Using Roon Rock with NDX-2 - first exprience

Welcome to the wonderful world of Roon it really help you engage again in your music I find. I look forward to using it everyday

. Upsampling is one thing I have played with a few times and decided its not really needed in my setups. There is a theory that some dacs perform better when given the highest or native sample rate they can handle as it takes the processing to the server side not the dac. I guess the benefits of this will depend on your system. I prefer it off on my Atom. There really is nothing to it other than choose a filter that you prefer or the method, I preferred Smooth and Minimum phase and Power of 2 PCM but as I said felt no real benefit compared to playing as normal. You just need to play to see what you prefer, if don't like it then dont bother nothing lost.

I personally have never found any difference with Naim app or Roon for my own music other than a slight volume level difference.  I do thing Tidal sounds better via Roon though as its in essence running a Proxy server rather than getting the direct stream but this could just be bias. I would double check your signal path in the Roon app just to see if something is a miss. It should be a purple dot if playing bit perfect and unmolested by DSP. You could try a HDD  or USB stick locally attached to the core and see if that makes a difference to the SQ compared to the NAS others have said this helps, cant see it myself but as with all this hobby everyone has their own opinions.  Personally I noticed no change when I moved to local storage and just back up to the NAS. Also I never noticed any difference in SQ with different, cables, switches either. 

I would also  pop by the Roon forum, its a great place and other users will offer up all sort of advice.

SimonPeterArnold posted:

 

.....

I personally have never found any difference with Naim app or Roon for my own music other than a slight volume level difference.  I do thing Tidal sounds better via Roon though as its in essence running a Proxy server rather than getting the direct stream but this could just be bias. I would double check your signal path in the Roon app just to see if something is a miss. It should be a purple dot if playing bit perfect and unmolested by DSP. You could try a HDD  or USB stick locally attached to the core and see if that makes a difference to the SQ compared to the NAS others have said this helps, cant see it myself but as with all this hobby everyone has their own opinions.  Personally I noticed no change when I moved to local storage and just back up to the NAS. Also I never noticed any difference in SQ with different, cables, switches either. 

Hi Simon Peter, thanks for your response. I did see some none-purple dots when using DSP. Now that it is de-activated the dots are purple in all circuomstances (Tidal, NAS, hi-res, MQA etc) ... I will try your suggestion with the USB stick

Welcome to the Roon experience. Good to see that the ROCK install was easy.

I now don’t have a drop in SQ for my Roon route to my NDS through the SonoreUPnP bridge vs the Naim App and Asset/RPi2 for any format in my library (Redbook, HiRes PCM, DSD & MQA). This route doesn’t need the Naim equipment to be RoonReady, as it just uses the existing Ethernet input, without change - and that is already optimised for UPnP input.

I have also found that regular Tidal content is much better that via the Naim App (it is presented to the NDS in WAV) & then you have the Masters versions, which you don’t have on the Naim App. Plus you can have FLAC streaming internet radio support, and all through the much much better user interface of Roon.

For the SonoreUPnP input I have DSP switched off & on my mate’s reference Meridian system, in the UK, with Ruby 8000’s it is also off.

Sounds like you are sold, just need to make a couple of tweaks, maybe a LPS for the NUC and you are fully Roon’ed!

simes_pep posted:

Welcome to the Roon experience. Good to see that the ROCK install was easy.

 

.....

Sounds like you are sold, just need to make a couple of tweaks, maybe a LPS for the NUC and you are fully Roon’ed!

 

[@mention:29865740417128064] thanks for your replay .. what exactly is an LPS ? Is that a powersupply ? I was thinking of an Sbooster nut they are quite expensive. Even more: I doubt whether I should add a Sbooster to the Netgear switch or to the NUC (or buy two for both?)

Yes, an LPS is a Linear Power Supply, and you could try replacing the stock SMPP on the NUC with an electrically quieter unit, and see if that makes any difference.

The Uptone Audio format certainly has plenty of discussions on the PSU type for Netgear switches.
Plus a new switch with optimized output for the streamer, coming.

Welcome Iver when I saw your posts in the Roon forum I didn't realize it was you.  

simes_pep posted:

Yes, an LPS is a Linear Power Supply, and you could try replacing the stock SMPP on the NUC with an electrically quieter unit, and see if that makes any difference.

I'm quite unsure a LPS is of any help as Iver feeds his NDX2 through WiFi.

[@mention:6917038662506203] : investigating the WiFi quality might help.

Sorry when the OP stated “The NUC is wired-connected to my Netgear system switch that also holds the NAS, and Airport Express for Internet and my NDX-2.”, I was assuming that the streaming path is wired, the WiFi connection for control signals from Roon Remote devices.

This would certainly be the preferred solution, hard-wired any non-portable box, ideally on a static IP, then any portable device operating on dual band WiFi.

You can seggrate the network for “frontend” & “backend” for the HiFi components and server equipment, away from general internet traffic, however with low noise considerations and quality connections throughout.

I indeed feed my NDX-2 wired (!) from a Netgear switch. This switch also wired-connects the NAS, the NUC, a TV Digital box and wired to the Airport Express (who delivers the Internet signal). The AE is wifi connected to an Airport Extreme in another place in the house [@mention:29865740417128064] [@mention:55630933121656227]

simes_pep posted:

You can seggrate the network for “frontend” & “backend” for the HiFi components and server equipment, away from general internet traffic, however with low noise considerations and quality connections throughout.

I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding on ‘network noise’ from the internet. it doesn’t really work like that. The traffic on your local network that is internet related won’t be affecting your streamer unless your streamer is communicating directly with the internet as essentially such data  will be switched through to the router and won’t be creating any ‘noise’ for unconnected hosts. The traffic on your home network that is likely to affect streamer SQ / performance (by protocol processing noise)  wont be internet related at all, and will be specific traffic to your subnet and will be most probably layer 2 broadcast traffic inc multicast as well as low level ARP traffic .. obviously this has nothing to do with internet traffic but is all locally created and consumed...  link layer discovery and broadcast data must be processed by every host on the subnet and much of this traffic is required to allow your network to function... this is different to traffic going to and from the internet or between specific hosts as only the relevant hosts process the data.. this is one of the key advantages of using switches instead of hubs.

Simon,

i can’t agree or disagree, just ask.  If the noise doesn’t come from « network noise » from internet, when we are streaming,  from where does this noise come from?   

Iver van de Zand posted:

After testing Roon initially via MacBook that was wireless connected to my system-switch, I now bought a NUC to embed in my system. The test phase convinced my of the Roon experience and the SQ quality seemed on par, yet a wireless connected MacBook results in drop-outs with Hi-Res and I do not like a laptop that needs to be "on" for playing music.

Reviewing the web, I opted for a NUC with an i5, 8GB RAM and 128SSD spec and installed Roon Rock. The NUC is wired-connected to my Netgear system switch that also holds the NAS, and Airport Express for Internet and my NDX-2. Roon delivers a detailed installation guide for Rock, yet I needed some additional technical videos (tip: watch the Hans Beekhuyzen channel on YouTube) to get everything in place. I also had to change a DHCP setting on the Airport Express.

Building up the Roon library out of my NAS (holds some 6000 albums) is quick and a matter of one or two hours.

My conclusions so far are:

- the user experience of Roon is second-to-none: this is how modern streaming should work. Everything is incredibly integrated and streamlined, and works flawlessly. It is very difficult to stop playing music when using Roon. Literally at every (!) moment you are encouraged to listen to "related" music based on genre, composers and more. Very nicely done. A good indicator is that one hardly has the need to look into the user guide; I think that says a lot about the user experience and interface. Yes, there are things to improve (like the Tags in my opinion) but they are relatively small

- Sound Quality: playing albums from my NAS, I believe the sound quality through the Naim App is slightly better than Roon. Especially with H-Res albums. When I "passed-by" Roon and played directly over the Naim App there was more blackness and attack in the music. It also has a bit more warmth than when using Roon. I have an Hi-Res album of Amy Whinehouse that highlighted this quite well. The differences are not huge, but they are there. One reason I could think of (apart from the longer data-chain, since the music physically passes the NUC so there is an extra device in the chain) is that I have invested in high quality UTP cable for all devices (AudioQuest and Chord) but not yet for the wired conenction of the NUC. That has a standard UTP cable. Maybe I should buy a good cable for that one too?

- Sound Quality: initially I activated the DSP Conversion but this took out a lot of the NDX-2 magic. Absolutely less good than when de-activated. The DSP setting I used was with only "Sample Frequency" activated to sample to DSD128; all others where off. Now, this DSP conversion to me is all pretty complex, so I could be me who chose the wrong settings. Therefor I'd be really interested in the experiences of others here on the forum. If somebody has a positive experience, I'd love to see some screenshots with the exact (!) settings chosen.

- Sound Quality: I am very positively surprised by Tidal. This sounds wonderful through Roon. The big, big surprise are the MQA Master Labels: apart from the massive library of MQA albums available in Tidal through Roon, the sound quality is very impressive and on par with a lot of Hi-Res good-quality-labels I have on my NAS

So bottom line, I'd be very interested to permanently flip over to Roon .... if ..... if I get the Sound quality of NAS albums on par with regular play. I probably will look into a good UTP cable for the connection of the NUC onto the switch. Maybe an Sbooster on my Netgear switch could help too

Cheers

Iver

I really enjoy the Roon experience too. To me it sounds the same as my UPnP setup (Asset or MinimServer from a nas (the same music store that Roon points to).

FR, the ‘noise’ comes from the processing of network data that is sent to all hosts on the network The electronics in the streamer network protocol stack need to wake up and process the data and in certain cases a reply is required.. This processing causes electrical perturbations or noise.. kind of like the differences between FLAC and WAV decoding. Now when a subnet has many hosts ARPimg and send broadcast traffic.. the streamer will be processing this.. if just to work out it can ignore it. This data is sent to all hosts. On some switches you can see this when all the LEDs blink at the same time, then other LEDs will be seen  to blink independently for data going from specific host to host (unicast data)

Data to and from the internet travels in packets, and is sent to and from the host to the router onto the internet. Yes noise will be created here, but is a by product of the specific packet transfer communication to and from the internet via the router.. this you can’t remove by modifying the network.

In other words in most cases traffic between networks like the internet  to a host on your home network is point to point. On your home network there is much traffic generated and consumed by local devices for ONLY your home network to allow apps to work as well as the local network to function as a network.. This traffic can create processing  noise on the streamer independent of any audio data streamed, and can vary in amount based on the number of hosts and type of applications on your home network.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

FR, the ‘noise’ comes from the processing of network data that is sent to all hosts on the network The electronics in the streamer network protocol stack need to wake up and process the data and in certain cases a reply is required.. This processing causes electrical perturbations or noise.. kind of like the differences between FLAC and WAV decoding. Now when a subnet has many hosts ARPimg and send broadcast traffic.. the streamer will be processing this.. if just to work out it can ignore it. This data is sent to all hosts. On some switches you can see this when all the LEDs blink at the same time, then other LEDs will be seen  to blink independently for data going from specific host to host (unicast data)

Data to and from the internet travels in packets, and is sent to and from the host to the router onto the internet. Yes noise will be created here, but is a by product of the specific packet transfer communication to and from the internet via the router.. this you can’t remove by modifying the network.

In other words in most cases traffic between networks like the internet  to a host on your home network is point to point. On your home network there is much traffic generated and consumed by local devices for ONLY your home network to allow apps to work as well as the local network to function as a network.. This traffic can create processing  noise on the streamer independent of any audio data streamed, and can vary in amount based on the number of hosts and type of applications on your home network.

Sorry if my question is a bit naive :  you say that the noise comes from the processing of network data that is sent to all hosts.   Where begins this processing of network data, from our router or from outside our home?   Is there a relation with a poor phone network of the neighborhoods, the street?     Completely silent processing of network data can exist ?

 

SimonPeterArnold posted:

Welcome to the wonderful world of Roon it really help you engage again in your music I find. I look forward to using it everyday

. Upsampling is one thing I have played with a few times and decided its not really needed in my setups. There is a theory that some dacs perform better when given the highest or native sample rate they can handle as it takes the processing to the server side not the dac. I guess the benefits of this will depend on your system. I prefer it off on my Atom. There really is nothing to it other than choose a filter that you prefer or the method, I preferred Smooth and Minimum phase and Power of 2 PCM but as I said felt no real benefit compared to playing as normal. You just need to play to see what you prefer, if don't like it then dont bother nothing lost.

I personally have never found any difference with Naim app or Roon for my own music other than a slight volume level difference.  I do thing Tidal sounds better via Roon though as its in essence running a Proxy server rather than getting the direct stream but this could just be bias. I would double check your signal path in the Roon app just to see if something is a miss. It should be a purple dot if playing bit perfect and unmolested by DSP. You could try a HDD  or USB stick locally attached to the core and see if that makes a difference to the SQ compared to the NAS others have said this helps, cant see it myself but as with all this hobby everyone has their own opinions.  Personally I noticed no change when I moved to local storage and just back up to the NAS. Also I never noticed any difference in SQ with different, cables, switches either. 

Plus the Naim App, nor Uniti Server or Uniti Core, would never allow you to do this

Playback of DXD file 24/352.4 to a Classic Streamer product presented as WAV, sounding just wonderful, with fantastic in-room presence.

Then

Tidal Master playback at 24/96, also presented as WAV files

Then

Playback of DSD256 presented as DSD64, also sounding amazing

FR, not sure I understand your question.. the processing noise comes from your streamer network interface and protocol stack circuitry built into your streamer.

if you are referring to the processing of data by your router well firstly there will be no side effect of router data processing on your streamer... and yes your router is seen as a host in two networks,.. your local home network, and your uplink ISP network connecting through to the internet. This uplink network usually uses something called Point to Point Protocol (PPP) and has only two hosts on it .. your internet  router and your ISP’s router in the exchange or headend... and so no is not affected by your neighbours or quality of phone line.

simes_pep posted:

 

SimonPeterArnold posted:

Welcome to the wonderful world of Roon it really help you engage again in your music I find. I look forward to using it everyday

. Upsampling is one thing I have played with a few times and decided its not really needed in my setups. There is a theory that some dacs perform better when given the highest or native sample rate they can handle as it takes the processing to the server side not the dac. I guess the benefits of this will depend on your system. I prefer it off on my Atom. There really is nothing to it other than choose a filter that you prefer or the method, I preferred Smooth and Minimum phase and Power of 2 PCM but as I said felt no real benefit compared to playing as normal. You just need to play to see what you prefer, if don't like it then dont bother nothing lost.

I personally have never found any difference with Naim app or Roon for my own music other than a slight volume level difference.  I do thing Tidal sounds better via Roon though as its in essence running a Proxy server rather than getting the direct stream but this could just be bias. I would double check your signal path in the Roon app just to see if something is a miss. It should be a purple dot if playing bit perfect and unmolested by DSP. You could try a HDD  or USB stick locally attached to the core and see if that makes a difference to the SQ compared to the NAS others have said this helps, cant see it myself but as with all this hobby everyone has their own opinions.  Personally I noticed no change when I moved to local storage and just back up to the NAS. Also I never noticed any difference in SQ with different, cables, switches either. 

Plus the Naim App, nor Uniti Server or Uniti Core, would never allow you to do this

Playback of DXD file 24/352.4 to a Classic Streamer product presented as WAV, sounding just wonderful, with fantastic in-room presence.

Then

Tidal Master playback at 24/96, also presented as WAV files

Then

Playback of DSD256 presented as DSD64, also sounding amazing

I am also in trial with Roon and I have a few naive questions.

1. Using SqueezeLite means it is not transmitting with the RAAT protocol which it claims to be.maximum quality?

2. What is So more UPNP? is it a software or hardware?

Thanks

lhau posted:

simes_pep posted:

 

SimonPeterArnold posted:

Welcome to the wonderful world of Roon it really help you engage again in your music I find. I look forward to using it everyday

. Upsampling is one thing I have played with a few times and decided its not really needed in my setups. There is a theory that some dacs perform better when given the highest or native sample rate they can handle as it takes the processing to the server side not the dac. I guess the benefits of this will depend on your system. I prefer it off on my Atom. There really is nothing to it other than choose a filter that you prefer or the method, I preferred Smooth and Minimum phase and Power of 2 PCM but as I said felt no real benefit compared to playing as normal. You just need to play to see what you prefer, if don't like it then dont bother nothing lost.

I personally have never found any difference with Naim app or Roon for my own music other than a slight volume level difference.  I do thing Tidal sounds better via Roon though as its in essence running a Proxy server rather than getting the direct stream but this could just be bias. I would double check your signal path in the Roon app just to see if something is a miss. It should be a purple dot if playing bit perfect and unmolested by DSP. You could try a HDD  or USB stick locally attached to the core and see if that makes a difference to the SQ compared to the NAS others have said this helps, cant see it myself but as with all this hobby everyone has their own opinions.  Personally I noticed no change when I moved to local storage and just back up to the NAS. Also I never noticed any difference in SQ with different, cables, switches either. 

Plus the Naim App, nor Uniti Server or Uniti Core, would never allow you to do this

Playback of DXD file 24/352.4 to a Classic Streamer product presented as WAV, sounding just wonderful, with fantastic in-room presence.

Then

Tidal Master playback at 24/96, also presented as WAV files

Then

Playback of DSD256 presented as DSD64, also sounding amazing

I am also in trial with Roon and I have a few naive questions.

 

1. Using SqueezeLite means it is not transmitting with the RAAT protocol which it claims to be.maximum quality?

2. What is So more UPNP? is it a software or hardware?

 

Thanks

I am using a software bridge, the ‘SonoreUPnP’ Bridge with my NDS player. This presents a Roon Endpoint but uses the UPnP input of the NDS player.

This bridge runs on a separate platform, in my case a UltraRendu, but can be a microRendu or any of the Small Green Computer servers (which also run the Roon Core).

The way this Bridge works is to use a Squeezebox library and needs to the Squeezelite mode in Roon. This still a Bitperfect digital transmission from the Roon Core.

I have the SonoreUPnP outputting in WAV for PCM formats and DOP for DSD.

My post was to show the versatility of Roon as a library & playback manager for your library, taking any locally stored file or Tidal as music subscription service such and streaming it to the Endpoint.

And the UI/UX of a Roon Remote. The Naim App was standout a number of years ago, with the n-Stream version, but has not really advanced since them, despite a major rebrand release.

simes_pep posted:

lhau posted:

simes_pep posted:

 

SimonPeterArnold posted:

Welcome to the wonderful world of Roon it really help you engage again in your music I find. I look forward to using it everyday

. Upsampling is one thing I have played with a few times and decided its not really needed in my setups. There is a theory that some dacs perform better when given the highest or native sample rate they can handle as it takes the processing to the server side not the dac. I guess the benefits of this will depend on your system. I prefer it off on my Atom. There really is nothing to it other than choose a filter that you prefer or the method, I preferred Smooth and Minimum phase and Power of 2 PCM but as I said felt no real benefit compared to playing as normal. You just need to play to see what you prefer, if don't like it then dont bother nothing lost.

I personally have never found any difference with Naim app or Roon for my own music other than a slight volume level difference.  I do thing Tidal sounds better via Roon though as its in essence running a Proxy server rather than getting the direct stream but this could just be bias. I would double check your signal path in the Roon app just to see if something is a miss. It should be a purple dot if playing bit perfect and unmolested by DSP. You could try a HDD  or USB stick locally attached to the core and see if that makes a difference to the SQ compared to the NAS others have said this helps, cant see it myself but as with all this hobby everyone has their own opinions.  Personally I noticed no change when I moved to local storage and just back up to the NAS. Also I never noticed any difference in SQ with different, cables, switches either. 

Plus the Naim App, nor Uniti Server or Uniti Core, would never allow you to do this

Playback of DXD file 24/352.4 to a Classic Streamer product presented as WAV, sounding just wonderful, with fantastic in-room presence.

Then

Tidal Master playback at 24/96, also presented as WAV files

Then

Playback of DSD256 presented as DSD64, also sounding amazing

I am also in trial with Roon and I have a few naive questions.

 

1. Using SqueezeLite means it is not transmitting with the RAAT protocol which it claims to be.maximum quality?

2. What is So more UPNP? is it a software or hardware?

 

Thanks

I am using a software bridge, the ‘SonoreUPnP’ Bridge with my NDS player. This presents a Roon Endpoint but uses the UPnP input of the NDS player.

This bridge runs on a separate platform, in my case a UltraRendu, but can be a microRendu or any of the Small Green Computer servers (which also run the Roon Core).

The way this Bridge works is to use a Squeezebox library and needs to the Squeezelite mode in Roon. This still a Bitperfect digital transmission from the Roon Core.

I have the SonoreUPnP outputting in WAV for PCM formats and DOP for DSD.

My post was to show the versatility of Roon as a library & playback manager for your library, taking any locally stored file or Tidal as music subscription service such and streaming it to the Endpoint.

And the UI/UX of a Roon Remote. The Naim App was standout a number of years ago, with the n-Stream version, but has not really advanced since them, despite a major rebrand release.

Thanks. 

I hope Naim will make NDS Soon ready, RAAT is supposedly superior. There is bit perfect and then there is bit perfect, RAAT is the better bit perfect as the streamer clocks the transmission instead of the server clocks it I think.

Did you find it worth to buy at 499 or do you paid yearly in case Roon is not longer the best in the coming 4 years?

lhau posted:

simes_pep posted:

lhau posted:

simes_pep posted:

 

SimonPeterArnold posted:

Welcome to the wonderful world of Roon it really help you engage again in your music I find. I look forward to using it everyday

. Upsampling is one thing I have played with a few times and decided its not really needed in my setups. There is a theory that some dacs perform better when given the highest or native sample rate they can handle as it takes the processing to the server side not the dac. I guess the benefits of this will depend on your system. I prefer it off on my Atom. There really is nothing to it other than choose a filter that you prefer or the method, I preferred Smooth and Minimum phase and Power of 2 PCM but as I said felt no real benefit compared to playing as normal. You just need to play to see what you prefer, if don't like it then dont bother nothing lost.

I personally have never found any difference with Naim app or Roon for my own music other than a slight volume level difference.  I do thing Tidal sounds better via Roon though as its in essence running a Proxy server rather than getting the direct stream but this could just be bias. I would double check your signal path in the Roon app just to see if something is a miss. It should be a purple dot if playing bit perfect and unmolested by DSP. You could try a HDD  or USB stick locally attached to the core and see if that makes a difference to the SQ compared to the NAS others have said this helps, cant see it myself but as with all this hobby everyone has their own opinions.  Personally I noticed no change when I moved to local storage and just back up to the NAS. Also I never noticed any difference in SQ with different, cables, switches either. 

Plus the Naim App, nor Uniti Server or Uniti Core, would never allow you to do this

Playback of DXD file 24/352.4 to a Classic Streamer product presented as WAV, sounding just wonderful, with fantastic in-room presence.

Then

Tidal Master playback at 24/96, also presented as WAV files

Then

Playback of DSD256 presented as DSD64, also sounding amazing

I am also in trial with Roon and I have a few naive questions.

 

1. Using SqueezeLite means it is not transmitting with the RAAT protocol which it claims to be.maximum quality?

2. What is So more UPNP? is it a software or hardware?

 

Thanks

I am using a software bridge, the ‘SonoreUPnP’ Bridge with my NDS player. This presents a Roon Endpoint but uses the UPnP input of the NDS player.

This bridge runs on a separate platform, in my case a UltraRendu, but can be a microRendu or any of the Small Green Computer servers (which also run the Roon Core).

The way this Bridge works is to use a Squeezebox library and needs to the Squeezelite mode in Roon. This still a Bitperfect digital transmission from the Roon Core.

I have the SonoreUPnP outputting in WAV for PCM formats and DOP for DSD.

My post was to show the versatility of Roon as a library & playback manager for your library, taking any locally stored file or Tidal as music subscription service such and streaming it to the Endpoint.

And the UI/UX of a Roon Remote. The Naim App was standout a number of years ago, with the n-Stream version, but has not really advanced since them, despite a major rebrand release.

Thanks. 

I hope Naim will make NDS Soon ready, RAAT is supposedly superior. There is bit perfect and then there is bit perfect, RAAT is the better bit perfect as the streamer clocks the transmission instead of the server clocks it I think.

 

Did you find it worth to buy at 499 or do you paid yearly in case Roon is not longer the best in the coming 4 years?

I believe it is very unlikely that Naim will make the NDS a Roon Ready device, they have already signaled that they looked and made a decision.

The nature of the Squeezebox Emulation mode in Roon, is that it is still a Bitperfect stream and with the UPnP Bridge it is handled in the streamer, as if it originated from a UPnP server, such as Asset, or a Uniti Serve/Uniti Core.

For an NDS it is the best method of add Roon integration over an S/PDIF conversion.

I am not in position to 'upgrade' to an ND555 and not yet heard one, plus not sure it would be the best investment giving it is still using the PCM1704U-K DAC chips as the NDS, just with some improved oversampling in a later SHARC chip, revised on-board regulation and a new streamer module providing the Roon support I now have with the UltraRendu/LPS1 running the UPnP Bridge. This is the same level of money as a Meridian UltraDAC, which is originated the Roon products & fully MQA and the DAC cards are fully upgradable, as in a chassis design, or a Merging Technology player or a dCS product.

In terms of subscription, I joined the Roon Beta program back in '15 where it was just Annual payments and then converted to Lifetime once I had a playback through my Naim Network player.
I was using Roon for Library Management before than, running it on a Laptop, before establishing the Core on a NUC running ROCK. It was a great insight into my Library, in terms of the extended metadata, just it was running alongside the Naim App playback route through a UPnP server on a LeanOS RPi.

I find the optimized software well engineered and support, and refreshing that it can be used on commodity hardware such as Intel NUCs, and is also completely cross-platform. So I have multiple end-points all using completely different hardware. There is no eco-system you have to 'buy in' to, with expensive embedded servers with a green badge on.

Struggling to think of anything more debilitating and demoralising than software which urges you to play something “related”. The pleasure of music falls more with juxtaposition and variation than similarity. The latter never fails to kill my interest in listening and us one of the many reasons I despise anything curated or recommended. 

Mike Hughes posted:

Struggling to think of anything more debilitating and demoralising than software which urges you to play something “related”. The pleasure of music falls more with juxtaposition and variation than similarity. The latter never fails to kill my interest in listening and us one of the many reasons I despise anything curated or recommended. 

The good news is that, with Roon, you can turn off that feature.

first Roon and then Roon 2, a software which will listen to music at your place....and post some likes automatically.

The one thing I love about Roon is it has engaged me more with my library than anything else. It just brings out the forgotten gems in your collection that you have not listened to for a while. With a big collection gathered over the last decade its easy loose things.

Tied with the fact it brings together what is normally disperate audio eco systems into one platform. Not everyone cab afford Naim in every room. So in my six zones at home,  I have one Naim Uniti Atom, two raspberry pi's, one Allo USBridge, one Squeezebox Radio and a Chromecast. All controlled by Roon accessing the same Library and Tidal.  I can switch playback to any one of them at any time easily. No worrying if a format is supported or not as it just handles it automatically. I can't think of anything else that can do this so effectively and effortlessly from a user perspective.