The time has come and I request advice...

+1 Aurender.

I would not go the Roon route, costs, adds complications, not much of a long term future. Aurender Conductor app is well regarded. It is improving as well. 

I also had a Pontus 12th. No one mention the Eversolo models. They do it all s far as features and how you use it. I have owned and used the A6, the A6 master, and the master with LPS. Also I tried the A8 which is in your price range with some change left over. I also owned the Hi fi Rose 130.  I use all of these as streamers only. Mostly playing local files. Out of all of these the A8 sounded the best in my system and my preference. With the exception of the A8, the Eversolo can be too forward sounding for my taste. THE HI FI ROSE out of your price range, but playing local files, it had no jump factor and IMO lacked bass. I was very disappointed in these streamers (not A8 for the price) until I install the aurender N200. It was just about perfect in my system. Incredible naturalness. It along with my May KTE sound like a very good turntable. I enjoy the n200 so much, I have a N20 on the way. Check out the Eversolo A8. I think you would be very happy with it. If you can swing the Aurender and roon is not a big deal, it’s a no brainer. 

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.