Update: changed my Roon connection to fiber and now cannot hear much difference between the Aurender and my Roon core. Roon for me is a supior interface—out with Aurender!
there was a fairly recent thread on the sound (or lack of sound) of roon itself - it is all about how it is implemented... i agree that optical cleansing of ethernet feed is a big contributor in making roon or any streamer sound really top notch