Where would the Auralic Aries reside in this regard?
Sorry, I haven't heard it so I don't know.
Could you please advise what laptop you would recommend as a music server where I can place the laptop in my listening room and where the sole function of the laptop would be to act as a music server? Can I then send the signal to an Anedio D2 DAC using its USB port? Also, is there a music streaming service that offers a large selection of high quality classical music and opera recordings? Would a laptop be deficient in sound quality relative to an Aurender x100 music server?
Jeff.
On a basic level, pretty much any laptop will do. You want something reasonably current as far as CPU, RAM, and storage (although you can always add external hard drives if needed). I figure any well reviewed laptop that isn't a cut-rate, doorbuster type offering should be pretty good.
The reason I recommend a laptop in the first place (rather than a desktop or something like a Mac Mini) is the convenience of having a display/keyboard/mouse available when you need it. I have run a "headless" dedicated media PC and it's kind of a hassle to lug a screen and keyboard in there whenever something goes wrong or I need to change the configuration. Your mileage may vary in that regard.
There are several good programs you can use which can be controlled via tablet. JRiver Media Center works with JRemote on a tablet, or for a more affordable option go Foobar2000 with MonkeyMote (I tend use this one more than JRiver, both are good). It's great to just sit on the couch and call up your favorite tracks or build a playlist, etc.
Now, you can go farther than that with a dedicated machine. Higher end USB ouput cards, power filters, etc. Imho this stuff matters but isn't crucial at all, and personally I'd rather buy a purpose built machine like Aurender than wrestle with it myself. Even a basic laptop will sound quite good. The Aurender will sound better, but depending on your system, room, and listening habits, it may not be a big enough difference to matter.
Regarding streaming services, see below....
I've been looking for a good one for a long, long time.....
Have a subscription with classicalarchives.com: lots of artists but unfortunately they tend to go for cheaper editions (Naxos). Then there's Spotify premium, they seriously enlarged their classical offer and to be fair, it's not bad imo. Of course lots of mainstream compilations but also quite specialised works. Only fly in the ointment is the interface that absolutely sucks to organise a library.
Some people also like Qobuz, I don't know, they don't offer the variety that Spotify premium has. Tidal's not available where I am. If you find an interesting one that's not mentioned, please post.
Classicalarchives.com is a great site, but unfortunately their streaming service is only 160k AAC - which is certainly listenable but does lose some of the magic imho. Same with 320k mp3 from Spotify.
On a budget, I really like OraStream Classical HD which is $7.99 a month. It offers lossless, CD quality streaming of a pretty good catalog, mainly from independent labels - Naxos,
Marco Polo, Amadis, Altissimo, Capriccio and Dynamic, Orophone, Proprius and Sittel. They also have some hi-res content in various PCM formats up to 24-bit/192kHz which can be streamed without any extra fees. The user interface is a little hard to work with at times, and I find it better for browsing or music discovery than finding specific releases. They claim to be improving it though so we'll see. The library has a few hundred thousand tracks and they add hundreds or thousands per week, so it's growing fairly quickly.
Then there's Tidal, which has a massive library in the many millions. It works well and sounds great (identical to OraStream or just a plain CD for the most part) and the $20/month seems reasonable, assuming it works where you live.
The tricky part on these? You'll have to figure out a way to control them. Tidal supposedly has a way of working with JRiver in which case your JRemote setup would presumably do the trick (I haven't done this yet). OraStream has tablet apps but that's for playing on the tablet itself, not controlling the player on another PC. You'd have to use some type of screen mirroring app to get your desktop duplicated on your tablet, which is doable but the experience may not be as smooth as you'd like. 
