Roon

nc42acc

nc42acc

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I am currently running Roon on a Asus laptop with an Intel Core i7-6700HQ 2.6GHz CPU. It does OK but it will not run HQ Player and sometimes has trouble with DSD256 material. What would be my best option for running Roon in my system? Thanks in advance for everyones help.

Marty
 
I agree with Still-One. It sounds to me that your issue is not running Roon but actually running HQ Player. You should check the HQ Player community in Roon as Still-One suggested.
 
How much ram? You need at least 8GB, 16 better
SSD HD pretty much a necessity
If u want to run HQ Player probably need to disable everything else on laptop, except roon of course
How do u access ur music files?

Also check out the "rock" thread on the roon site....u might want to go this route which is going to be a dedicated solution
 
A dedicated machine is your best option for Roon Core and/or HQ Player. If upsampling to DSD256 in HQPlayer you will want a rather beefy machine. My i7 3770 can't do it on it's own with the heavier filters, I need to engage Cuda and use my 1080TI GPU.

In most cases the full blow Roon install and HQPlayer don't play very well together on the same machine but the less intensive Roon Core & HQ Player will work well with a beefy machine.

I'd build the following:
Intel i7 7700
16GB Ram
256GB SSD m.2
Nvidia 1070GTX

It would be able to run Roon Core and HQPlayer and upsample to DSD256 with the heavy HQPlayer filters with Cuda engaged. A nice NAA or Roon endpoint like the sMS-200 would be needed at your DAC.

If you want to DSD512 with HQPlayer you need an even beefier dedicated machine just for HQPlayer.
 
Dr Tone said:
A dedicated machine is your best option for Roon Core and/or HQ Player. If upsampling to DSD256 in HQPlayer you will want a rather beefy machine. My i7 3770 can't do it on it's own with the heavier filters, I need to engage Cuda and use my 1080TI GPU.

In most cases the full blow Roon install and HQPlayer don't play very well together on the same machine but the less intensive Roon Core & HQ Player will work well with a beefy machine.

I'd build the following:
Intel i7 7700
16GB Ram
256GB SSD m.2
Nvidia 1070GTX

It would be able to run Roon Core and HQPlayer and upsample to DSD256 with the heavy HQPlayer filters with Cuda engaged. A nice NAA or Roon endpoint like the sMS-200 would be needed at your DAC.

If you want to DSD512 with HQPlayer you need an even beefier dedicated machine just for HQPlayer.
Click to expand...

Agree.

I use Roon strictly for my headphone system which consists of T&A DSD DAC and use HQP to upsample to 512DSD. Don't drive yourself crazy trying all kinds of combinations as it won't work without the horsepower.

I just went out and got a Northwest Falcon Tiki, at:

https://builder.falcon-nw.com/configure/template/tiki-with-z270-chipset/processor

with the 6700K processor, now the 7700K processor. The guys at Sound Galleries found the 6700k to be the best "sonically" even better than they super expensive processor, so no need to go to the highest end processor.

The Tiki is EXTREMELY quiet and it works flawlessly, has a great footprint and I run a curious cable direct out from the USB port into a JCAT Intona and it sounds amazing.

The only problem will be with this computer is if you want to use it direct to the DAC and want a dedicated USB audiophile card, you can't add it.

In any case, my ultimate recommendation is to use it as your "server" for Roon and if you are running HQPlayer, run it on the Tiki as well, let all the processing occur on the Tiki and use the HQP NAA on a dedicated device (small fanless computer or microRendu, etc) connected to your DAC and all is great.

OR your can drive yourself crazy and build your own which personally after doing so many times in the past and banging my head against the wall and wasting so much time, I have decided I will no longer do.

The other benefit of the Tiki is it gives you a great desktop for all other tasks, including photo editing, etc and I have actually upsampled to 512DSD from 44/16 while using Photoshop, etc and not a single dropout.

I would recommend the 1080 for the difference in price over the 1070.

That's my take. After futzing around so much to get it to work with "fanless" computers and slower processors I gave up and instead of tweaking just went with the Northwest Tiki and never looked back.
 
I have Roon running as a headless server connected directly to my DAC. I do not use HQ Player however. I have heard that doing on the fly conversions does take some serious power. My server has the power I just don't have the desire for HQ Player. I also use a Surface Pro tablet as my controller.

One thought, you mentioned that your issue is with DSD256 files. I play DSD256 files perfectly thru my system, therefore I am wondering what drivers you are using. Many times DAC manufactures include a couple different drivers. DSD256 does not work with DoP drivers, which is the standard install for most DACs. DSD256 requires "Native" drivers, sometimes referred to as ASIO drivers. Please make sure this is what you are using.

By the way, I also have a Tiki. Originally bought as a gaming PC, but I re-purpose it as a music server, taking out video card and spinning drives, etc. Falcon Northwest probably make the best custom PCs on the planet. My wife and I have bought 8 over the years. Be aware, they are very expensive computers, but you get the best in both machine and service! Probably overkill as a dedicated music server :). Also, realize that the high end graphic cards are exclusively for video and gaming and have no baring on music, or desktop apps for that matter. I had a Nvidia GTX980 in my Tiki (the best available at the time, love Nvidia). When making it a music server I took the graphics card out. What is built in to the Intel CPU is fine for the purpose. As a headless server I do not even have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. hooked to it. I use Remote Desktop to perform any maintenance or file copying tasks.

attachment.php
 
Randy Myers said:
DSD256 does not work with DoP drivers, which is the standard install for most DACs. DSD256 requires "Native" drivers, sometimes referred to as ASIO drivers. Please make sure this is what you are using.
Click to expand...

That's not true. DSD256 DOP is possible if your DAC is capable of doing 768kHz PCM via USB. Native isn't necessarily required.

DSD512 absolutely requires Native as there is no such thing as 1536kHz PCM out there yet.
 
Ok, then maybe I am wrong. I have always heard and been told that Native drivers are required for DSD256 and up. Also one reason that DSD128 was always the max for a Mac computer. This has been the case on every DAC I have owned. Not many DACs support 768khz PCM. I have never had one :)...
 
Randy Myers said:
Ok, then maybe I am wrong. I have always heard and been told that Native drivers are required for DSD256 and up. Also one reason that DSD128 was always the max for a Mac computer. This has been the case on every DAC I have owned. Not many DACs support 768khz PCM. I have never had one :)...
Click to expand...

I'm going a little off topic now but there are a few out there MSB dacs, RME ADI 2 Pro, Chord Dave to name a few. It seems to be the new it thing.
 
Randy Myers said:
I have Roon running as a headless server connected directly to my DAC. I do not use HQ Player however. I have heard that doing on the fly conversions does take some serious power. My server has the power I just don't have the desire for HQ Player. I also use a Surface Pro tablet as my controller.

One thought, you mentioned that your issue is with DSD256 files. I play DSD256 files perfectly thru my system, therefore I am wondering what drivers you are using. Many times DAC manufactures include a couple different drivers. DSD256 does not work with DoP drivers, which is the standard install for most DACs. DSD256 requires "Native" drivers, sometimes referred to as ASIO drivers. Please make sure this is what you are using.

By the way, I also have a Tiki. Originally bought as a gaming PC, but I re-purpose it as a music server, taking out video card and spinning drives, etc. Falcon Northwest probably make the best custom PCs on the planet. My wife and I have bought 8 over the years. Be aware, they are very expensive computers, but you get the best in both machine and service! Probably overkill as a dedicated music server :). Also, realize that the high end graphic cards are exclusively for video and gaming and have no baring on music, or desktop apps for that matter. I had a Nvidia GTX980 in my Tiki (the best available at the time, love Nvidia). When making it a music server I took the graphics card out. What is built in to the Intel CPU is fine for the purpose. As a headless server I do not even have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. hooked to it. I use Remote Desktop to perform any maintenance or file copying tasks.

attachment.php
Click to expand...

If you use HQP the video card provides computing power that helps in the 512 oversampling DSD realm.
 
Sorry I meant to add I am not currently using HQ Player. I tried but the laptop definitely doesn't have the muscle for that. Thanks for everyone's ideas and help.
 
nc42acc said:
I am currently running Roon on a Asus laptop with an Intel Core i7-6700HQ 2.6GHz CPU. It does OK but it will not run HQ Player and sometimes has trouble with DSD256 material. What would be my best option for running Roon in my system? Thanks in advance for everyones help.

Marty
Click to expand...

Hey Marty! Sent you a quick email ---- Taylor
 
I am running Roon on a USB3.0 connected 60 Euro SSD on my QNAP TVS-471 NAS. I am using the Sonore SonicOrbiter from only USD 298 as Roon Ready endpoint to stream RAAT and it sounds amazingly good! It runs smoothly without a single issue since January.
 
Running Roon on a suitable server with a Roon Ready endpoint is not very processor intensive. Now try to do so with HQPlayer performing high rate DSD conversions with their top filtering algorithms and that's another story entirely!
 
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