I use a Sonore as Roon endpoint but only because technically my innuos mini is under specced. I tired it as both core and player and it didn’t sound as good …But as you’ve got more computing power then maybe no advantage
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Not fighting and certainly dont care whatever happens with roon, its just my opinion as is yours
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Had it for a while but prefer Innuos sense
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How I would love Naim to come out with an app like Innuos.
I think Roon is fantastic. It’s totally transformed the way I access and find new music. I love the reviews, the artist bio’s, the way it’s intuitive to use and the fact it brings my Tidal and Qobuz together. I’ve lost several times the annual cost in stupid hifi purchases and subsequent sales.
I’m a complete Luddite but found a cheap NUC ready fitted as a Core and away I went. The use of the Naim app is predicated on having an extremely expensive (relatively speaking) black box - since digital SQ is, in my experience, about having a top quality DAC, it makes no difference to me whether I use a Raspberry Pi or an ND555 as a ‘source’, except the spare change from the latter was enough to buy my wife a car.
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What’s expensive? Current price of my Atom is about the same as a basic Roon Nucleus plus lifetime subscription.
Roger
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I’ve just picked up a used Intel Nuc for a fraction of the price of a Nucleus and loaded ROCK onto it. Works perfectly
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Yes, hence ‘relatively’. As with all of these comments, just my experience, but a much superior DAC than that you’ll find in the Atom can be easily obtained, and when used in conjunction with a NUC and/or via a Pi or alternative makes a much better value and flexible streamer.
Obviously the sky is the limit in terms of DAC prices, but cheaper ones are so good now that there’s something for everyone. That makes software like Roon especially good as it can be implemented easily within a system of choice.
Just my two pennies. Everything is going through a Nait 5, FYI, so I’m subject to the bottleneck brigade.
I run Roon on an iMac at the moment with local files on a Uniti Core. Is there any benefit in one of these NUC things (not sure what that is exactly). I initially got the Core to keep the Gigi away from the computer and the associated noise, so sending music via Roon on the iMac is a bit counterintuitive in that regard.
Increasingly the world of software is going that way… Roon is no different from what I would say is the majority of modern software now that relies on some sort of remote server or function.
Perpetual software licences are fast becoming a thing of the past, and the closest you can get in the consumer space is lifetime subscription… for a premium.
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Cracking amp.
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Only one?
.sjb
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For more complex tools subscription business model is hard to finance as it takes time to recover the investment. So buying a perpet license and buying a year of support and upgrades is a very common model. Even if I abandon a tool it is still important I can use it while I have projects based on it, a lot of subscriptions quickly becomes a drag on a budget.
Roon lifetime is not a perpetual license. It stops working if Roons servers go away.
I moved on from Roon as I found better sound quality elsewhere. But Roon is a nice lifestyle type software and no doubt will continue to be popular.
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Yours is similar to my approach. I’ve been building my local server music collection for 5 years now with a lot of effort on meta data management. My Qobuz sublime sub has allowed me to add a lot of hi res music as well. I keep multiple back ups of my collection (~8K albums) and have a UPS for my NAS/Network. I’ve experienced a few outages over the years and was able to stream uninterrupted. I love what cloud streaming offers but it’s also nice to not be dependent on the cloud for streaming.
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Not that it matters, the more complex the software is, especially commercial and industrial the more likely it is to be subscription licensing now possibly through some sort of enterprise licence type agreement… my point is we are seeing commercial licensing models for complex software cross over more into the consumer and simpler software space like tools such as Roon… certainly in my fields which are varied.
I often would prefer perpetual licensing and often doesn’t require cloud authentication/policing and typically cheaper if static over a long period say 5 years, but the business models are not as attractive as with subscription for software manufacturers … … so perks are often given with subscription such as bundling and flex… in the industrial/commercial world that is… and of course there is a new marketing term for it now, SaaS …
But you have a point that financial modelling has to be re geared if a manufacturer is wholesale shifting from perpetual to subscription… just look at what happens when it is not properly financially forecast… Avaya is possibly an interesting example……
BTW what is a lifestyle tool… I am not sure I have ever come across one other than possibly a diary or Facebook… but even then are there really tools out there to manage people’s lifestyles??
Back to Roon, one of its benefits is potentially consistent and supported SQ across multiple vendors (LPCM delivery) albeit streamer Roon driver implantations by different Hi-Fi manufacturers is a dependency… but with Naim it’s first class which is a nice bonus… and I am sure I read somewhere that Naim are pretty pleased with their Roon drivers SQ performance and offers higher potential SQ performance compared to UPnP for streamer DAC playout… as opposed to Streamer transport…
But yes the market is quite crowded with different solutions… so one simply chooses the one that is right for them and their Hi-Fi preference.
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NAA support made all the difference to me, the ability to run high quality digital filters on HQPlayer and into the Chord DAC via dual coax (24/768) makes for a substantial leap in SQ.
What NAA do you use to get dual BNC into your chord DAC?
.sjb
I use the SRC•DX adapter, it’s solid on Windows 10/11 with the provided ASIO driver.
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A viable version of Roon would be to have it as preamp. Then it makes sense. I still wouldnt buy it because of reasons like the software is so oriented towards mainstream. Roon is now duplicating functions and competing with the brands it runs on. In the long run we will see a race to the bottom for those poor hardware makers when price becomes the main differentiator as Roon dictates the features and the sound quality. The reason no-one built a preamp on Roon is the economics of Roon - the only ones that can do it are Roon themselves.
The current economic model as a Roon customer is not a nice one. If you pay yearly (to get lowest rent) after 5 years with Roon and Qobuz (not sublime) you have spent UKP 1.150 and when you stop paying you lose every second of music. You cant even play what you have stored locally.
But despite the unfavourable economics there is a big demand and people like it very much. And I repect that even if I personally still carry on where my ears lead me!!
A NUC is a small format pc. It can be dedicated to running Roon Rock which is their own Linux based operating system for running Roon software. They are a DIY alternative to a Nucleus although I bought one with Rock and Rune pre installed. You can save a considerable sum over the nucleus for a similar specification.
I found Roon was unstable on my iMac, which was some way from my NDX2 and subject to WiFi issues, so the two combined made it difficult to use. I have my NUC pc in the lounge hardwired to the router and NDX2 via EE8 switch.
It is now completely reliable. Maybe it sounds a bit better. That’s a difficult one to say. It is quite capable of running Roon DSP if I choose to. I also have a separate flash drive installed if I want to store music locally. I’m not sure if I ever will, but the additional cost was negligible.
I like having Roon self contained and independent of the Mac. It is definitely faster on searching etc as well.
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