Question for power users of Roon

[square_wave]

I had a few questions for people who have extensively used it or understand it very well.

1. What are the top 3 reasons why you chose Roon ?

2. Does it help fix metadata ? What happens if your files are in wave format ? Do you need to convert to Flac before it can fix metadata ?

3. Does this work alongside other music players ? Example, audirvana, foobar or even apps that come with standalone players like auralic ?

 

[sound_cycle]

1. What are the top 3 reasons why you chose Roon ?

I felt that I could not do without the SQ and the way it integrates with Tidal. The eye candy has tremendous appeal. I am completely smitten/ trapped. I am not a power user and I am interested in just the one zone for myself, I have not had to hide my source elsewhere, I have the basic setup by running it on a NUC.. It is expensive.

2. Does it help fix metadata ? What happens if your files are in wave format ? Do you need to convert to Flac before it can fix metadata ?

No, I got almost all of my modest collection in with no issues or fuss. Or mistags (I don't have much Bollywood/ Hindustani classical - but then again there is tons of that on tidal now)

3. Does this work alongside other music players ? Example, audirvana, foobar or even apps that come with standalone players like auralic ?

I have apple music and used to have fb2/k. No issues

ciao
gr

 

[kapvin]

I had a few questions for people who have extensively used it or understand it very well.

1. What are the top 3 reasons why you chose Roon ?
A. Multi room, multidevice facility. Plays well with airplay, chrome cast and as well as Roon bridges. Easy to construct Roon bridges using RPI.
B. transparent sound - no different from Jriver, which I was earlier using.
c. Awesome library management.

2. Does it help fix metadata ? What happens if your files are in wave format ? Do you need to convert to Flac before it can fix metadata ?
No Roon has an overlay ondevice database and does not alter you Music files’ metadata. But it does use the Music files metadeta to match with the online roondatabase. While I do not have any wav. Files, I am guessing that as long as you manually find the album on the Roon database, you should be fine. if Roon does not find a match, then it uses the files metadeta, so if you have some esoteric, little known album on wav that could be a potential Issue.

3. Does this work alongside other music players ? Example, audirvana, foobar or even apps that come with standalone players like auralic ?

The way Roon works, there would be very few use cases there one would need another player. The Roon license allows for one database (core) which connects to all your music, whether on the same device or on a usb drive or network. The Roon core, could be on your windows, mac or Linux, or like I do, on NUC box running an optimised linux for Roon. The core also be set up as a player and then You can connect devices to the core. In addition, Roon license allows for unlimited number of players so you can download the software on any machine and connect it to the core, and play your music.

however, it can coexist with any other software happily and even use the same file directories. I have jriver, foobar and apple music on the same machine with no issues. And in an earlier version, before I moved to a dedicated Roon core, the core coexisted on my work PC with all the other software and used the same music directories.

hope this helps.

replied inline

 

[shankarcams]

OP questions well responded. Only thing I will add that many of the server processes are CPU intensive. Roon suggests that core should be on SSD for good performance and I have found that to be true.

 

[manniraj]

Can we install the Roon core on an all-in-one PC with an Intel Atom processor of either 4/8GB RAM and 64/32GB SSD and pair it with like the Raspberry Pi3 acting as a Roon player? Is the PC configuration less for the Roon core to run?

Thanks

 

[kapvin]

Can we install the Roon core on an all-in-one PC with an Intel Atom processor of either 4/8GB RAM and 64/32GB SSD and pair it with like the Raspberry Pi3 acting as a Roon player? Is the PC configuration less for the Roon core to run?

Thanks

Roon needs to be able to access its database fast, and therefore they recommend that the Roon database be on an SSd. Beyond that, it fairly dependent in how many concurrent streams you are running and if you are further processing the music. For a ROCK Room recommends 8gb of ram and about 64 BG for the ssd. So if you do a rock like installation, from a ram and ssd perspective you are set. As far as the processor is concerned you should direct the query on the Roon community board, I don’t think you need to a subscriber to join. very helpful bunch of people.

if you don’t already have the hardware, I would recommend that you run it headless instead :- ROCk on an i3 NUC. Should be in the same cost target as your atom AIO.

 

[manniraj]

Roon needs to be able to access its database fast, and therefore they recommend that the Roon database be on an SSd. Beyond that, it fairly dependent in how many concurrent streams you are running and if you are further processing the music. For a ROCK Room recommends 8gb of ram and about 64 BG for the ssd. So if you do a rock like installation, from a ram and ssd perspective you are set. As far as the processor is concerned you should direct the query on the Roon community board, I don’t think you need to a subscriber to join. very helpful bunch of people.

if you don’t already have the hardware, I would recommend that you run it headless instead :- ROCk on an i3 NUC. Should be in the same cost target as your atom AIO.

Thanks Kapvin, but I already have the Atom based PC with me hence the question. I will go through the Roon forum and check if mine is suitable or not.

 

[kapvin]

Thanks Kapvin, but I already have the Atom based PC with me hence the question. I will go through the Roon forum and check if mine is suitable or not.

Roon runs on some NAS as well, and many of those are atom or celeron based. and they have to handle the NAS task overhead, so intuitively, it should be enough. especially if you don't do any signal processing.

 

[manniraj]

Roon runs on some NAS as well, and many of those are atom or celeron based. and they have to handle the NAS task overhead, so intuitively, it should be enough. especially if you don't do any signal processing.

Yes I have seen that and my Synology DS214se model which is like 8-10 years old and it does not have the horse power for the same.

 

[shankarcams]

I run my Roon Server on my Synology NAS. Was VERY slow, particularly when it was adding the metadata, had to redo the array with an SSD JBOD disk then it became reasonably responsive.

There are some aftermarket software to support Harmony remote with Roon, which also I installed and works well.

 

[manniraj]

I thought of giving the Roon a spin and went ahead and took up the 15 day trial. I downloaded the Mac version on my MacBook Pro and then configured the library of my NAS. Wow the way this software does the magic of organizing the albums/tracks/artists is just amazing. First of all I set the output from my MacBook to the Chromecast Audio and it plays smoothly every track. Then I thought of trying my Pi3, so reading about it online came across the RopieeeXL which acts as a Roon Bridge with a custom Linux install bare minimum for ARM based hardware and in-built Roon Bridge. I set it up and it immediately showed up in my MacBook as one of the output device.

I have been playing from MacBook to the RopieeeXL controlled via the iPad Roon remote and its just amazing how good the playback is and easy interface. The interface and ease of play is just amazing, now I know why people who use Roon swear by it

Now my MacBook Pro laptop is my daily usage PC so do not want to hang up this so need to check out other notebook headless PC that I have to install either Linux or Win10 to make that as the control PC.

 

[kapvin]

i remember I downloaded the roon trial after being a jriver user for 3 years. Within 2 days I was sold and went from trial straight to lifetime membership.

it sounds funny as I write this, but if you like it, youll love it. not cheap, but for people like us who spend thousands on cables, IMHO, worth every penny.

 

[manniraj]

i remember I downloaded the roon trial after being a jriver user for 3 years. Within 2 days I was sold and went from trial straight to lifetime membership.

it sounds funny as I write this, but if you like it, youll love it. not cheap, but for people like us who spend thousands on cables, IMHO, worth every penny.

Now I am curious to find out whether clean supply for the Roon Core or the Roon Bridge of my Pi makes a difference if at all any
Looking at the architecture of the Roon in 2 PC setup I am thinking making the Roon core as clean as possible as that is the renderer/encoder and my Roon bridge is just used as the output device. By the way I power my Pi3 running on Roon bridge with very clean LPSU.

 

[kapvin]

Now I am curious to find out whether clean supply for the Roon Core or the Roon Bridge of my Pi makes a difference if at all any
Looking at the architecture of the Roon in 2 PC setup I am thinking making the Roon core as clean as possible as that is the renderer/encoder and my Roon bridge is just used as the output device. By the way I power my Pi3 running on Roon bridge with very clean LPSU.

i Use an Allo Katana player as a roon bridge and I use LPSU to power it. For me, it is fantastic.

 

[manniraj]

i Use an Allo Katana player as a roon bridge and I use LPSU to power it. For me, it is fantastic.

Thanks, then your NUC is usual powered by its power brick right? I am planning to try the USBridge from a friend and see how it plays out.

 

[kapvin]

Thanks, then your NUC is usual powered by its power brick right? I am planning to try the USBridge from a friend and see how it plays out.

Stock power brick. No audio device is connected to the Core, though.

 

[manniraj]

@kapvin , I see that you are running the ROCK on your NUC8i7 from your signature. I was looking into this site - https://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_Optimized_Core_Kit where I could find the "suggested" hardware reqs for installing the ROCK. I downloaded the ROCK and tried to install in my Foxconn Intel Atom based fanless PC via the USB flash and it does not support on bootup itself I get an error not supported. How is the distribution verifying the hardware to limit the installation? Does it mean that only the hardware suggested in the above link work with ROCK?

Thanks

 

[kapvin]

I’m your case, i would recommend installing the lightest linux flavour and the. Installing Roon Core for Linux over it. After that you can run it headless. you should check the Linux subsection of the forum. ROCK is optimised for NUCs

 

[manniraj]

I’m your case, i would recommend installing the lightest linux flavour and the. Installing Roon Core for Linux over it. After that you can run it headless. you should check the Linux subsection of the forum. ROCK is optimised for NUCs

Oh yes I have downloaded the Ubuntu Server 18.05.1 LTS which is like supported for 5 years. This is one of the recommended one on the Roon labs community forums.

 

[manniraj]

Ok I installed a Windows 10 Pro on my Foxconn notebook PC and after lot of struggle with the drivers I was able to install the Roon Server and configure the same. I could play it over to my Ropieeexl running on my Pi3 successfully from my NAS without any stutter for FLAC/WAV songs. I have not yet tested high resolution but will wait for the library scan to complete which might take a day or 2 as I have close to 2-3TB of songs

Thanks