Hello duke assassin!
If I was in your shoes I’d be looking at a Roon Nucleus to act as both your Roon Core and network player hooked up to your DAC of choice with a suitable USB Cable. My choice would be a Chord Qutest tethered to the Nucleus via Curious USB Cable. I would then install an SSD into the bay of the Nucleus. A 1 TB SSD should do it, but I’d put in a 2 TB SSD just to be safe and give you room for adding more albums. I can personally recommend the Nucleus, Qutest and Curious USB cable, as I have all 3 in my main rig today.
What’s nice about this is that both the Nucleus and Qutest are high quality small footprint items. For further upgrade you could consider linear power supplies for both the Nucleus and Qutest. You can check out my system in the Virtual Systems Section. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8156
If I was in your shoes I’d be looking at a Roon Nucleus to act as both your Roon Core and network player hooked up to your DAC of choice with a suitable USB Cable. My choice would be a Chord Qutest tethered to the Nucleus via Curious USB Cable. I would then install an SSD into the bay of the Nucleus. A 1 TB SSD should do it, but I’d put in a 2 TB SSD just to be safe and give you room for adding more albums. I can personally recommend the Nucleus, Qutest and Curious USB cable, as I have all 3 in my main rig today.
What’s nice about this is that both the Nucleus and Qutest are high quality small footprint items. For further upgrade you could consider linear power supplies for both the Nucleus and Qutest. You can check out my system in the Virtual Systems Section. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8156