Legacy users unite! How do you modernize your streamer?

Unless the Euro has suddenly devalued you figures are way out! 500 quid including a Room sub and Sonore bridge.

An NUC won’t cost that much to run Roon Rock on and you can run a software bridge on a Raspberry Pi using RooUPNP which is a viable alternative to the Sonore bridge. This should be comfortably below 1000 Euros. rooUPNP is still in development and does have a couple of minor issues which are being worked on. It does have the benefit of supporting multiple devices unlike the Sonore product.

Of course there is the ongoing subscription for Roon to factor in which if you go for the lifetime will take you over budget.

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Thanx trickydickie,
Now it made click. Just need a switch for so many devices connected to my router.
Two questions:
-Is the display of my nd5xs in function with Roon?
-sonore upnpbridge versus rooupnp on rpi OR pure softwaresolution ifi-bridge? Or do I have to wait a while until Roon has an integrated solution for legacy-streamer?

Can you provide a cost breakdown of this 1000 euros?

I already run Roon and it cost me around 500 quid including:
Laptop (i5) - an i3 would have done ok too.
Sonore Bridge.
Roon subscription.
:thinking:

The display on the streamer does light up but is only useful to display the resolution and format of the music being played. The metadata doesn’t get sent through although the developer of the RooUPNP is hoping to achieve that in time.

Roon will never integrate UPNP into their product, it’s a red line for them so you need one of the workarounds. Each workaround has its advantages and disadvantages. Currently the Sonore seems to be the easiest and most expensive!

Nuc with ssd and extra-RAM. Switch. 600
And lifetime Roon subscription. 700
Sonore upnpbridge. 200

  • round about 1500Euro.

Apologies. My error. :zipper_mouth_face:

Ok.
Your advice to use a Sonore upnp bridge- I bought it.
To the 200 Euro comes 50E shipping and 50E taxes etc - all in all 300 Euro.

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Thank you. Just installed rooUpNP. Works a treat.

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Nothing more than BubbleUPnP - works fine into my UnitiQute 1 24/96 - now the UQ is hardwired the system never misses a beat

I’m not sure I see what all the fuss is about, I’m seriously tempted to go down the NDX route to add streaming to my main system, I’m very happy with Bubble, rather than pay twice as much for a ND5XS2, or run two boxes with Bluesound (or similar) into NDAC. Though accept overall SQ might be better with the latter, and it could be a gentler 2 step upgrade.

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Setup should be simple.
Do you have your Roon environment setup?

Thanx Simon,
Switch is coming (netgear).
I‘d like to buy a Nuc, think it has to be i7 to be (to turn back to the main subject) future-proof.
Think I run temporarily a MacBook as a core for a test period. Before not to be convinced and waste 1200 Euro (lifetime + Nuc).

Unless you are planning lots of unnecessary DSP in many zones, you don’t need a i7 NUC to run ROCK. An i3 is more than enough for a few zones, and the type of DSP you can use with the SonoreUPnP Bridge.
Having 8GB is more important.

I run a NUC5i3 from 2015 supporting a few zones, and have shown that this unit can support EQ DSP with DSP up converting etc.

Save the few extra $ and put towards the Roon lifetime or to buy more music :smiley:

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Looking at photos of the Sonore UPnP Bridge it looks to be nothing more than a Raspberry Pi 3 in a nice case, obviously running some proprietary bridge software. Does Sonore make the software available standalone so you can build your own? I’m guessing not. Otherwise, rooUPnP running on a Pi looks to be functionally equivalent – or getting close to it – and much cheaper!

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An i5 is actually the sweet spot in-between the power of an i7 and the low power and value of an i3. I’m running Roon on a NUC 7i5 in a fanless Akasa case. Not sure why most people say either 3 or 7 but forget about the 5.

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You have answered your own question.

Sonore are providing an appliance, i.e. the SonoreUPnP bridge software, the hardware and the operational environment to run than software as one supported unit, rather than just the software and you install it on whatever hardware and whatever OS for thar hardware.

What you get is a supported solution, with location detected, on-line software upgrades and then major updates via a new SD card.
It is a faction of the cost of upgrading a NDS to ND555, NDX to NDX2, ND5XS to ND5XS2 etc to obtain Roon capabilities for your Naim Network player and then can forget about the so called obsolescence of the older streamer card, as you are letting Roon handle all the frontend streaming processing, and the Network player with SonoreUPnP bridge is then just a top quality ‘streaming DAC’
And if you have the NDS/555DR with the same DAC technology, architecture, output stage, power supply feed and brass isolation as a ND555

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Thank you @simon.pepper and others, I have a vortexbox running sonicorbiter which I always used as a server for the ndx via the Naim app. Reading this I’ve now realised I can run it both as a Roon core and with the upnp bridge software. 1 Roon trial signup later and I have a complete new lease of life on my NDX, and an excellent and stable control app for my chord Poly and old Sonos Play 3. Revelation!

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Yes, an excellent solution for your NDX, for which you are now making the best of, as a ‘streaming DAC’ with the latest streaming technology coming from Roon.

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I think that is a limitation of the app version on the phone. I can pause and restart tracks on my tablet using BubbleUPnP.

I also have 20,000 plus tracks on my NAS and lots of great Internet radio stations.

But what are you missing? There is loads of music out there (40million tracks plus).
The joy of streaming is discovery.

You can buy an excellent quality new streamer for £400 whilst you obtain approval to the ND555.

PS. I am a little confused - you have music on your NAS so how are you playing it? Streaming?