When I came into the 21st century and stopped fooling around with my hundreds of CD’s and LP’s and started streaming music it was a veritable godsend. I use a ROON Nucleus Rev B to stream music from Tidal and Qobuz. My router is a Gigaspire model made by Calix that was provided by my cable TV internet service, a product which I plan on upgrading in the future. I use a $20 CAT6 Ethernet cable made by L-Com running from the router to my Nucleus, because there is no need for a more expensive one unless you have a much better router. I do use an AudioQuest Diamond USB cable from the Nucleus to my ROON endpoint, a Chord Hugo M Scaler, because I’m not a cable denier, and the AQ Diamond is one that sounds quite nice within my listening chain. I’m all about plug and play convenience. I turn on my Woo WA22 hp amp, put my Focal Utopia headphones on my head, pick up my iPad Pro, and start listening to whatever recorded music suits my fancy. It’s that easy. You can spend thousands on TOTL streaming audio gear if you want to, but it really isn’t necessary if you’re just getting started.
Roon for high end audio?
I have been listening almost exclusively to CDs but want to start to get into music streaming. Sound quality is very high on my list, and I am interested in streaming for 2 reasons; broad selection and hopefully better sound. I am using a dbx Venue 360 with a Jeff Roland Concerto Preamp and Roland Power amp. I have a Savant system that allows music playback in multiple rooms, controls video etc. My Savant integrator suggested Roon. Since I am not currently into streaming, I can’t figure out if Roon is the right thing to do. It seems like a great music server service with the ability to manage very high quality digital files, but the downstream handling of the files and conversion to analog (DAC) seems lacking. It seems most people are using it for playback in less than audiophile situations, and compatible equipment is very limited. Quality wise, am I better off with something like Bluenote and a high quality DAC like say, Denafrips?