I'm not so sure about the sound quality thru a 16/44 Airplay being no different than DLNA or usb stick when playing a ripped SACD.
Here is what Roon says on the subject from this page........
https://kb.roonlabs.com/AirPlay_Setup
AirPlay only accepts CD-quality (44.1kHz/16bit) audio. Furthermore, some AirPlay devices (notably, AppleTVs) convert the audio to 48kHz/16bit internally--not a very nice thing to do.
As a result, you will often see rather complex format conversions in Roon's
Signal Path, like this one:
As such, while AirPlay can be a very convenient and easy to purchase solution, for the primary listening areas in your house, we recommend using a more quality-conscious option.
*******end paste*******
Given the above recommendation from Roon, and that EVERY other music serving software uses the 'dying' DLNA I will stick with it for a while longer. I have high resolution music I dont want reduced down. Audivarna connects perfectly using dlna, sounds excellent, and passes through the original bitrate without having to reduce it. I think I would prefer the desktop UI of Roon over Audivarna, but Audivarna has a Android app that works excellent on my phone....amazing app FAR better than every other one I've tried so far and I plan to always use the phone app....I do not want to deal with playing music with a computer, so the Android app is extremely important to me. But Roon may get my business one day if I decide to drop a chunk on hardware for just for them and they get their Android app working better.