How to Add Roon to my Naim Uniti Core system and expand streaming to my 2nd and 3rd stereo systems

Naim streamers (the new range) are Roon endpoints. You also need to run a Roon ‘Core’ (not to be confused with a Uniti Core) on a computer, NAS or other device on your network. This will find music stored on your Core or elsewhere, and play them instead of using the Core’s UPnP server. 

You will need to have another computer running the Roon core, this is the hub of Roon that manages the library and DSP you might use. It is recommended to use as a minimum an i3 gen 7 processor but you can use the older ones if not using DSP and don't have a huge amounts of endpoints. The core can run on Mac, windows or Linux. The favourite by many Roon users is to use a Nuc based core and install Roons own operating system called Rock. This basically turns the computer into a simple device that needs no maintenance and is managed via a webrowser. All info can be found on Roons site.  You can use a non nuc based pc as I do currently and have installed Rock but it's unsupported.

Alternatively you can buy Roons own Nucleus device to be core as an off the shelf device, but its expensive but would sit nicely next to your core.

If you go with Nucleus or an Intel NUC with Rock you could also use those as Roon endpoints but this is generally not what they recommend. There are a wealth of enpoints you can choose, from Naim all the Unity range, Sonore, SMS , Bluesound. Allo the list is massive and growing all the time it depends on what you want and can afford. Again there is DIY options for this at much lower costs and they can give the higher priced ones a run for the money.

I currently have a Unity Atom, 3 X raspberry pi based ones, Allo USBridge and an old Squeezebox radio. All connected to my Roon core. It the flexibility of Roon to be able to use other manufacturers devices that I love, makes it far more open and other can choose something that suits your needs more.

I would go through all the help on the site as its pretty thorough and use the Forum. All ready seen you post on there.

For future reference, some people (particularly some dyslexics) will find it extremely difficult to read your posts if you write then in all bold type.

Huge posted:

For future reference, some people (particularly some dyslexics) will find it extremely difficult to read your posts if you write then in all bold type.

Not really helpful reply is it Huge. This  is easily done when using this forum on a phone and you delete a word and it turns all text bold on its own with no easy way to change it back. Happens all the time when using Chrome on Android. 

Looking at your existing systems, as one of them is computer based, you could almost certainly run the Roon Core on that. Your TV system has a Roon endpoint, so that is OK, but it’s your main system that doesn’t have the ability to run Roon as far as I can see. I believe some Audio Alchemy products can do it, so it might be worth talking to them about it. You would then need to use your Uniti Core via its network connection rather than over SPDIF, which is what I assume you are doing now. 

SimonPeterArnold posted:

There are a wealth of enpoints you can choose, from Naim all the Unity range 

Not all the Uniti range, I am afraid. Not only Roon will fail to "see" Uniti Core on the network, it will also definitely ignore it as one of its endpoints. It is possible to manually add the Core to Roon, but in no way at the moment Roon will do the same trick with the Core, as the native Naim app is able to (to use the Core as a streamer/player basically, and stream the content directly through the Core's quality S/PDIF output to DAC, rather than over the network - where "over the network" is a disadvantage compared to S/PDIF option). Also Roon will require, as it had already been mentioned, its own server, which, in many cases, will be run 24/7. Well, the native Naim app does not require a physical home 24/7 server, and, although it is not as spectacularly good as Roon, it will also provide, to some extent, album information, artists' bios, artwork, playlists etc - but at the price Roon will never match! Personally I think I will wait for Roon's servers to go cloud and for it to finally acknowledge Uniti Core as a streamer, which the Core technically is, thanks to its S/PDIF output.

I missed out new as I already said it won't work with the core on my first post. Thought I had edited back in, obviously not. This forum is awful to use on a phone.

Thank you all for the helpful comments.  I have also been getting helpful  advice on the Roon forum.

I am beginning to see a reasonable path to follow:

1). Insert a Roon endpoint, such as microRendu, into the living room audio system.  

2). Turn Oppo 205 in TV room system to Roon endpoint by updating with firmware.

2).  Install Roon Core to my Windows 7 Core i5 Desktop Computer.

3). Use the Naim app to control ripping and assigning metadata.

4). Use the Roon app for streaming.

Dazan posted:

SimonPeterArnold posted:

There are a wealth of enpoints you can choose, from Naim all the Unity range 

Not all the Uniti range, I am afraid. Not only Roon will fail to "see" Uniti Core on the network, it will also definitely ignore it as one of its endpoints. It is possible to manually add the Core to Roon, but in no way at the moment Roon will do the same trick with the Core, as the native Naim app is able to (to use the Core as a streamer/player basically, and stream the content directly through the Core's quality S/PDIF output to DAC, rather than over the network - where "over the network" is a disadvantage compared to S/PDIF option). Also Roon will require, as it had already been mentioned, its own server, which, in many cases, will be run 24/7. Well, the native Naim app does not require a physical home 24/7 server, and, although it is not as spectacularly good as Roon, it will also provide, to some extent, album information, artists' bios, artwork, playlists etc - but at the price Roon will never match! Personally I think I will wait for Roon's servers to go cloud and for it to finally acknowledge Uniti Core as a streamer, which the Core technically is, thanks to its S/PDIF output.

I'm not sure I understand your point here. Roon searches your entire network for music stores, and you can configure it to access any that you want it to. Are you saying that it has been unable to access your Core, because that sounds unlikely to me.

It is possible that Naim could, in future, put Roon on the Core, as Innuos have done with their servers. Time will tell.

ChrisSU posted:

I'm not sure I understand your point here. Roon searches your entire network for music stores, and you can configure it to access any that you want it to. Are you saying that it has been unable to access your Core, because that sounds unlikely to me.

Roon searched my entire network and failed to spot Uniti Core, although it was there and ready. So I added the Core manually to Roon (although do I really need to pay for Roon that much, only to do things manually later?), by indicating the path in Roon's settings, which was a little bit of a fuss, although, of course, totally doable. So Roon now sees the content of the Core, but if I want to send some music from the Core to my amplifier, I will need to use the native Naim app, because Roon is unable to use Core's S/PDIF output.

As soon as Roon is able to see Uniti Core as one of its endpoints and able to perform tasks, which simple Naim app is able to perform, I would be more than happy to pay for Roon.

Sounds like you have a plan! I think the first thing I would do is put Roon on your computer and do the free trial. I think it generally does what it is supposed to do very well. Whether or not you actually need any of it is a personal choice. In your case, if you want multiroom, it makes sense in that it can provide it with different systems, whereas most multiroom systems are proprietary, so require all your systems to have sources from the same manufacturer.

The microRendu of similar makes sense to add Roon to your main system. There is a small chance that Naim might put Roon in the Core, in which case you may no longer need to run a microRendu. Similarly, Audio Alchemy have at least one other product that is Roon ready, so it might be worth talking to them about possible solutions. Or swap it for a Naim streamer   

ChrisSU posted:

Sounds like you have a plan! I think the first thing I would do is put Roon on your computer and do the free trial. I think it generally does what it is supposed to do very well. Whether or not you actually need any of it is a personal choice. In your case, if you want multiroom, it makes sense in that it can provide it with different systems, whereas most multiroom systems are proprietary, so require all your systems to have sources from the same manufacturer.

The microRendu of similar makes sense to add Roon to your main system. There is a small chance that Naim might put Roon in the Core, in which case you may no longer need to run a microRendu. Similarly, Audio Alchemy have at least one other product that is Roon ready, so it might be worth talking to them about possible solutions. Or swap it for a Naim streamer   

It took me quite a while to realize how proprietary most streaming systems are.  Like the Apple ecosystem, it’s hard to escape to something “foreign”.  I think that’s a big plus for Roon and for my situation.

Audio Alchemy sells a network streamer, the DMP-1, that is a Roon endpoint.  It would fit in very naturally to my living room system because it could share the PS-5 power supply.  It’s a lot pricier than the microRendu, though the price gap narrows if I have to buy a separate power supply for the mR.  But maybe the DMP-1 is the better choice.  Wish I could listen to both!  Finding ways to compare audio quality between choices is another challenging part of the process that is hard to do! 

Dazan posted:

ChrisSU posted:

I'm not sure I understand your point here. Roon searches your entire network for music stores, and you can configure it to access any that you want it to. Are you saying that it has been unable to access your Core, because that sounds unlikely to me.

Roon searched my entire network and failed to spot Uniti Core, although it was there and ready. So I added the Core manually to Roon (although do I really need to pay for Roon that much, only to do things manually later?), by indicating the path in Roon's settings, which was a little bit of a fuss, although, of course, totally doable. So Roon now sees the content of the Core, but if I want to send some music from the Core to my amplifier, I will need to use the native Naim app, because Roon is unable to use Core's S/PDIF output.

As soon as Roon is able to see Uniti Core as one of its endpoints and able to perform tasks, which simple Naim app is able to perform, I would be more than happy to pay for Roon.

The I think you'll find it's in Naims court to add Roon support to the core. Roon will only see compatible devices so I can't understand your beef here it's not advertised to support it Also network discovery is not always simple in any eco system as many new unity users have found out when the Naim app cant see their device. This is generally down to users network configuration. Also you cant blame Room for Windows turning of smb1 support.