The time has come and I request advice...

Many conflicting opinions here... some like Roon, some like Aurender, etcetera.   In my case, I spent about $4.4K on a used Aurender N10 (from a well known dealer).   The unit had connection issues right from the start and the dealer begrudgingly agreed to have it shipped to Aurender SC, where they replaced the hard drive and ran full diagnostics.  The returned unit ran for a few days, then once again, I was unable to connect.  I tried trouble shooting with Aurender customer service and eventually gave up, selling for a loss.  It could be that my AT&T internet service or modem did not play nice with Aurender, but I have read of others having similar experiences.   In Aurenders defense, they do appear to have many satisfied customers.  

Not sure if ROON does not have a future. Best audio purchase I made was a lifetime subscription before ROON was even released for $450. I know they got sold, but I doubt they got sold to be shutdown.

The stuff you can do with ROON is unmatched. I have not looked at the latest Aurrender, but I doubt they have the same grand software road map as ROON.

I run ROON Core from a $500 DELL machine the size of my hand. It does not have a monitor connected to it nor a mouse and keyboard. The machine automatically starts up at 7AM and shuts down at 2:30AM so I am forced to go to sleep. I also keep this machine under a bed in my guest room (which has no audio gear in it).

I also have state of the art streaming sound using fibre and ROON READY endpoints (need streamers for that). This is in 2 rooms of the house, but it could be many more.

ROON is a killer system.

@kennyc I had no issue running Roon on my Innous Zenith.  I have a lifetime Roon subscription, having said that, I no longer use Roon on my Zenith because I use Innous Sense instead.  

Roon certainly has more bells & whistles than Sense, but Sense SQ IMHO is much better than Roon's, and the Sense app is a very good music management system.

@oldschool1948 +1

Agree, I have an innuos and ran Roon for years. In the last 6 months it seemed to have some connectivity problems so I switched to Innuos Sense. No problems sounds superb and honestly, I don't see a difference in the OS. Both very easy to navigate, play well with Qobuz and give similar, if not the same info

+1 Roon - Innuos❗️