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Questions on using Roon

I am seeing emails from Roon prospecting for new customers with a free trial period being offered.

Can Roon users please advise how one gets started with Roon?  I have a basic streaming setup running - in my case I am using a BlueSound Node 2i as streamer, with wifi connection, and then I use the Node's digital output to run into an outboard DAC which is a Schiit Gungnir Multi bit.  The sound is very nice.

I am now using the Blu OS app on a Samsung Galaxy Android Tablet to control the streaming.

I know the Node is considered a 'Roon endpoint', but I see some say that in addition to this, a separate computer is needed just to run the Roon program.  Is this true?  So a user that does not already use a computer be it a PC or Mac to stream needs to buy a computer just to run Roon?   That would be make cost of entry pretty high, despite Roon's low cost trial.

Also can the Roon system (computer, end point) run using wifi?  I live in an older house and do not have wired LAN in every room.

troidelover1499

Showing 2 responses by yyzsantabarbara

yyzsantabarbara
4,538 posts
 

ROON does not need a powerful box to run. I was at one point running 4 ROON Zones with 2 of the zones running DSP in the ROON Core (Convolution files). My cheapo machine handled it perfectly. I have had no issues for years though in the last 2 months there is something going on in my home network that is causing ROON to stop on occasion. Which requires me to click the PLAY button on ROON.

I do see a pattern of how this happens, and I doubt most users would run into the same issue as me. My network has a lot of activity going on and I need to investigate a solution for this. Should be fun. This has no bearing on the type of hardware that ROON is running on.

One way to minimize (or eliminate) the effect of a cheapo ROON machine messing up your DAC with network noise, is to use Fibre Optic cables just before the DAC. I use a Sonore OpticalRendu which takes Fibre from this network switch.

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It then converts it to USB and then into my DACs. The last conversion to USB is not ideal since that could be a little noisy but none of my DACs support Fibre directly (all have USB). The 3 DACs that I know of that support Fibre directly are the Lumin X1, Lumin P?, and the new $40K Linn DAC.

 

yyzsantabarbara
4,538 posts
 

Also can the Roon system (computer, end point) run using wifi?  I live in an older house and do not have wired LAN in every room.

I used a PowerLine adapter to extend my home Ethernet to other rooms in my house via the copper wires in the walls. I have my ROON Core in a far away room that was connected by the copper wires. Now this was fine in distributing the streams to my 4 zones. However, there was a high res version of George Harrisons - ALL THINGS MUST PASS that was chirping at a particular point in one song. So, I was able to reproduce the problem every time. I figured out that the PowerLine part of my network was not able to transfer the larger payloads of high res. So, I just moved my ROON Core to another room that had direct wired Ethernet connectivity. This fixed the high-res streaming issue for all my zones.

So, putting the ROON Core on a machine connected to the network by Wifi would not be my first choice. I would put the ROON Core machine close to the router + switch. I have setup my Windows ROON Core machine to start up every morning at 7AM (via BIOS) and shut down each night at 1:30AM (via scheduled TASK). I also have a scheduled TASK to start ROON Core when the machine starts up in the morning via BIOS. So, I am hands free of my physical ROON Core machine.

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