A quick update.....

Almost 3 months since I posted the initial message above. In that time I can honestly say that I continue to be really surprised at just how good this Diretta front-end setup is. I have done a few back-2-back tests vs the ID41. Each time the ID41 sound somewhat flat compared to the diretta Rpi's. The precision, detail and 3-D is presentation just so much better.

MQA material feeds in with 1st unfold in Roon and render in the XE. DSD gets fully converted and sent as 352k. Everything else goes as native FLAC/pcm rates.

Rgds,
Nick