My setup will be multichannel, i.e. at least 4.0. This is for several reasons.
1 I have multichannel hires audio material for instance from 2L. It is simply beautiful.
2 I prefer to play even stereo material in multichannel. For me it simply opens up the room much more. Typical track to explore this is the track Zapateado by Pepe Romero from the cd This is K2 HD sound!
3 I want to play video (Amazon prime/Netflix, Blu-ray etc.) and use the Beolabs for the audiopart. Obviously, that needs to be in multichannel.
So the audio part of the hometheater needs to be able to handle input from a tv or setup box (preferably over HDMI eARC as Toslink is limited), from the Roon core (preferably over ethernet, I,.e. RJ-45) and from a Blu-Ray player (HDMI).
For a system in this price range, use should be simple both for me and the less nerdy people in my house. Also, it should support all the highres audio streams that a simple 200 Euro set-top box or 2000 Euro tv can output.
I will do a complete overhaul of the system, so replace all equipment and speakers. Important are flexibility for the future (a Beolab powered system is not exactly cheap 😉 and support for the above use cases. Absolutely stunning audio performance and looks don’t require mentioning ;).
So USB might work. Hopefully that is an asynchronous USB-solution then. Would this support multichannel high-res? Again the question on how to daisy-chain or input the audio to 2 sets of speakers is on the table.
The current NUC has HDMI, USB (including USB-C) and ethernet connections. Not sure if all those are active/supported by Roon Rock (which is what I run on the NUC: it is completely dedicated to Roon).
So much hoping that there is a good and simple solution because the Beolabs look stunning.