New Roon User Here - My Initial Impressions (not a rabbit hole)

Great summary. Will certainly be testing Roon when my NDX2 arrives. Like you, I need to work out a long term home as use a Synology 416 and this does not have enough RAM to support the software. Have read good reviews of the Nucleus but feels a little expensive at the moment.

Bart posted:

 

6.  When my play cue emptied, it started on its own just playing something else . . . wtf?? As it turns out this is the "Roon Radio" feature which is on by default.  I turned it off.

I find this feature one of the best things in Roon. The radio usually gives great picks from your library based on what you've just played. Quite often I play through an album and just let Roon decide what to play after that. 

Roon radio has introduced me to loads more music as you can go to the particular artist or album if you like a particular track..

Crispy posted:

Great summary. Will certainly be testing Roon when my NDX2 arrives. Like you, I need to work out a long term home as use a Synology 416 and this does not have enough RAM to support the software. Have read good reviews of the Nucleus but feels a little expensive at the moment.

How much RAM etc. you need will be dependent on how heavily you use some of Roon's functions. If you are using it primarily because you like the UI and metadata handling, and the way it presents your library, you may find that a more basic computer or NAS is fine. It's when you get into the DSP stuff and so on that you will need something more powerful.

Welcome to the world of Roon.  Glad your enjoying it, It gets better the more you use it. 

Patu posted:

Bart posted:

 

6.  When my play cue emptied, it started on its own just playing something else . . . wtf?? As it turns out this is the "Roon Radio" feature which is on by default.  I turned it off.

I find this feature one of the best things in Roon. The radio usually gives great picks from your library based on what you've just played. Quite often I play through an album and just let Roon decide what to play after that. 

Horses for courses -- if I want to keep hearing music...it's great.  But if I purposefully want to hear something...when it's over...I don't want to hear something else!  I'm sure I'll use it sometimes, and sometimes not.

Hi Bart, glad you like it! :-)  Please, do you hear a difference btw native UPNP streaming and roon ?

T38.45 posted:

Hi Bart, glad you like it! :-)  Please, do you hear a difference btw native UPNP streaming and roon ?

 

I don't hear a difference!  I could play with it a bit....but informally, it sounds the same.  

Now I'm thinking about a solution to run the core so that I dont have to be sure my Macbook is on at the time.  I know I could use a Mac Mini, and frankly it's not really more expensive than the Intel NUC boxes that people seem to prefer.

Bart posted:

T38.45 posted:

Hi Bart, glad you like it! :-)  Please, do you hear a difference btw native UPNP streaming and roon ?

 

I don't hear a difference!  I could play with it a bit....but informally, it sounds the same.  

Now I'm thinking about a solution to run the core so that I dont have to be sure my Macbook is on at the time.  I know I could use a Mac Mini, and frankly it's not really more expensive than the Intel NUC boxes that people seem to prefer.

You can run Roon core on some NAS storages also. There’s an article on Roon support page called ”Roon Server orn NAS” For some reason I can’t paste the link here. Google finds it quickly though.

Many thanks! I have a sonictransporter i5 and before that a macmini. The i5 is great, has no fans, a build for purpose device. Running roon on NAS needs some horse power in terms of CPU and memory...my NAS didn’t match the specs... superior is the roon Nucleus- but its too expensive imho. 

I have used Roon on many systems, and some non naim ones. But have always run it on a QNAP NAS.

I had set it up on a TS469 model of which I was advised it couldn't run, but with the 4GB RAM it ran fine despite it being an older NAS, I now use a newer model recommended by Roon with 8GB RAM. as mentioned as long as you have a SSD to install the Roon boot system onto it will be fine. I use a 128GB SSD plugged into the external USB port.

I Love it, it sorts all the metadata automatically. so just load albums and let it go.

Patu posted:

Bart posted:

T38.45 posted:

Hi Bart, glad you like it! :-)  Please, do you hear a difference btw native UPNP streaming and roon ?

 

I don't hear a difference!  I could play with it a bit....but informally, it sounds the same.  

Now I'm thinking about a solution to run the core so that I dont have to be sure my Macbook is on at the time.  I know I could use a Mac Mini, and frankly it's not really more expensive than the Intel NUC boxes that people seem to prefer.

You can run Roon core on some NAS storages also. There’s an article on Roon support page called ”Roon Server orn NAS” For some reason I can’t paste the link here. Google finds it quickly though.

I already own two 2016-era nas boxes, neither of which will run Core.  A nas that'll run Core is not cheap; all of these solutions seem to converge around the same price.  So I could replace a nas, or add a box to run Core and keep my storage (and backup) on the existing nas boxes.  I suspect in the end either is about as good as the other.  Im way more comfortable with OSX, comfortable with Windows, and zero experience with flavors of Linux.

OTOH, the Sonictransporter solution looks really nice.  Fanless

That's what I did- I keep my NAS (think about data migration from old to new one) and put Core on top of it.

If you use a NUC and ROCK Roons own Operating system there is no Linux to learn as It turns it into a device much like a uniti core. With a simple web interface and it auto updates itself. I use ROCK but not on a NUC commonly known as MOCK works great.

longmanjon posted:

as mentioned as long as you have a SSD to install the Roon boot system onto it will be fine. I use a 128GB SSD plugged into the external USB port.

FWIW, before I bought the NUC that now runs Roon in my system – which i did while reviewing the Roon Nucleus to see how easy/viable a 'DIY' solution would be at a fraction of the cost – I ran Roon on my QNAP NAS with no problems, and no SSD.

How? Using a 16GB USB 'thumb-drive' on which I installed Roon, plugged into one of the QNAP's USB ports. It worked flawlessly.

Patu posted:

Bart posted:

 

6.  When my play cue emptied, it started on its own just playing something else . . . wtf?? As it turns out this is the "Roon Radio" feature which is on by default.  I turned it off.

I find this feature one of the best things in Roon. The radio usually gives great picks from your library based on what you've just played. Quite often I play through an album and just let Roon decide what to play after that. 

I often will play just a single track from a genre that I am in the mood for... and then let Roon Radio do it's thing. It's probably my favourite feature also.

Andrew Everard posted:

snip>  before I bought the NUC that now runs Roon in my system – which i did while reviewing the Roon Nucleus < snip

 

Hi,

Were you able to identify any sonic differences between the Roon Nucleus and Roon on the NUC ?

Thanks,

Jan

Andrew Everard posted:

longmanjon posted:

as mentioned as long as you have a SSD to install the Roon boot system onto it will be fine. I use a 128GB SSD plugged into the external USB port.

FWIW, before I bought the NUC that now runs Roon in my system – which i did while reviewing the Roon Nucleus to see how easy/viable a 'DIY' solution would be at a fraction of the cost – I ran Roon on my QNAP NAS with no problems, and no SSD.

How? Using a 16GB USB 'thumb-drive' on which I installed Roon, plugged into one of the QNAP's USB ports. It worked flawlessly.

Andrew, how did you install Roon Core on the USB? Did Roon remote then pick it up automatically?

Jan-Erik Nordoen posted:

Were you able to identify any sonic differences between the Roon Nucleus and Roon on the NUC ?

Nope!

David O'Higgins posted:

 

Andrew, how did you install Roon Core on the USB? Did Roon remote then pick it up automatically?

You simply format the USB – I used a 16GB Kingston Data Traveller, which was more than adequate – as EXT 4 using the QNAP's menu, and call it 'RoonServer'.

Then download Roon to the QNAP using the built-in AppCentre, and it will install it on the USB stick.

And yes Roon Remote finds it no problems, providing it's on the same network.

Useful thread... I just installed the Roon server on my 2-drive QNAP  (TS253A) on the existing spinning drives.  Left it overnight to index eight thousand albums and it seems to run fine...so far.  But I haven't tried any fancy stuff with it.

BTW, I didn't know about this 'radio' feature after it finished playing a queue... I thought it was buggered  

Jan-Erik Nordoen posted:

Andrew Everard posted:

snip>  before I bought the NUC that now runs Roon in my system – which i did while reviewing the Roon Nucleus < snip

 

Hi,

Were you able to identify any sonic differences between the Roon Nucleus and Roon on the NUC ?

Thanks,

Jan

Roon don't make any  claims that the Nucleus improves sq. It's all about a turnkey plug and play solution to.run the server on. ROCK and the NUC is a DIY solution of the same thing. Nucleus brings a bespoke case and some extra features to the os but nothing more, it is NUC inside after all.