Roon on Naim media players

Naim have said that they intend to support Roon on their new streaming products, i.e. the new Uniti players that are about to be released, but we don't yet know if it will be 'backwards compatible' with existing streamers.

This is exactly what Phil said about it. I would read this that the functionality is already in the new range and just needs to be "switched on". 

I would doubt very much if my UniQute or SuperUniti get an upgrade for this though. One of the (many) great things about Roon however the ability to run on Windows, Mac and Linux, hence a Raspberry Pi is what feeds my 2 Naim streamers. I was initially daunted by Raspberry Pi but it is really so simple with no more difficulty than copying a file to a SD card and inserting it it the Pi slot and hey presto, Roon sees it. 

Reagrds from sunny autumnal Ireland. 

SJB. 

so only for streamer or for server line as well?

T38.45 posted:

so only for streamer or for server line as well?

Good question and I don't think it's been addressed.

My instinct is that the streamer will be made Roon Ready as the terminology goes. I'd be surprised if the Naim core ran the Roon server program as it could have the propensity to turn into a support nightmare.

SJB

good point SJB...but there are already some vendor's out ther doing that...Rockna for example, guess totaldac server as well... guess we have to wait and see...

Presumably the intention will be to enable Roon/Roonserver to use the devices as a network audio end-point. That would certainly open up some options for me.

@SJB
How are you connecting the audio from your Pi to your streamer? I'm currently using a Win10/Meridian Explorer2 setup and interested in what others are doing? Also do you have a Pi for each streamer?

Thx
Tony

In the thread [@mention:1566878603876139] refers to, I pressed Phill Harris, but he wasn't in a position to confirm if Naim were supporting Roon Ready and Roon Core.

Putting aside operational and marketing reasons, you could make a good guess on whether or not Naim Uniti Core is capable of running Roon Core, by examining the Unit Core's specs.

Roon Core needs a reasonable amount of power so when they announced Roon Core on a NAS, it made the following reccomendation.

“Any NAS with a 64-bit Intel CPU is compatible, but to get the best experience, we strongly recommend a top-of-the-line (Core i3 or i5) NAS with expanded RAM (4GB or more).”

Mark Jenkins from Antipodes Audio indicated something similar when building their Roon Core product.

“I can tell you that the Roon guys look to us to write very efficient code, and that will help. But they do tend to assume a lot of processing resource is available and that Roon Server and Roon Ready will be on different devices. I suspect the good clean code plus RAAT is a lot of the reason for good sound.”

My best guess is that unless the Naim Uniti Core has a sufficiently powerful CPU and RAM it probably won't be able to run Roon Core anyway. Has anyone confirmed the kind of processor and RAM in the Uniti Core?

Assuming Naim's Uniti Core doesn't support Roon Core, you can still use a computer, NAS and soon a Linux based image with Roon Core which you can download directly from Roon, and install on a NUC for a dedicated turnkey Roon Core.

TonyR posted:

@SJB
How are you connecting the audio from your Pi to your streamer? I'm currently using a Win10/Meridian Explorer2 setup and interested in what others are doing? Also do you have a Pi for each streamer?

Thx
Tony

 

 

I use a Raspberry Pi with the Hifiberry digi+ add on.  (HAT I believe is the terminology). 

This gives me an SPDIF output, both coaxial and optical. I use the optical as 

1. I use Ethernet over  power  so optical gets rid of any electrical interference. 
2. I have few 192 kHz albums ( optical rarely goes higher than 24/96) and honestly cannot tell much difference in Roon downsampling them to 96 over UPnP at 192. If high res was an important factor I'd recommend coaxial but to go for the Hifiberry digi+ transformer Ger's which has a better coaxial out. 

I do have a Pi for each Naim streamer, but for £60- £80 they are unbelievable devices. 

Hope  this helps. 

SJB

There is a company Sonore ( they make the microRendu so have a few fans here) who have released an update to enable users to send Roon to UPnP devices. Of interest to naim users would be the Sonicorbiter, essentially their Mac mini or NUC device. As I understand it the Roon stream will converted to stream that can be "read" by UPnP devices over a network  

They have recently added Naim to their list of devices that work with it. It seems to me they are basing this on user feedback but I see some feedback is by one  [@mention:31133010790685645] who may be able to enlighten us further. 

SJB. 

The Sonore products are great. A nice low cost solution if you need to be a price point below Naim. I can imagine that a MicroRendu feeding a Rega DAC would be killer for less than $2k. 

Brubacca posted:

The Sonore products are great. A nice low cost solution if you need to be a price point below Naim. I can imagine that a MicroRendu feeding a Rega DAC would be killer for less than $2k. 

Brubacca,

it is a killer...the sonore is an incredible device, it's better than my Aurender or macmini. Just read a test about the  sotm sms-200- this should even be better than sonore... 

Sloop John B posted:

There is a company Sonore ( they make the microRendu so have a few fans here) who have released an update to enable users to send Roon to UPnP devices. Of interest to naim users would be the Sonicorbiter, essentially their Mac mini or NUC device. As I understand it the Roon stream will converted to stream that can be "read" by UPnP devices over a network  

They have recently added Naim to their list of devices that work with it. It seems to me they are basing this on user feedback but I see some feedback is by one  [@mention:31133010790685645] who may be able to enlighten us further. 

 

 

SJB. 

I can confirm that I have successfully streamed Roon to my UQ2 and Muso using the Sonore UPNP Bridge installed on my sonicTransporter i5 NUC. It streams WAV (but not LPCM) with a max sample rate of 96khz (my devices are connected to my network via wireless, rather than ethernet).

I was also able to control the volume from within Roon.

Happy days!

Excellent news. 

When you say it will only play wav, are your files in wav format or are they being transcoded?

do you think the 24/96 limitation is due to wireless or the software?

what does the UniQute show up as in the Roon app?

a screenshot would be great!

I see from your profile you have an NDX, does that work also?

SJB

Sloop John B posted:

Excellent news. 

1.When you say it will only play wav, are your files in wav format or are they being transcoded?

2. do you think the 24/96 limitation is due to wireless or the software?

3. what does the UniQute show up as in the Roon app?

a screenshot would be great!

4. I see from your profile you have an NDX, does that work also?

 

SJB

1. Files are mainly FLAC, so assume they are transcoded (they show as WAV on the UQ2 display whilst playing)

2. Yes

3. All you see in Roon is a new squeezebox zone, that looks the same regardless of which renderer is selected in the Bridge settings. You can name the zone whatever you want - in my case 'Roon Office'

4. Sorry, I no longer have the NDX, so need to update my profile!

Hi all

slightly lost as to what Roon brings to streaming/music playback...?

The only aspect I can see as an improvement is that you can see album liner notes etc. 

what else does Roon do that Naim doesn't?

That's a bit like saying apart from going a bit faster what's the difference between a Ferrari and a Fiesta.

Your best bet is to download the free trial and have a look yourself. I had a visit a few weeks back from a friend with a Naim system to show him Roon and he  immediately could see all the differences. 

It brings a large collection to life in  fascinating ways.

SJB

Roon does a lot. In no particular order here is what I like and use:

- Combining my personal and streaming/Tidal libraries in one place
- Cross platform multi room with any devices that supports either Roon and or AirPlay
- Roon currently offers the best Tidal interface imo.
- Deep metadata management which is especially useful for classical music
- Liner notes, reviews, biographies, lyrics
- Better handling of large libraries
- Roon makes some of the best control apps for smartphone/tablet and desktop

I have two criticisms:

- Roon is not portable so I am still tied to keeping an iTunes instance to sync music to my iPhone
- Today only Tidal is supported. I find Deezer Elite to be the superior service. I find myself listening via my Sonos Connect when Tidal doesn't have the recording I want but Deezer does. Compared to my microRendu the sound quality and user experience is rather poor.

I am very pleased Naim has recognised the value of Roon. 

Sloop John B posted:

It brings a large collection to life in  fascinating ways.

I think this is one of the most valuable things about Roon, but you have to try it for yourself, because I don't think it can be adequately described or captured in a feature list. 

Sloop John B posted:

That's a bit like saying apart from going a bit faster what's the difference between a Ferrari and a Fiesta.

Your best bet is to download the free trial and have a look yourself. I had a visit a few weeks back from a friend with a Naim system to show him Roon and he  immediately could see all the differences. 

It brings a large collection to life in  fascinating ways.

 

SJB

I guess I have to confess to being that soldier! Roon is so much better than anything else I have used that immediately SJB showed it to me, I bought a minicomputer with 8GB Ram and 128GB SSD to use as a 'Roon Core'. It is fanless, silent and consumes 0.5w. It is blindingly fast to boot up and I have it connected via USB to DacV1 into 552, for non critical listening. It provides a very fast and powerful interface to your library, allowing you to wander crablike through your collection. A particular advantage is instant access to any of my 37,000 tracks, a particular Achilles heel with many other approaches, where indexing is just too slow.

Would be great if it could integrate with NDS.

David O'Higgins posted:

Sloop John B posted:

That's a bit like saying apart from going a bit faster what's the difference between a Ferrari and a Fiesta.

Your best bet is to download the free trial and have a look yourself. I had a visit a few weeks back from a friend with a Naim system to show him Roon and he  immediately could see all the differences. 

It brings a large collection to life in  fascinating ways.

 

SJB

I guess I have to confess to being that soldier! Roon is so much better than anything else I have used that immediately SJB showed it to me, I bought a minicomputer with 8GB Ram and 128GB SSD to use as a 'Roon Core'. It is fanless, silent and consumes 0.5w. It is blindingly fast to boot up and I have it connected via USB to DacV1 into 552, for non critical listening. It provides a very fast and powerful interface to your library, allowing you to wander crablike through your collection. A particular advantage is instant access to any of my 37,000 tracks, a particular Achilles heel with many other approaches, where indexing is just too slow.

Would be great if it could integrate with NDS.

This may be much more easily achieved than previously.

It seems that if one purchases a product that runs the Sonore UPnP bridge that all one has to do is connect this to your router, select NDS under "available renderers".

Next go to Roon and choose enable squeezebox and hey presto the NDS is a Roon endpoint. (as Stampie shows above).

There are 3 products that run the Sonore software, SonicOrbiter SE, microRendu, SonicTransporter. The SOSE at $300 seems well worth a try to have an NDS receiving wav via ethernet but controlled by the  Roon app.

SJB

That's plus taxes SJB!

I need to leap to the defence of the Ford Fiesta here ...

It is cheaper than the Ferrari. Uses less fuel and emits less CO2. It has longer intervals between services, and costs less to insure. You can fit more people in it, and have a labrador in the boot. The Fiesta does not use unreliable Fiat switchgear.

So I submit that "going a bit faster" is the one of the few benefits of the Ferrari.

Hi, is Naim planning on making the 272 an endpoint for Roon? 

[@mention:63373521691519913] My assumption is that Roon Endpoint support is a feature of the new streaming platform, so I think it's unlikely. That said I don't know if the question has been asked explicitly. 

To date, I've not been very interested in Naim's streamers, If Naim brings Roon support to the Classic range streamers that will change. That leaves the questions. Will be it be a software upgrade to existing streamers or will the Classic range streamers transition to the new platform and exterior styling.