Roon DAC? help please....took a chance on Pachanko Labs - know nothing about Roon

thanks all

I just purchased an exasound e62 and external power supply

will be interesting to compare this dac with the bluesound as a streamer vs the pachanko labs

will be making plans soon for an all nighter with Allison Crowe and Japanese whiskey!!!

Buy something worthy ,what’s your budget if in the $1k range the New Denafrips Aries-2  12 th anniversary model is a a great dac for the $$ monies .

their Pontus-2. Is much better-still  and their best value R2R dac value at just under $2k.

Roon supports Qobuz and Tidal.  The Pachanko server will serve as the Roon core and you can connect any DAC directly to the server and there is no necessity for the DAC to be Roon approved.  The Roon approved endpoint issue arises only if you wish to connect the Panchanko to your DAC by the local Ethernet or Wi-Fi network.  If you will be networking the Server and the endpoint then the endpoint needs to be Roon certified.  I use a Wolf Alpha 3SX server as my Roon core on my rack and connect my Gryphon DAC via USB.  My Wolf is hardwired to my switch and router and via Roon accesses Qobuz and my 24TB NAS for content.  I use an IPAD employing the “Roon Remote” to control my selections. 

I don't see that your device supports any streaming services. I don't use Roon can you access them via Roon if it doesn't support those services?

My DAC is not Roon ready, so I bought a Roon Nucleus to use a the streamer and Roon Core. Works great. I believe you could do the same with Small Green Computer. 

Pachanko Labs is not listed as Roon Ready or Roon tested.  Again, I would look closely into them.  Good luck with this.

Your Constellation Mini will be your Roon endpoint and recognized as such. So just about any DAC will do, but, it’s always best to buy Roon approved equipment.

Your core and bridge must be on the LAN so the endpoints can be recognized. You will need to use your phone, computer or note pad as a controller. Your Node won’t work unless you make it hardwired to your LAN or you have a wireless router. Wireless connections are subject to music interruptions when playing hi-res files. The USB on the Node 2i is for an external hard drive.

Did you buy more SSD drive. The SSD for the OS most likely won’t let you store music there You have to have music on a hard drive, Qobuz or Tidal in order to use Roon. If you have a hard drive with music on it you can plug that into the USB in port on the Constellation mini. The only output is USB.

It’s a great thing you can get Roon Lifetime since the price is going up on Dec 31st. Cost now is 699.99 US going to 830.00. I went on the Constellation website and the price for your unit did not change when no to Roon Lifetime was selected.  Roon controller software has always been free. Sorry, but it looks suspicious. Just lock it in before then. Hope this helps.

thanks you

im going to get a roon tested dac

this will sound stupid as Ive already bough this thing,

but can anybody please confirm if I need any other hardware other than the constellation mini and dac?

i'm presuming i just connect the constellation mini to ethernet  then USB to DAC (and amp/preamp)

the roon stuff has me confused but wanted to try it and got a great deal on the pachanko unit which the seller told me was a huge upgrade from my bluesound even as just a pure streamer

BTW, the node isn't a bad streamer if you add an external DAC.  Take your time upgrading it.

You can't quite use any DAC.  I found this out the hard way.  The DAC needs to be new enough to be driverless.  I have an old W4S DAC-2 that was flagship and Stereophile recommended when it was new.  Still not bad sounding but Roon won't see it since needs driver files installed on the streamer (back then it was a computer).  

Otherwise, Roon should be fine with any DAC.  It may not recognize some lesser known DACs and will call them something likely associated with their chipset.

Jerry

you can use any dac

yes I want to get a better dac

can I use any dac ? 

I think the BS node can be a ROON endpoint and you can use the DAC in the BS node.  

Next step in the upgrade path might be get a standalone DAC and still use the Node as a ROON endpoint.   Then down the line upgrade the BS node to something like a an optical Rendu endpoint.   Many other ways to go as well.