite competitive."

It also looks like it takes 20-25 minutes to rip a single CD, which I find outright outrageous