roon core options

[rrwmd]

It's stories like Morgan's that have usually made me shy away from DIY stuff. I just don't have the time or patience.

So here's what I ended up doing:

I talked to Andrew Gillis, CEO and owner of Small Green computer. I was all prepared to go with their sonicTransporter i9 (that just recently replaced the i7 model) thinking I would need this much processing power. After telling him about my setup he actually said I really didn't need that and recommended the basic sonicTransporter i5 and said that if I experienced any hiccups and wasn't satisfied I could return it. So I bought the i5 model about a month ago.

So far, even running multiple roon endpoints/zones as well as occasional upsampling and Eq, I haven't been able to trip it it up. (I would imagine the basic roon Nucleus would also work just fine, although MSRP is $500 more). Pretty nice when a salesperson talks you into spending less money!

[Randy Myers]

Processing power needed really depends on the software you are running. I would not need the power I have if I was simply running Roon Core on the machine. However running HQPlayer requires a ton of power, and from my tests, CPU power. All eight cores are in full play with HQPlayer.

Also, I believe the performance is vastly better when storing files internally inside the machine. Now a days good storage is cheap. It does not cost a fraction of what dedicated server builders charge. 1 TB M.2, latest fastest drive, cost, if I recall correctly, about $200 (just checked, Samsung 970 EVO drives, 1 TB are under $170). And there is zero external transport of the signal. The M.2 drives plug directly into the motherboard, similar to how RAM connects.

For me, with all my files internal on M.2 (2 TB for DSF files) and 2.5" SSDs (1 TB for PCM files) I have 3 TB. With about 950 albums, mostly high res and a ton of DSD (128, 256, and 512) I have plenty of storage still available. If I were only doing CD rips there would be room for 4-5 thousand albums. Not going through the network to play files is a huge performance advantage.

I had Falcon build the basic unit because of their far superior cases, and access to higher grade parts. Their construction quality is second to none, and they built exactly as I requested including pre-wiring for my extra SSD drives. It took me maybe an hour to add the extra drives in. Copying music to the server was the real time sync .

[brad225]

I too purchased the i5 last year. It worked great with Roon and Qobuz. I was unable to upsample to DSDx4 with the i5 so a chose to upgrade to the i9 with Roon and HQplayer embedded.

I had to wait a couple of months for the i9 to be available but it was worth the wait. I'm using it feeding a UltraRendu then to my DAC. When I first tried DSDx4 I felt it closed in the image and stage and went back to DSDx2 for a while. I decided to make a more serious attempt see what it would do. I discovered that what I thought was a closed image was more detail and a more refined sound. I have made some acoustical changes to my room and the sound at DSDx4 is wonderful.

I have not yet set up HQplayer as I am waiting to become use to the sound of Roon filters for upsampling.

I am very happy with Andrew's products and his help with any issues I had.

[Bones13]

I installed Rock on my i5 with only one issue. I was trying to update the missing codecs, and kept trying the method listed in directions to get to the “data” directory through the Rock webpage. I finally found the data directory showed up in the network portion of the file manager. Directly copied the ffmpg file, and everything worked fine.

I resample to DSD128, what’s that x2 DSD, with no issues. i5 with 16g memory, and 128g SSD.

[wklie]

I was unable to upsample to DSDx4 with the i5

You need to enable Parallelize Sigma Delta Modulator.