I thought I would put down on paper, as it were, my thoughts on these solutions to Roonifying legacy Naim streamers. I would be interested in other people’s observations.
I have a NDS and 4 Unitiqutes. In addition to the LMS and Raspberry Pi I also run a sonicorbiter in an Audiostore music server. Although I live in a small cottage I enjoy multiroom music, hence some of my comments below.
Audiostore music server
This solution allows me to run Roon through my NDS, and I can multiroom via the Naim app. Audiostore offer cheaper solutions too, but they are approximately three times the Raspberry Pi solution.
LMS2UPnP (Squeeze2upnp)
This software solution is elegant, I run it on a Mac Mini and it finds all my streamers. And I can use the Naim app to multiroom. However, it does not handle some music (The music plays fine on the NDS).
I tend to update the software when notified by the developer, but I have not set up my MacMini to automatically run a startup script so I have to periodically rerun the squeeze2upnp script.
Raspberry Pi plus Hifiberry
These little boxes began as a lockdown project; I use a Toslink cable to feed a single Unitiqute. I use two of them as I think I prefer the SQ over the LMS solution, however, I can’t use the multiroom capability of the Naim app.
I have not quantified the SQ differences between the three solutions. Perhaps I will one rainy day.
In summary, the sonicorbiter provides the simplest solution, but also the most expensive, and I can enjoy Roon with the NDS, and it’s the optimum SQ. The LMS software is a great solution, it’s free, but It takes a little tinkering with a computer to get it to work. It can multiroom, but it’s frustrating that it can’t manage some music files (or am I missing something?). I don’t mind updating the software, but I must fix how to reboot my MacMini. The Raspberry Pi solution takes tinkering to another level, which is rewarding, but it can’t multiroom. It’s relatively cheap, and I think the SQ is better than the LMS, but I need to do some more comparative listening.