@bruce19 Thanks for sharing your experiences.  I readily admit I don't have the most recent wifi setup - I'm using an N device, I think.  I do find video streaming can be laggy, but that could be on the sender side.  I am very curious why Auralic prefers wifi, though.  Do they re-clock the digital feed internally?

However, the OP's system is the one in question, and we know very little about their planned Roon configuration or how they're connecting.  That's why I tried to keep my post fairly general.

@petaluman  Contrary to the experience of many here I have generally found wifi to be a superior delivery path for audio in my house. I have a mesh network so connectivity is good everywhere. My Auralic Aries actually recommends wifi over  a wired connection. When I see how many feel the need to use sometimes pricey  fiber and things like the Ethernet Regen to solve problems associated with the ethernet  I live in a non-congested area, somewhat rural so maybe I have less ambient  RF.  As far as bandwidth wifi has way more than necessary for even the highest resolution audio signal and I have no kids at home anymore so the netork is never overloaded:-)

FYI for others the chip shortage may have hit the Rasperry Pi world, I am finding them pretty much unavailable at un-inflated prices. ie what was $35 is now $100+.

I don't use Roon, so I'm just guessing here.  It sounds like your desired Roon endpoint would be wirelessly connected to your network.  This is generally undesirable for consistent sound quality, regardless of player software.  That wouldn't be an issue if you just wanted to play local files from the ipad.  However, then it's more than an endpoint and will need a bigger set of the Roon software.

I'm a fan of the Allo products as well.  The next step up would be something like the Sonore microRendu (there's one on ebay right now with an LPS for $380).

Chromecast Audio appears to work with Roon  and very cheap

Thank you for that really interesting lead. It looks like a nice package. Unfortunately a quick look around seems to show that Pis are in short supply right now. Sources I looked at were all out of stock. Here is an interesting item from Wikipedia that might be part of the explanation why:

COVID-19 pandemic

In Q1 of 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, Raspberry Pi computers saw a large increase in demand primarily due to the increase in working from home, but also because of the use of many Raspberry Pi Zeros in ventilators for COVID-19 patients in countries such as Colombia,^[262] which were used to combat strain on the healthcare system. In March 2020, Raspberry Pi sales reached 640,000 units, the second largest month of sales in the company's history.^[263]

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^{Further checking reveals that Roon only runs on Macos 10.14 or later and IOS 11 or later unfortunately  ruling out many older devices. There is an alternative of streaming from Roon via airplay, which limits the resolution of the music stream somewhat but might work on older devices. Anyone have experience with this?}

AUDIOPHONICS RASPDAC MINI LCD Kit DIY Streamer for Raspberry Pi 4 & DAC ES9038Q2M