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In Reply to: RE: Roon article in The Absolute Sound - Sept 2018 issue posted by AbeCollins on August 16, 2018 at 19:55:00
I'd be interested in the author's conclusion of the SQ, because I think it's as good as I've ever heard my system sound. And I just bumped it up a notch with a Nucleus as my new Roon Core, replacing a Mac mini, and a Simaudio Moon 280D as my new endpoint in the main system, replacing the USB input of the Oppo.
So, now I have the Nucleus streaming through ethernet to a Digione Player connected to a Bel Canto DAC2.5 in the bedroom and to the 280D, which is Roon Ready, in the living room. Both sound fantastic!
Here is the main system in the living room
Here is the bedroom system
Here is the Nucleus next to the Mac mini in my office. For now the mini is decommissioned, but I might use it to rip discs going forward, and then copy them onto the external HHD connected to the Nucleus.
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
Follow Ups:
Maybe I'm the only one, but I didn't quite get Roon. I found it a little difficult to navigate. On top of that too was the cost, and even further was my Raspberry Pi with Ropieee didn't want to work and wasn't being seen by the Roon server. I gave up and reinstalled Volumio on my endpoints and use Audirvana as the server. It works great with Tidal and MQA, which was my main source since I never bothered to rip my CDs, nor have I downloaded music.
I also tried with sample super hi-res and it works great with that too, now all I need is some super hi-res music that is actually worth buying. I'm not a big fan of the audiophile recordings. It usually just isn't music or artists I want to hear. Somebody give me DSOTM in DSD256 and maybe I'll bite. (I have the DVD-A bootleg of the original quad mix and it sounds pretty good, but I still prefer my vinyl.)
Perhaps you had a network problem, or Roon configured incorrectly?In any case, I have two RPi endpoints running DietPi & RoonBridge, and a microRendu and they are all immediately recognized and usable by Roon. DietPi + RoonBridge software installation on RPi are super simple . There's a lot that can be 'tweaked' but it works fine with defaults straight from bootup. Same for the tiny $35 Chromecast Audio device by Google (available from BestBuy). I have that one set up for music in the garage. All controlled with iPad running Roon Remote.
I still have Pure Music and Audirvana + (both excellent) but Roon is better on sonics, and significantly more flexible on configuration, as well as how it handles multiple endpoints. And the remote on a tablet is outstanding, far superior to what AV+ has to offer. I've been a long time AV+ user, and PM prior to that.
If you didn't get it up and running it will be difficult for you to imagine what I'm describing. But nothing wrong with LMS or AV+. Many folks enjoy those too.
Edits: 08/20/18
I agree on Roon vs. Pure Music. Roon is vastly superior in SQ than PM. Of course PM is cheaper.
Haven't tried Audirvana or Ammara (sp?) or JRiver.
There are any number of reasons that people might not find Roon a good fit for them, and I gather PAR has found the metadata lacking for classical, which is a good reason to pass. But some of the comments leave me scratching my head. I'm a Luddite and found it manageable to set up and optimize, albeit with a few hiccups along the way. For sound quality, user interface and multiple zone management, it's hard to imagine anything better.
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
Classical is a challenge for many players, not just Roon. But I'm more forgiving of that shortcoming since I own very few Classical albums, probably 5 or 6 at most.I'd give yourself more credit as you're not a Luddite! You seem to catch on quick so maybe you should promote yourself to novice. ;-) None of this stuff is rocket science. I think a big part of it just jumping in and following directions and doing some Google searches for additional hints.
Edits: 08/20/18
Roon seems popular and I therefore have maintained an interest in it awaiting some sort of clear indication that I should try it as an alternative to JRiver.
So I often take a look at the Roon Community facility to see what issues are arising and if there are solutions. When I look at metadata issues I always seem to find postings from classical music enthusiasts that repeatedly indicate that Roon's ability with classical music metadata is less than impressive.
I might be prepared to overlook this if Roon had not started to sell the product four or so years ago with the strap line " Classical Music Done Right". It clearly isn't. That promotional material also gave the impression that Roon had discographers inputting the data, also untrue.
As soon as I am able to check Roon Community on metadata issues and do not find so many recurring problems with classical music then I will give it a try.
> > Maybe I'm the only one, but I didn't quite get Roon.
Me too. I ran the trial version for a short while. It was all very pretty and flashy, but didn't change the way I listened to music.
I've got my whole collection ripped (which includes over 1,000 LPs ripped to digital over a period of 10 years) and have close to 6,000 albums total. I use the LMS server into a Squeezebox Touch and have no problem finding the music I want at the moment. I'm also not big into streaming.
So, for me, Roon would have been spending money to have a prettier digital interface. Just wasn't worth it, though I know many others feel otherwise.
I find that reaction puzzling. From my reading of posts here over several years, I conclude that it is not what most people use. It's just one of many options, and I happen to agree with Abe that it's a great service.This isn't directed at you, but I don't understand the negative comments even if it's ultimately not for everyone. It has a great bit-perfect player, which to me blows away Pure Music. It is perfect for multiple networked endpoints and does not rely on a direct USB connection to a computer. It works equally well for owners of 1,000 albums or less who want Tidal, and it works great for people with over 10,000 albums who don't. I happen to love the interface - others don't.
Heck, I came close to going with the Aurender N100C, which integrates beautifully with a number of streaming services, including Tidal and Qobuz. Aurender Conductor is a great user interface. Their players purportedly sound wonderful and I was going to audition one, but dropped it from my list when I realized it was a one room only solution. And it would have been more expensive.
But I would love to hear from people on this forum who are using Aurender stuff, just like I have enjoyed posts by those who use Bluesound stuff, which seems to punch way above its price. I suspect Aurender users would get criticism for how much $$ they spent, and for not putting something together themselves, etc., etc.
IDK. This is a fun hobby. It's not a competition. I like hearing what other people are doing and why it works for them without judgment or criticism. Again, that's not directed at you specifically at all.
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"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
Edits: 08/19/18 08/19/18 08/19/18
My "not the only one" response picked up on a line used in zacster's reply.
Roon obviously has an enthusiastic following, but not everyone is equally enthralled.
I reread my post and didn't see anything "negative" in it. I just made an obseration that the things that Roon does well and wows some some people, didn't do much for me. Nothing more.
Keep in mind this is a "discussion forum". This means when people post a comment about whatever, it should be fully expected that it will draw a range of responses. If it doesn't, then it's not much of a "discussion."
I actually like reading a wide range of opinions, including both those by the fan-bois and the grouches, and all the ones in between.
I get that, which is why I was saying my comments weren't directed at you, and why I pointed out that I'd like to hear from users of other systems more often. And I thought it was worth pointing out that Roon isn't just the interface.
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
I get that, which is why I was saying my comments weren't directed at you
your chose to post directly as a response to his. Go figure.
Some people benefit from Roon's flexibility, interface, and sonics, and others don't. Those who don't often disparage it. Some prefer old LMS. I get it. I ran LMS into an old squeezebox for years but Roon has features that benefit me greatly so it has become my preference over LMS, PM, and AV+. Different strokes I guess and a willingness to give new stuff an honest chance.
Edits: 08/21/18
now all I need is some super hi-res music that is actually worth buying.
DSOTM? I was seventeen when that was released and still have the original vinyl. Not worth the effort.
Not sure what you're expecting, but the differences I detect are usually subtle and lie at the top. And mostly realized with acoustical music where you can hear the recorded space.
Do you enjoy soundtracks? The 96/24 one from Rogue One , however, is fabulous. You want startle-the-crap-out-of-you dynamics? :)
The thing I'm beginning to appreciate about computer audio is the flexibility and seemingly endless range of options. Your set up must sound terrific and certainly does all that mine does with Roon.In my case, I had already ripped over 900 CDs to ALAC or AIFF over the last 6 years or so when I was using iTunes and Pure Music on my Macs. And I started to find the Apple architecture annoying in a number of ways. I have about the same number of LPs as CD, but have no desire at all to transfer the LPs to digital. Too much hassle and, in my opinion, defeats the point of owning records. And I totally agree with you about hi-rez downloads and "hi-fi recordings." Not my thing at all. I have a handful of HD Tracks downloads and my reaction was, "Ummm . . . why did I pay for these?"
Not sure why Roon didn't see your RPi. It saw my Digione Player immediately, but then that is set up with Roon bridge preinstalled. In any event, Roon was a PITA for me to initially set it up, and I'd put if off for a few years because I had to brace myself for the process. But now that it's up and running, it is super convenient. What I like about Roon is that it pulls all of what is on Tidal together with all of my local files and presents them seamlessly. And it sounds better than Pure Music, at least to me.
Anyway, I'm not pushing Roon as a one size fits all.
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
Edits: 08/19/18
"Ummm...why did I pay for these?"
Same question I asked when I bought a few DVD-As when they were available.
When I couldn't get it to work with Roon I just figured I had something working already that was a lot cheaper and went back to it. The one thing I wanted that Roon had that my setup doesn't is multi-room syncing. Everything else I thought was just fluff and presentation. I used Tidal desktop for about a year and didn't mind it and Audirvana looks the same, plus I just downloaded the Audirvana remote for my iPhone. It all works great. And let me emphasize for those that don't understand my setup, IT DIDN'T TAKE ALL THAT MUCH WORK!!! It just all worked out of the various boxes both hard and soft without much to set up.
Agree. Neil Young's Harvest was the only DVDA that I thought sounded really, really good, but then I didn't have it on LP or CD for comparison. The rest were underwhelming iMHO, but I only bought a few before shrugging it off as a format.
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
If only I'd bought something familiar. The few I bought were audiophilia types. Second tier musicians playing second rate music in exquisitely detailed recordings. They're good as demos but nothing I want in my meager collection.
In retrospect, it was a good thing that I never got around to putting all my records and CDs into a hard drive. Thousands! Not to insult anyone on here, but if a guy has 25 'audiophile records', 25 'audiophile CDs', and 25 'audiophile essay ceedees', if wouldn't be too hard to convert them and put them into a hard drive; then screw around with some software that shows you pictures and art from each of your audiophile tunes on your phone.
On the other hand, I've kept all my CDs and records. The CDs are in another room and the records I still play. I have a high-quality USB to DAC cable running to one of my collection of DACs. Period. I listen to Tidal on their high-rez but not MQA, although I have a couple of DACs that would convert it, but I don't care.
Simplicity is my goal. BTW, I have a refurbed Dyna 70 and ride a bike, a lowly Canondale. So we have more than one thing in common. Thanks for your post, bro.
TJE
I just checked where you got the biking/dyna reference. My profile hasn't been changed in 10 years! But I still use the Dyna and I still ride the Kuota. Everything else has though.
Too much clutter... I can now fit the entire Music Collection in my front shirt pocket and take it traveling for the winter..... Which I do... The nice thing about ripping CDs is that you only have to do it once!
I did mine in batches, whenever I was waiting around.
Cut-Throat
And your point is well taken. Your house is more likely to burn down anyway given how careful you are. But then you can always ride your bike to California with TJE if it does. Enjoy that. ;-)
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
I need a riding partner, but I'd rather go to France and Italy to ride, eat, and drink wine.
Then you go to your backups and they're all gone, too. You know this happens, even with big corporations with hundreds of analysts and they stand there ringing their hands. Like I said, mine are right in the next room. Barring the house burning down, I'm golden.
And if the house burns down and I lose them all, maybe I'll just ride my bike to California.
TJE
Like C-T, I've yet to lose anything over a similar 30 plus year stretch of time.
"Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep."
...thats what we should all go back to? LoL
I don't know about other inmates but I have 3 backups not counting the physical CDs in the basement. If they all get destroyed I figure I have bigger problems to deal with ;-)
I was a software Engineer for over 30 years......I've never lost a byte of data... Mine are in the Bank in a safety Deposit Box as well as other places. I backup every night.....What if you scratch your CD? --- Or your Bits disappear on your plastic CD (Which you seem to think happens on a Hard Drive Medium?)
You don't have any backup at all.... Much more tenuous than having a Hard Drive Copy.
Cut-Throat
Edits: 08/19/18 08/19/18
And mine are all here at home. If disaster strikes home I have bigger things to worry about than my music collection. Besides, if it all goes up in smoke there's always Tidal and several other quality streaming services to choose from ;-)
Mainly because as I've added higher capacity offline USB backup drives to include my video content, I maintain several ones from many years ago. Since each one spins but an hour per month, MTBF is pretty high for them.
Unfortunately, Tidal lacks quite a few albums found in my collection and zero in high resolution.
Yes, my Music Library is almost never used these Days.... Between Tidal and the Great Worldwide Jazz Stations, I hardly ever play my own stuff anymore.
Cut-Throat
Would love to hear what some of your favorite internet jazz stations are whenever you have a minute!
I've started listening to Jazz Groove (URL below). Pretty good quality and selections of easy listening jazz.You can stream MP3 128 (meh), AAC 64, AAC32.
Edits: 09/18/18
Just did a search and didn't see anything specific. I'd love to find what you're referring to.
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"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
There are over 20 Great Russian Jazz Stations.. 24 hour a day music, no commercials (It's Putin's portal into your home however. Search for "1jazz.ru" in Tunein Radio...... There are many more there as well, but this will get you started. I'm sure Diet Pi has a 'Pluggin' for Tunein Radio ... Abe would know...
Cut-Throat
Putins favorite stations WKGB :)
https://101kgb.iheart.com/
Cut-Throat
Maybe you're correct comrade.
Спасибо, друг мой. Я Путина не боюсь. Пусть он к черту пойти.
I have Tunein and found them. Thanks so much. They integrate into Roon with the Tunein urls.
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"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
Tidal and vinyl, but a lot more Tidal these days. But I'll say that every time I put a record on I remember why I stuck with it for so long. It still beats digital but just isn't as convenient nor as plentiful in my house.
You can always keep one in a safe deposit box, and you should!
We do that about once a year, and it's better than nothing. I'm also going to bring an up-to-date copy with us for our FL winter condo.
You know what they say, it's not a back up if it's on site.
Look at me, the luddite, pretending to know something! :-)
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
You make a good point about offsite backups. I figure two in the basement and one in my home office is sufficient. Ignore my crying if something goes terribly wrong!
"In retrospect, it was a good thing that I never got around to putting all my records and CDs into a hard drive. Thousands!"That's fine if you don't want to. I have only about 920 ripped, and it was a fairly long process, but I'm happy I did it. Horses for courses.
"Not to insult anyone on here, but if a guy has 25 'audiophile records', 25 'audiophile CDs', and 25 'audiophile essay ceedees', if wouldn't be too hard to convert them and put them into a hard drive; then screw around with some software that shows you pictures and art from each of your audiophile tunes on your phone."
LOL. Bro! Passive aggressive much? I doubt there is a single regular poster on this forum that meets that description. Not one. See my response to zacster above. One nice thing about Roon is that it will manage any size library of local files beautifully, and also integrate them with Tidal seamlessly. That's kind of the whole point.
""On the other hand, I've kept all my CDs and records. The CDs are in another room and the records I still play."
Yup, me too. Again, as described in my response to zacster. I'd never get rid of my CDs and I have no interest in digitizing my LPs. (But wait, didn't you just get through saying that you didn't bother to rip all your CDs to a hard drive?)
"I have a high-quality USB to DAC cable running to one of my collection of DACs. Period. I listen to Tidal on their high-rez but not MQA, although I have a couple of DACs that would convert it, but I don't care."
That's not Roon related, because you can still use USB to whatever DAC you want, but OK. My new Moon DAC is MQA ready but I couldn't care less about MQA either. I did want my system networked, but that's just an option.
"Simplicity is my goal."
Yup, mine too. And Roon makes computer audio really simple once it's up and running. No more hassles with iTunes or Pure Music. And multi room endpoints with no hassle.
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
Edits: 08/19/18
How can you be a lawyer and say that nobody on this entire Computer Audio Asylum has just put 75 songs in their hard drive? Do you know every single person in this place? You don't know me. And probably, if you'd asked the 'audiophile' how many musical pieces he's put in his hard drive, he'd lie to you and say hundreds, because he knows it's just schmucky to do 75. I was going to go point by point on your other assumptions, but I figured I'd pick the most glaring.
TJE
I wrote "regular poster", meaning the people I know who post here regularly going back since the forum was relatively new. And, yes, they could be lying, but I'm assuming they're not. Your comment was a non sequitur.
Any other assumptions you want to claim I made in my post?
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
I'd like to address your comments about the MQA people having a hand in JFK's assasination...
Nice systems! Glad you're enjoying Roon. I subscribed to Roon for two years before purchasing the lifetime license earlier this month.
I noticed you have the CJ MF2250. We may have talked about that a while back, I'm not sure. I owned the MF2250 many years ago and enjoyed its smooth
warm tone with solid-state 'punch'. I think I see a Rotel amp in your setup as well. I've never owned one.
How does the CJ sound compared to the Rotel?
If you subscribe to the Tidal HiFi streaming service, it integrates very nicely into Roon. Their higher cost "HiFi" service streams at CD quality rather than highly
compressed like most consumer streaming services. You can choose artists from Tidal and their albums seamlessly appear as part of your Roon library.
In Roon: Settings > Services:
You can get a free Drobox subscription with sufficient space to backup your Roon database to the Dropbox 'cloud'. This does not backup your music library,
just the database along with playlists, configuration details, preferences, etc. that Roon creates for your library. You can also backup to your local disk drive
or external disk drive. You schedule your backups in Roon: Settings > Backups.
The albums from Tidal are neatly displayed with the albums from your local library. Note the Tidal logo on those albums.
Fun stuff, that sounds great! Enjoy.
I signed up for Tidal when I tried Roon's free trial and was immediately hooked. For now, I am doing the one year subscription and will probably sign up for the lifetime subscription next year. Like you, I figured I'd at least go a year just in case I change my mind. But it's amazing how Roon works with Tidal and my local library. I've added quite a lot of albums to my Library from Tidal/Roon, which is a great feature. I like the Versions function too, because some of what is on Tidal is better than the CD version I have.
It was a bit of a learning curve for me, and switching my Core from the mini to the Nucleus presented some hurdles for me, but with help from the Roon Community I figured it out and all seems pretty straightforward now. The database restore was seamless and fast. And boy does it sound good, both through the new Moon 280D and the Digione into to Bel Canto DAC in the bedroom.
Yes, we've discussed the MF2250 before. It's just wonderful hooked up to the Rogue PR-5, which is a very punchy tube preamp. I had a CJ Premier 17LS years ago when I got the MF2250, and that was a lovely combo, but the Rogue is a bit more dynamic and also much more stable in a combination 2 channel / HT system. It has a great HT bypass. Oh, and a super built-in phono stage.
The Rotel is great for HT, and I liked it a lot back when it was all I had, but the CJ is smoother while also having more detail and stronger bass. One of the nice things about this hobby is when you're perfectly happy with one component, and then get an upgrade that truly makes a difference. So, the Rotel has been driving the center and rear speakers on multichannel, but has been out of the system for 2 channel for years now.
I've had the Rotel since 1999 with nothing but a change of fuses once, and the CJ since 2001 with a full refurbishing a couple of years ago. I like to think that what I'm splurging on the recent Roon/Tidal/Nucleus/Digione/Moon DAC I'm saving on the amps and my trusty VPI Scout with Dynavector 202XL cartridge, which I have no plans to upgrade.
(Oh, and also like you, I have the Rogue Cronus Magnum II in our Florida system and it just blows my mind for the price.)
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
I've noticed the Tidal logo, but didn't know what it was.
I'm listening a lot more, but playing discs a lot less.
db
The Roon/Tidal/local files integration is amazing. I ripped my CDs to ALAC years ago, and have kept doing that as I buy more. Now that I'm not using iTunes and Pure Music, I might start ripping to FLAC.
___
"If you are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future."
Looks good!
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