Roon confusion

You mention “core” but I am not sure you understand what it means. And yes, it can sound confusing at first, but it’s really not that difficult.

Think of Roon as comprised of three elements:

1 - Core. The server. With processing power and memory it needs to “push” music to the endpoints. Can be a general purpose computer, or audio dedicated machine. You do need sufficient processing power and memory IMO to run Roon Core.

2 - Endpoint. This is the streamer. Like the Node 2, or LUMIN. Really anything that can stream, and is certified as Roon Ready

3 - Controller. Smart phone or tablet. By definition, here is how you control, manage , and play your music.

A device can serve more than one role. Or all: such as a laptop that you run Roon Core on, stream (USB out to DAC), and controller (the interface).

Hope this helps

The endpoints you mention are streamers in their own right so they can act without roon.  But if you want to pay for Roon, they are "roon ready".  So anything shown in roon control program as an endpoint is just streaming (through roon) after the hard work is done in your "core".  Now endpoints can be attached to the core, attached to your laptop that you are using the roon control ap on, or stand alone.  The latter is recommended.  

So if you have, for example a Node, it will show as an endpoint you can select.  When you select it, it will be playing through roon and you can control it with roon.

Jerry

Thanks for the clear statement, thyname. I’ve been using Roon for several years, and I'm often confused about what’s doing what.

I recently moved Roon core from a Mini to a Nucleus. Roon in the Mini played with my Ayre QX-5 endpoint, but Roon in the Nucleus requires the OS of the QX-5 be updated to certified inodrer to be enabled. Roon in the Nucleus will play via HDMI to the Bryston SP3 with no question about certification -- haven’t tried ethernet to the SP3.

@dbphd Yeah, Roon is constantly evaluating gear from many manufacturers to certify them. Sorta like Apple & Google Stores reviewing apps before they agree to add to App stores. Roon tries to ensure full compatibility, though I don't envy them with that challenge. Roon forums are full of questions/issues that ultimately relate to quirks of end point devices. 

It's not perfect, but hopefully you can get the upgrade to cerfified easily and you'll be all set. Cheers,

Spencer

The Roon core does more than UI and music management. It also does 100% of the DSP, including upsampling, conversion (PCM to DSD, and the other way), EQ and MQA decoding (at least partial).

The benefit of this approach is that every single endpoint, whether a simple streamer, or a decades old Logitech Touch, has the set of Roon features available and your entire library, PCM or DSD, is playable on all your devices.

For these reasons:

• All audio streams through the core, and therefore
• You need a CPU beefy enough to do the DSP needs for all connected devices
• An Ethernet connection to the core is recommended (by me)

The Roon core does more than UI and music management. It also does 100% of the DSP, including upsampling, conversion (PCM to DSD, and the other way), EQ and MQA decoding (at least partial).

The benefit of this approach is that every single endpoint, whether a simple streamer, or a decades old Logitech Touch, has the set of Roon features available and your entire library, PCM or DSD, is playable on all your devices.

For these reasons:

• All audio streams through the core, and therefore
• You need a CPU beefy enough to do the DSP needs for all connected devices
• An Ethernet connection to the core is recommended (by me)

Thanks, I think that I've finally got it.  I was going to start a "to Roon or not to Roon'  but you laid out a lot of the issues above, basically what I was driving at but couldn't articulate. So then, I think my Roon investigations are over. It all seems very seductive. Yet perfect metadata and management of my music library is secondary to me and pretty good as it is now. At the end of day it sounds like Roon would basically be doing for my music is what Plex does for my video library. As far as I can see then, Roon doesn't bring much to the table, or to my table anyway:

Pros
1. Better UI than what Lumin offers. This is what started me down the rabbit hole in the first place. It seems that many agree the Lumin app is mediocre and then say 'just use Roon.'
2. Unified control of 3 audio systems throughout the house

Cons
1. Inserts another layer between streaming services and respective DACs. Maybe it's 100% transparent, but it's hard for me to see how it would actually improve anything, especially on my reference system. I'm not really interested in EQ or signal processing.  Example:  My living room system is a Node 2i feeding PS Audio Sprout100 driving KEF LS50's.  Not high end, but it still sounds surprisingly good.  Would it be improved if driven by Roon?  I'm sceptical.
2. Added cost and another layer of complexity.
3. Just kind of pointless. Both the Lumin and Bluesound systems already access and play the server library just fine as it is, albeit using different UI's. Moreover, lots of people using JRiver (which I already do) have pointed JRiver to a Lumin and it apparently works fine too.

So, in summary, now I'm scratching my head. I was close to pulling the trigger on a Roon Nucleus. Their descriptions are very seductive. But it doesn't seem to actually bring much - or anything - that can't be done cheaper and maybe more easily in other ways. Maybe I'm missing something.   Or maybe Roon just isn't for me after all.  Feedback welcome!  Thanks and cheers.

sbank, I think I haven’t been downloading the QX-5 OS update properly to the flash drive, so Ayre is downloading it to a flash drive they will ship to me. That should get the QX-5 certified again, plus a bunch updates Ayre has made that I’m missing. I still don’t understand why Roon running on the Mini had no such scruples nor why the Nucleus sends HDMI to the Bryston SP3 without the certification issue.

BTW, HDMI to the SP3 that passes balanced analog to the Ayre KX-5 preamp by-pass sounds great, a nice backup to the QX-5.

db

And for those wanting to use the embedded HQPlayer within Roon, many servers out there don't have the processing power to run higher level dsp of HQPlayer. Keep this in mind if going in this direction, Intel I7 is generally minimum for this.