Understanding Roon - where does the audio stream

The music indeed is routed through the core. Roon can implement volume levelling, digital tone controls, DSP convolution and upsampling so the music files do have to traverse it. 

I think a Roon trial would still be warranted as:

1. RAAT (rather than UPnP) may be less susceptible to cable quality 
2. the thinking is that having the machine as far away from the system isolates it from the “stuff” your cabling is trying to eliminate. 

Try it, you may be surprised.

.sjb

EDIT. I see you have a qnap, Roon can run on this which should keep your existing cabling in the loop. 

Roon does a lot more than handle metadata and control your library. It replaces the UPnP server/streamer setup you are probably used to. It can apply all sorts of things like parametric eq. to the signal too. Do you need it? Only you can decide, of course. What it does, it does very well. I’m not convinced that sending the signal through your LAN via s different route is such a big deal. Do the free trial when you get your NDX2. 

Ah thank you Chrissu; that confirms my assumption. Any experience with a NUC or do you run Roon Core on an existing computer?

Iver van de Zand posted:

Ah thank you Chrissu; that confirms my assumption. Any experience with a NUC or do you run Roon Core on an existing computer?

I put it on a Macbook Pro, just because that’s what I’ve got, and it runs fine. If I was committed to using it all the time, I guess I would use a dedicated device rather than having to open a laptop all the time. How powerful that needs to be depends on how many of its many features you end up using.  

crystal clear Chrissu; this is what I also considered ... try it on my MacBook and go to a dedicated NUC with Roon when I really like Roon

If you like Roon and I am a big fan the NUC is a very worthwhile investment and I suspect you will be surprised how small it is . I am currently moving house but in my new set up the NUC will be in a cupboard and connected to my new NDX2 through a 2960 Switch and Melco Ethernet Cable . 

The other (more costly) option is to go with a Nucleus and given its fanless , put it on your equipment rack as you would a Uniti Core

Just a note to Sloop John B, you can’t do Digital Tone Controls  or most digital processing functions or any digital filtering without ‘DSP’ convolution. Convolution is simply  the  mathematical process of multiplying two digital  streams together, ie a digital sample stream multiplied by a filter kernel, to form a resultant digital stream. In other words any sort of digital filter or digital reconstruction filter requires convolution to work.... it’s the basic technique that supports just about all sample processing, but it obviously if not part of the DAC reconstruction itself removes bit perfectness and in the limit introduces digital errors

Sloop John B posted:

The music indeed is routed through the core. Roon can implement volume levelling, digital tone controls, DSP convolution and upsampling so the music files do have to traverse it. 

I think a Roon trial would still be warranted as:

1. RAAT (rather than UPnP) may be less susceptible to cable quality 
2. the thinking is that having the machine as far away from the system isolates it from the “stuff” your cabling is trying to eliminate. 

 

Try it, you may be surprised.

.sjb

 

EDIT. I see you have a qnap, Roon can run on this which should keep your existing cabling in the loop. 

HI Sloop John,

Thanks for your feedback. I invested quite a lot i UTP cables so would prefer the Roon Core close to my system. That's why I am so interested in a NUC. I understand these can be set up dedicated to run Roon Core only. They could have an SSD and are "housed" as really small computers. If you look for Intel NUC you'll find them. What would be the issue of having such a device next to my system? I'd consider to wired-connect the NUC to my Switch where all other devices (QNAP NAS, NDX, Internet) are connected too.

I saw your remark on my QNAP. I studied the option to have Roon running on my QNAP but it would mean I have to buy a new one. There is quite a required system-spec to QNAP's able to run Roon.

Iver

Iver 

The standard NUC does have a fan and makes a bit of noise so not ideal on a rack hence me putting it a cupboard. I believe you can get fanless cases but have no experience of that myself 

I’m not convinced that the location of the computer on your LAN is that critical. It will, in any case, be processing data from wherever your music library is stored, and probably from online sources too. As long as it has a robust wired connection, it should be fine. Putting some physical distance between any computers and your system, and keeping their often noisy PSUs well away, and preferably on different mains circuits, is good practice. 

I have the Roon Core on a NUC, a NUC5i3 running ROCK, which is with the NAS units, storing the files away from the frontend components.

I am then Bridging the stream from the Roon Core to my NDS straight into the UPnP input, using all existing cabling & switch.

I have a Sonore UltraRendu running the UPnP Bridge on, which sits alongside my RPi based Asset server. So no devices with spinning disks, CPU fans on that switch or general purpose computing units connected on that switch, which is a sub-network only for streamed music (i.e. no general purpose internet traffic).

simes_pep posted:

I have the Roon Core on a NUC, a NUC5i3 running ROCK, which is with the NAS units, storing the files away from the frontend components.

I am then Bridging the stream from the Roon Core to my NDS straight into the UPnP input, using all existing cabling & switch.

I have a Sonore UltraRendu running the UPnP Bridge on, which sits alongside my RPi based Asset server. So no devices with spinning disks, CPU fans on that switch or general purpose computing units connected on that switch, which is a sub-network only for streamed music (i.e. no general purpose internet traffic).

Hi Simes_Pep,

thanks for your explanation. I haven an NDX2 on order (Roon Ready) so assuming Incan skip the « bridge « section of your setup, correct?

If the Streamer can behave as a Roon Endpoint, then yes, no Bridge required.

But anyone heard the new streamers playing Roon derived streamed content or where all the Roadshow demos using a UnitiCore and UPnP content?

I like that I can control what is presented to the UPnP input, in that for PCM formats, the Bridge is outputting WAV, and for dsf files it is native DSD64.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Just a note to Sloop John B, you can’t do Digital Tone Controls  or most digital processing functions or any digital filtering without ‘DSP’ convolution. Convolution is simply  the  mathematical process of multiplying two digital  streams together, ie a digital sample stream multiplied by a filter kernel, to form a resultant digital stream. In other words any sort of digital filter or digital reconstruction filter requires convolution to work.... it’s the basic technique that supports just about all sample processing, but it obviously if not part of the DAC reconstruction itself removes bit perfectness and in the limit introduces digital errors

 

I’m just using layman’s language, I’m unqualified to know whether you are correct about Roon’s implementation or not but I bow to your superior knowledge of the whole digital domain.

I don’t think the introduced errors can be that significant though as Audeze provides Roon with a set of convolution filters for their headphones, they’d hardly do this if it was detrimental to the sound.  

Certainly where I use “digital tone control” - very bright early 80’s digital- the positive effect far outweighs any digital errors that may be introduced to my ears. 

.sjb

simes_pep posted:

If the Streamer can behave as a Roon Endpoint, then yes, no Bridge required.

But anyone heard the new streamers playing Roon derived streamed content or where all the Roadshow demos using a UnitiCore and UPnP content?

I like that I can control what is presented to the UPnP input, in that for PCM formats, the Bridge is outputting WAV, and for dsf files it is native DSD64.

Yes- I run a zen mini as the Roon Core and nova as the endpoint and it sounds fab and no different to rips on the zens hdd 

How well  does that mini work as a Roon core as it always seems a little underpowered. Are you using just one endpoint doing any DSP?

It works very well. I don’t use dsp but I’ve played with it and the processor power figures shown on the Roon path hover around 4-5 so quite acceptable.  I only have the nova as the endpoint 

Sloop John B posted:

I’m just using layman’s language, I’m unqualified to know whether you are correct about Roon’s implementation or not but I bow to your superior knowledge of the whole digital domain.

I don’t think the introduced errors can be that significant though as Audeze provides Roon with a set of convolution filters for their headphones, they’d hardly do this if it was detrimental to the sound.  

Certainly where I use “digital tone control” - very bright early 80’s digital- the positive effect far outweighs any digital errors that may be introduced to my ears. 

No worries - sometimes these marketing brochures make things sound more fanciful than they really are. Convolution is the equivalent for discrete number series of multiplying two numbers together to get a third number. Its the fundamental basis of how much DSP works on sample streams, just like multiplication is a fundamental arithmetic function for numbers.

The errors will be determined by the arithmetic precision and the filter kernel size (ie the filter response expressed as a discrete series of number values - what some call taps) that is multiplied with the sample stream. The larger the kernel size the greater the processing power - the greater the processing power - the more propensity for side effects that detract the the quality - so for any implementation on a given software and hardware the there will be a sweet spot.

Typically these errors are small, but much in our audio replay world is small and subtle  - and these errors  can rob a sense of realism and 'presence' from the reconstructed digital audio. Equivalent in some ways potentially in listening to a lesser DAC.