I tried to do this earlier in the week, albeit using a ultraRendu as a UPnP bridge and ran into problems. Just found a setup guide in a past post so will give it another try.
Hi @Thomas, I had used both the RooUPnP and the Sonore UPnP bridge (currently using the Sonore) to stream from Roon into my NDS. This is the way I roonified my NDS since it doesnt support the RAAT protocol. They both sound the same.
For compering whether I was loosing some SQ. I did a subscription to TIDAL (I am only using Qobuz now) to bypass the bridge entirely since NDS supports Tidal. All sound the same. No difference.
My conclusion is that all the bridge is doing is switching the protocol from RAAT to UPnP without touching the audio signal. I am happy with it. As long as the NDS is roonified for using Qobuz no rush to buy a ND555.
The creator of RooUPnP is very active in the Roon forum. You can chat with him for technical details.
I thought this for a while until I switched from my regular Roon server to using a NuC i use to run Plex as I was doing some manitenance on the usual server. The normal server is nothing fancy just a fanless PC from Tranquil PC in a custom milled case of their design, its not a nuc just some other motherboard, no audio tweaks just a ZeroZone LPS. I noticed the NuC sounded a bit harsher. It wasnt night and day but I noticed it as soon as I played a song I was very familiar with. Now the nuc lives in my data cupboard which is full of noisy equipment sound wise and electrically. Modem, router, main switch that feeds all the other rooms and switches, electricity circuit breaker, my Roon server lives in my dining room and at the time fed a PI that was connectd to my RME DAC for headphone listening. It was on this system I noticed the difference, never got to use my Naim so cant say if it affected that.
These are my questions too and I come to it with a preconceived notion the same as yours, that the server hardware located several switches and dozens and dozens of feet of ethernet cable away from the player matters little or none. And that what’s directly connected to the player (a decent hi fi switch) does matter the most.
It’ll not be answered other than by our own ears, as the reports run the entire spectrum. If the owner of my local hi fi shop uses a Roon Nucleus and Roon (but not wi fi; it’s all wired) to feed the $750,000 system in his main demo room, it’s because he doesn’t hear any issues. He’s told me this.
The answer is no, as they are or can be actually effectively the same down on the wire, however there may be, and indeed I can detect very subtle differences between different servers, whether they be UPnP media transfer or RAAT media transfer. Also I find again subtle sonic differences can vary on different clients.
So really the comparison can only be effectively evaluated with server, transport and client combinations.
Is there a difference in the quality of the clocks in the R-Pi vs the Dedicated Server?
Would this make an audible difference if they were the last component before the ND555?
But in your system there are 3 more components where the signal is potentially checked and re-clocked.
Thus any difference between the quality of the clocks in the R-Pi vs the Dedicated Server may be eradicated by the signal processing of the 2 switches and the streamer/DAC itself.
FWIW in my system in almost all cases the switch was the last in the link to the (Ethernet connected) streamer, an ND555 in my case, and differences between different servers have always been audible, sometimes dramatically so.
When comparing the Asset UPnP music server vs. Roon I cannot recall having heard significant differences between UPnP vs. RAAT with Roon on the same QNAP NAS, although I was more focused on what Roon brought to the party in other ways.
I did, however, find the Nucleus+ sound quality more to my liking - even more so when swapping the bundled SMPS for a Sean Jacobs DC3+. As for the Innuos Statement that made a much bigger difference.
I also found the switch makes a difference - relatively subtle with GS105 and medical power supply, a bit more with the Cisco, and quite z bit more with the EtherRegen, with which a good LPS again notches things up further. The PhoenixNet is more impressive still, but I wouldn’t say it brings more to the party than the Statement downstream.
So, in short, @Thomas , I don’t remember hearing any difference between UPNP and RAAT. In fact I heard more of a difference between music server software (Asset, Minim and Twonky) but I have found significant differences in the sound quality of music server hardware, from NAS to NUC/Nucleus and Statement.
That’s a good point. I’d actually intended to mention I had no experience of optical but then forgot to. Thanks. It will be interesting when someone makes a fuller comparison.