On the future of Roon...

There is an HQP thread on the Roon Forum. Lots of helpful information. Jussi (Mr.HQP) is a frequent participant and he answers questions directly if you PM him. I started on the HQP path at the recommendation of Tom Caufield who is the mastering engineer for Channel Classics. I was particularly interested in mch files (typically 5.0 or 5.1) which Channel provides on the SACDs and digital downloads (Native DSD is the website they own for all DSD downloads). He recommended using a separate, powerful computer to upsample the DSD64 files to DSD256 so that my multichannel DAC would not be overburdened in doing the upsampling internally. So I did that with a purpose built computer that my computer person built for me back in 2018. He contacted Jussi and worked through all the necessary details, including testing everything out This took a lot of horsepower since I am upconverting six channels simultaneously. Since I got my computer, there are more powerful and cheaper chips available. Cheap compared with lots of audiophile equipment. My main processor is an i7-6950X. It was $1650 when I got it. Today, many very powerful chips are much, much less expensive.

Larry
 
astrotoy said:
There is an HQP thread on the Roon Forum. Lots of helpful information. Jussi (Mr.HQP) is a frequent participant and he answers questions directly if you PM him. I started on the HQP path at the recommendation of Tom Caufield who is the mastering engineer for Channel Classics. I was particularly interested in mch files (typically 5.0 or 5.1) which Channel provides on the SACDs and digital downloads (Native DSD is the website they own for all DSD downloads). He recommended using a separate, powerful computer to upsample the DSD64 files to DSD256 so that my multichannel DAC would not be overburdened in doing the upsampling internally. So I did that with a purpose built computer that my computer person built for me back in 2018. He contacted Jussi and worked through all the necessary details, including testing everything out This took a lot of horsepower since I am upconverting six channels simultaneously. Since I got my computer, there are more powerful and cheaper chips available. Cheap compared with lots of audiophile equipment. My main processor is an i7-6950X. It was $1650 when I got it. Today, many very powerful chips are much, much less expensive.

Larry
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Sadly today there is a chips crisis. Those powerful chips are increasing in price. Nucs are hard to get, but still available and more expensive. About pcs, especially the video cards are a real problem. Waiting time about half a year or longer. Price 2.5k euro what used to be about 800.

Sadly yesterday I had troubles with Roon. After testing and excluding everything I found that my dac broke. Think it couldn't handle 512 DSD. :(
 
MDP said:
Wow, Am I the only one confused by all this?

And they say vinyl is a hassle........I'll just lower the tonearm and call it good.
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Mark - Spot on posting. Although digital doesn’t need to be as complicated. There are world class digital solutions that can be setup and used within minutes - Lumin, MSB/DCS/EMM w renderer, Esoteric network players, and a few others.

I’m retired and spent 35 years in corporate IT. The last thing I want to do is build, setup, run and maintain multiple computers, switches, NAS,….to enjoy music.

But for those that do, have fun worrying about microcode and OS versions. I’ll be enjoying my my system; maybe vinyl or maybe my easy to play Lumin.

It’s all good…
 
My feeling is that some get enjoyment out of making what is complicated to some but easy to them, work. I am cool with that. Have y’all read some of the threads on turntable/arm/cartridge setup? To me, that is complicated.

It’s a big hobby and we all approach it differently.
 
Agree that there are many digital solutions that are very easy to use.

One such product that rarely is mentioned here is the Sony HAP-Z1ES. It has a built in hard drive, does Spotify Connect, it can play any type of music file including high definition files. In fact it can convert everything to DSD if you choose so. It is not Roon-ready but with Spotify about to offer CD-quality music, it is a bargain at about $1,750.
 
This has been a great, free wheeling thread. Lack of consensus, and the concept of "hobby" create for robust, diverse input on forums (I define hobby as our brains creating new problems that we feel we must solve!).
Relating to the OP, I agree, the big players may ultimately combine greater feature sets that will ultimately squeeze out smaller players.
The thread then diverged on the sound quality of Roon... I have called around to multiple dealers and "experts" on this, and looked at a variety of online comparisons. There is not a consensus that Roon isn't capable of equal sound qualilty to other interfaces. There is agreement that setup does affect Roon's sound quality, and we all can agree that it is less stable than other platforms.
I was originally interested in keepng the Roon interface and pairing it with HQplayer's processing/streaming. This can be done on a single unit. Interestingly, Andrew, at Small Green Computer, feels this isn't necessary, and that output signal quality and clocking are more important.
I will chew on this, as my brain's participation in this hobby enjoys trying to solve this important, world altering problem...
 
Ricky64 said:
This has been a great, free wheeling thread. Lack of consensus, and the concept of "hobby" create for robust, diverse input on forums (I define hobby as our brains creating new problems that we feel we must solve!).
Relating to the OP, I agree, the big players may ultimately combine greater feature sets that will ultimately squeeze out smaller players.
The thread then diverged on the sound quality of Roon... I have called around to multiple dealers and "experts" on this, and looked at a variety of online comparisons. There is not a consensus that Roon isn't capable of equal sound qualilty to other interfaces. There is agreement that setup does affect Roon's sound quality, and we all can agree that it is less stable than other platforms.
I was originally interested in keepng the Roon interface and pairing it with HQplayer's processing/streaming. This can be done on a single unit. Interestingly, Andrew, at Small Green Computer, feels this isn't necessary, and that output signal quality and clocking are more important.
I will chew on this, as my brain's participation in this hobby enjoys trying to solve this important, world altering problem...
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Hi Ricky,

I agree with everything you said except that Roon isn’t as stable as other platforms. I have literally had zero glitches since I started using Roon about three years ago. The key is I have an extremely straightforward setup: Roon Nucleus +, Synology NAS and NetGear Nighthawk Router running to a MSB Renderer V2 digital input module in my MSB Select DAC. No dropouts, no failures and no problems in three years. Can’t beat that.

Ken
 
Alpinist said:
Hi Ricky,

I agree with everything you said except that Roon isn’t as stable as other platforms. I have literally had zero glitches since I started using Roon about three years ago. The key is I have an extremely straightforward setup: Roon Nucleus +, Synology NAS and NetGear Nighthawk Router running to a MSB Renderer V2 digital input module in my MSB Select DAC. No dropouts, no failures and no problems in three years. Can’t beat that.

Ken
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Totally agree.....
 
nicoff said:
The thing is that many "crazy audiophiles" as you call them, are finally realizing that much if not all of their digital personal library is available via streaming. So why bother? (Incidentally, when I hear of folks having terabytes-sized library of digital files complaining about how little musicians get paid by music streaming services, I always wonder how many of those files they actually paid for).

Roon is not plug-and-play. Agree that it is a contributor to never becoming mainstream. But it is much easier to set up that something like the now unsupported Logitech Media Server which I believe was the precursor of Roon.
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Good points. I have a large library because I live at the end of the known internet universe, with really spotty connectivity. For example, I have to throttle Qobuz to 24/96 to get it play reliably. Not a huge issue. But there are times when local network traffic drops my bandwidth down to the point that even 24/96 won’t stream.

Point is, Roon’s future lies in its ability to attract new streaming users, as the crazy audiophiles like me have already bought it. Roon will be more secure financially if they find a way to partner with the big dogs, who I predict will be the only ones left in the ring when the dust settles.
 
What I find interesting between streaming and having your own library is the ability to have my own playlists and access without relying on a private streaming company. I was a subscriber to MOG a decade or so ago and it went bye-bye so I had all these playlists and albums that I found via streaming and then gone. Who knows what will happen to Spotify or Tidal or Q.

I do miss iTunes but I found the lack of updates for my operating system frustrating. Then when they switch to Apple Music I lost interest in their service. Now, it seems even more of a hassle to switch back to Apple Music instead of Roon and Tidal.

Roon is really cool to link composers with artists and see the connections between music, but it really just uses Allmusic.com for their bios and album info. Basically, I've learned to listen to new music or finds via streaming and if I really like it, I buy it on vinyl or digitally via bandcamp.
 
findog said:
What I find interesting between streaming and having your own library is the ability to have my own playlists and access without relying on a private streaming company. I was a subscriber to MOG a decade or so ago and it went bye-bye so I had all these playlists and albums that I found via streaming and then gone. Who knows what will happen to Spotify or Tidal or Q.
…..
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Just so you know, the playlists that you generate within Roon are not exportable/transferrable to other services. If you try to export them all you get is an alphabetical listing of the tracks. If Roon goes away, you will have to recreate every single playlist. There have been many requests from users to the developers of Roon but so far they have not added that feature.

I do believe that Spotify is here to stay. So I use Spotify to create all my playlists. Then I transfer them to Qobuz for use with Roon.
 
I would have a hard time giving up Roon. It not only controls my main stereo, but all of my Sonos zones. It's so easy to move what I'm listening to from the living room out to the pool as needed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
markush said:
Well you could keep Roon as frontend and still use HQPlayer - depending on your (main) setup.
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I don't up sample with Roon, so I wouldn't use HQplayer. My DAC/streamer is the Meitner MA3, and I let it do any/all up sampling


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I have used Roon pretty much since it first came out. Love the interface and meta data. Sonically... not sure, I hand off the playback engine from Roon to HQPlayer. I up sample everything and my T+A DAC smiles! In my view it is the best of both worlds, but honestly, anything better I doubt I could hear the difference anyway.
 
Starting to look around again. Too many reports of better sound from other software. I have experienced the network issues with Roon. (It stays very busy on the network/internet). I currently run ROCK on an intel Nuc. And it works well.

Looking into another headless server that will ideally run Roon Core, and UPNP server. I plan to try out JplayIOS app, which does see my MSB Renderer V2. I’d also like to try Audirvana, but I need to look into that more. I listen to a combination of local files, and Qobuz. It would help if my Sonos units could read my music files on the server.
 
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