Best budget WIFI endpoint for Roon?

[flyingelephant]

I recently started my trial for Roon - and love it so far.

I also made the jump into Qobuz.

CUrrently I have an IMac, running iTunes, running into a Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus into EMotiva powered Speakers.

I also have several; Apple Airport Express routers spread around the house using toslink to cvarious DACs and amps-speakers or powered speakers.

I have about two terabytes of ripped AIFF files on a local drive to my iMac.

 

A few questions:

 

AFAIK, AirPlay tops out at 16/44 - true?

 

So - if I want to stream high res files - from Qobuz, or if I buy 24/96 tracks - my current setup will down convert to 16/44 because of Airplay/? Is there a way to stream to a WIFI-SUB/or Toslink endpoint that allows for hi-res WIFI Streaming?

 

I see a lot of love here for various Raspberry Pi endpoint solutions. Since I already have amp/powered speakers and Dacs - is that a good option for me - perhaps with a hat that isn’t a dac or an amp, like some of the Allo solutions? Budget is an issue at present- so I’d rather not get one of the Blusound units, e.g.

 

Can I do that with my current setup using the iMac as the Roon Core? With local files +Qobuz hi-res streaming, controlled from my iPhone?

 

If I were to upgrade my equipment, and get a dedicated Roon Core - since my 2016 iMac is my main work machine - is a NUC running Roon Rock the best solution for the $$.

 

Thanks!