That UPnP Bridge technology is a different sort of solution; it looks like a Roon endpoint to Roon, but sends out a UPnP ‘data stream’ for the Naim player to see
Another cheap Roon endpoint device option is to get a used Apple Airport or Older AppleTV device (or any Airport compatible device like SkyQ STB) with SPDIF Toslink out to your 272. Roon will now happily drive Airplay endpoints.
I am Roon neutral… I can see it’s benefits and it’s downsides… but moderately enthusiastic but not completely sold. I will buy a years licence probably and judge in 12 months.
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Simon - you’re a star. I was wondering what to do with a spare Airport Express and you’ve just solved that problem !
This works fine, and it’s a cheap easy way to get Roon on an old streamer. There are a few limitations, for example, Roon multiroom can’t stream to a mixture of Airplay and non-Airplay endpoints.
You might want to compare Roon over AirPlay with regular UPnP for sound quality too.
Yes, obviously Airplay is a bit of a compromise and I believe limited to 16 bit and the older version 48kHz… but it’s cheap…
Roon with the Naim streamers will deliver upto 384kHz and 32 bit. If you use Roon room optimisation, it delivers the media as 32 bit samples to your Naim
Decision made. I will be acuqiring a Small Green Computer Sonore UPnP Bridge plus a Roon subscription once funds allow. I like the Roon app and the ability to retain the UPnP method of streaming to my 272 so as to avoid unnecessary SPDIF conversion.
DSP and all of the other cool Roon features will be good to tinker with too.
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Good call. You’ll be happy with the Sonore.
The other compromise is bit depth, with Naim endpoints Roon distributes at 32 bits, certainly advanatageous if room profiling and headroom management is deployed.
Stephen - Did adding Roon to your system improve the SQ of your system?
thanks
Jim
Which has better SQ in your opinion?
thanks
Jim
Simon - Would this way of connecting Roon degrade the sound compared to streaming Tidal direct to my 272?
Because I’m mainly looking for SQ (the Roon way of organizing the material is secondary to me).
My main source is Tidal, so how will Tidal files sound via this route - will they travel into directly the Sonore UPnP Bridge and into the ethernet input on the 272. Or do the Tidal files go via any other steps before they are played on the 272?
Also, in this diagram that you linked to, what is a SonicOrbiter - and do you need one to do it the way you describe?
And finally - is this solution what you use at home? How does it sound?
thanks
Jim
I thought UPnP sounded noticeably better than Roon, but that’s on my NDX, which has no native Roon support, so I was using an Airport Express into the optical input.
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I have not done any A/B tests since using Roon although I had the impression (and it really was no more than that) that the sound was slightly more “open”. Please don’t attach too much significance to that as you need also to consider my mujsic reproduction is hampered two-fold: by being in an apartment (with consequent constraints on the volume at which I can play music) and the fact that I’m using in-wall speakers (albeit decent B&W speakers).
The real pleasure I get from using Roon is the sheer ease and attractiveness (if I can put it like that) of playing and queuing music - as well as the ease of creating playlists.
Stephen
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Effectively yes - the Sonore UPnP bridge runs on a SonicorbiterOS based platform - I use an UltraRendu with UltraCap LPS1, in case I need an USB output in the future.
My NAS & Roon Core (NUC running ROCK) is physical separate, in the study, on one switch, with the NDS & UltraRendu on another switch in the open plan listening area.
Tidal does sound better via Roon - 2 reasons, the UPNP bridge outputs WAV to the NDS, so no further conversion from FLAC for it to do (Naim recommendation re. WAV playback) & MQA playback of Tidal Masters, so HiRes source files. MQA streamed from Tidal is as good as locally stored MQA on the NAS.
Furthermore Roon 1.6 now has Qobuz integration, as an alternative, or even complimentary, to Tidal. Qobuz has HiRes FLAC streaming, haven’t had the time to listen to this just yet, but will.
Maybe @Simon-in-Suffolk can comment on the relative SQ of Qobuz HiRes streaming over Roon, as previously seemed to prefer Qobuz content over Tidal, and doesn’t rate MQA.
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Thanks Simon. Do you know how much difference each of these processes (the FLAC to WAV conversion or the MQA forst unfold) makes towards the better SQ? Are they about 50:50, or is it mainly one of them?
Also - why do people all convert files to FLAC when they sound better in WAV?
Many people use their upnp server to convert the FLAC files to WAV as they’re played.
The question was why… the answer is that it can sound better as less processing takes place on the streamer/renderer.
However on the new Naim streamers when feeding an external DAC I hear no effective difference now in terms of SQ.
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Sorry - not sure I phrased my question clearly.
What I meant was - why do most people choose to convert their CDs to FLAC and download hires tracks in FLAC, rather than WAV? If we converted our CDs to WAV and downloaded WAV instead, then would those WAV files be better to feed directly to our streamer without the need to convert them from FLAC?
The MQA unfold is much more material contribution to SQ, over the transcoding, which is much more subtle.
But with Roon and the UPnP Bridge you can have both 
I rip & store in FLAC as a compressed lossless format, using less disk space, and full metadata support (I maintain a UPnP server playback route, just in case!)
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Thanks Simon - that’s very useful to know. One more question - do you have a sense of what the Roon first MQA unfold adds to SQ vs what the final unfold in an MQA-enabled DAC adds?
Jim