I have an ND5 XS and separate power supply, please note NOT XS2 2 model and am looking at ways to add Roon.
I don’t want to buy a blue sound node and by pass the Naim DAC, for instance as all the dealers I talk to advise that if I connect a separate streamer to the digital in I will be by-passing the DAC which would be a travesty.
Can anyone suggest a way of way of adding Roon without making a fantastic piece of kit less so, any suggestions gratefully received.
You don’t have to bypass the DAC with Bluesound It has spdif out. Connecting anything to the digital in is not bypassing the DAC of your Naim. Your dealers talking rubbish. It’s bypassing the inbuilt streaming that’s all.
So you could use one or build a low cost raspberry pi based streamer with an spdif output card. Or do what others have done on here and invest in the Sonore UPnP bridge which can run on quite a bit of hardware and it turns the UPnP function of your streamer into one Roon can see, or if your more a.tinkerer build one using the software LMS UPnP bridge that can run on any pc or a raspberry pi.
I’ve compared the Chromecast Audio using digital out to ND5XS streaming and cannot hear any difference. The Chromecast audio also support Roon and is a cheaper alternative if Roon support is all asking for.
Your limited to 96/24 via a Chromecast and some have had issues with it streaming hires via optical as it had the habit of dropping out , so be warned it might not be plain sailing.
Hi, yes, I agree, I have read there are some issues with Chromecast dropping out.
In my mind I could trial Roon and c how it goes. If I feel Roon is worth the extra expense I will buy a more permanent solution and sell the Chromecast for probably more than I paid for it.
I have an old Squeezebox Touch. It works very nicely as a Roon bridge with support for 24/192 audio on the digital coax output. That’s what I used when I had a ND5XS. Now I used it in an office system with an old Arcam AVR repurposed as a 2-channel receiver.
Chromecast arrived, working fine, supper easy set up, sounds fine, need to give a proper loud test tomorrow, will be looking to figure out how to use Roon through Chromecast - guess u just link it though google home and select is as an output?
Once a Chromecast device is on (i.e. visible to) your network, you will see it Roon settings and then you just click a button to enable it. After that you can direct streams to it in Roon. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.