A principle guiding the wise audiophile life

@p05129 I agree with a lot you say, but I have also found that some of these premium brands are just premium because they include the audiophile tax...Which is all to liberally applied via the marketing department of the companies guilty of such egregious acts and willingly paid by those who because they cannot discern being taken for a ride willingly chip in and become that company's most recent mark. I stubbornly take the position that if its not an audible difference then it is not a difference that matters unless it has to do with ease of use or basic functionality. I make the argument, that for me at least, discerning the difference between a 500 dollar DAC and a 50k dollar DAC is not something I can perceive with all my senses on high alert. Is this more a reflection of admitting my advancing age and subsequent inability to hear what some 30-something can hear? Well maybe it is...and if so that is to my advantage to be able get to that sweet spot with my system by spending a heck of lot less money. I'll happily make that trade. Money doesnt grow on trees where I live so being sensible and pragmatic is necessary. This is the same argument that my best friend makes about drinking scotch. He's happy with $30 scotch and thankful his palate doesnt demand the pricier stuff. I submit that this illustrates what the argument is...Everyone draws a line in the sand based on their ears, and their income for what level they must have to feel some sense of satisfaction. Everybody draws that line in a different place. As I replace the pieces in my house that were lost to the fire, I will buy what I think is the best I can get to meet the need and want within the budget allotted. Especially in the area of speakers chosen. This will be my end game system...simply because of where I am in my life. Will it be the best I have ever had? Who knows? I'm starting from scratch so there are going to be mistakes made, in fact there already have been. I'm trying very hard not to make more. 

@livinon2wheels 

So it is with us. When she joins me in the evenings, the music goes off and we watch TV. It's often a struggle to find programmes or movies that we can both tolerate.

Fortunately my wife knows how much I enjoy the music and how much research I do before I buy anything, so she has never said no to anything I’ve purchased. She also likes music playing and suggests I turn it on fairly often. 
I guess I’m a lucky guy.

First I would advice to read Robert Harley audio book. It did help me the rest I did it it one my own like  listening skill. After I learned how to match my system then final tweak made me slow down in buying anymore stuff. Money matters in this hobby not always. This year I went to axpona to listen to a $125k set up it sounded very good after I went to a friend house to listen to listen to his $22k system? The difference is not much at all.

This is why I will never use rock on their server or on mine. 
IMO, it’s foolish to take all of the Linux diagnostics out of the OS like rock did to save a couple cycles, and that’s why nobody will never know what is causing any problem you have.

If I’m wrong, can you tell me how much cpu usage % while running? Are you swapping/paging? How much of the mEmory are you using? Any disk/ssd errors? Ethernet/network errors? I have close to 4TB of music on my server.

I’m using Mint Linux for Roon and I have hundreds of diagnostic commands and tools to see exactly what is going on in the OS. I’ve ran Roon on OSX for years and I also had many diagnostic tools/commands to diagnose any problem I might have.

The OP and many others for years have reported problems they were having and most posters indicate that they think upgrading to the bigger server is what needed. This could be a foolish move because you don’t know what is causing the problem.