Roon Transport

[AllanP]

@CrystalGipsy

I swapped mine for a battery pack and noticed no difference in performance to my DACs.

Good to know. Has your PI2AES hat arrived yet?

[CrystalGipsy]

No not yet. He said 4-6 wks I will be chasing him next week though. It comes with a meanwell switching PSU,which are medical grade I believe. This will power it and the pi.

[Tamarin]

@toscana

The Waversa WStreamer arrived for testing today and I will play around with it over the weekend. Will be interesting to see how it compares against my RPI with DigiOne HAT and my UQ2 via rooUPnP.
The WStreamer is surprisingly heavy and does not follow over if you accidentally touch a cable like the RPI does every other day.

Great. Let us know how you get on with it.

If you point your browser to it’s ip address there’s a “WStreamer Quick Setting” admin page. You can configure things like DSD mode, disable USB if you aren’t using it (“SPDIF only” checkbox), etc.

And it also includes an Update tab. The good news for me is that this update function now works. For some reason, it reported “No internet connection” in the past. When I ran it just now, I don’t think it actually changed the firmware version (v1.2.5), because apparently I was already on the latest. But the update functionality itself now appears to be working for me.

[toscana]

I had a short listening session yesterday comparing the RPI and the Wstreamer. Some subtle differences in favour of the WStreamer: better separation of the mids and highs as well as a slightly wider soundstage. Not better by a country mile but overall a slightly more pleasant listening experience.
The only minor annoyance is that the sync light on the Naim DAC stays on even after streaming via Roon stops while on the RPI it goes out when the stream stops.

[Tamarin]

@toscana

I had a short listening session yesterday comparing the RPI and the Wstreamer. Some subtle differences in favour of the WStreamer: better separation of the mids and highs as well as a slightly wider soundstage. Not better by a country mile but overall a slightly more pleasant listening experience.
The only minor annoyance is that the sync light on the Naim DAC stays on even after streaming via Roon stops while on the RPI it goes out when the stream stops.

Nice. Interesting regarding the sync light.

[CrystalGipsy]

Wow, for something that’s nearly 20x the price of a Pi I would want considerably more improvement than that. This kind of goes with my train of thought that the transport makes little difference when you have a good DAC. Even though I just ordered a Pi2AES board I don’t think it’s going on to change much above using the Pi via USB. But its an itch I need to scratch.

[toscana]

The comparison was against a RPi/DigiOne HAT which cost me about 150 EUR vs about 800 EUR for the WStreamer. But I get you point. For the delta you get a much nicer looking/ feeling product and some sound improvements. I am not sure yet if that justifies the extra cost. The challenge is that at this level prices are not proportional to sound improvements.

[Camphuw]

@Tamarin

However, I’d like to add Roon support to my other legacy Naim streamers (multiple UnitiQute 2’s)

I had been using a software solution: UPnP2LMS on my MacMini. This allows me to connect up my ‘Qutes in addition to a Sonore Bridge for a NDS. For the last week I’ve been testing the RooUPnP; so far it’s been fine and saves me having to reboot the Mac every time the software needs updating. I don’t know how RooUPnP handles software upgrades but it’s a neat solution.

This week I will by testing a RPi plus Digipro SPDIF solution for a friend’s B&O music server. At the moment they use the LMS solution on their iMac but they would like to access Roon through their B&O multiroom system. My friends are also interested in the RooUPnP solution.

[Thomas]

@toscana

The challenge is that at this level prices are not proportional to sound improvements.

They never are…
When it comes to high en audio, cars, watches, etc. the law of diminishing returns applies

[CrystalGipsy]

@Camphuw

I don’t know how RooUPnP handles software upgrades but it’s a neat solution.

Not sure it would need os updates as It’s self contained so you don’t need to worry about updating it unless there are bugs to fix. The extension itself I hope he has a decent mechanism for updating as at the moment I think you have to reflash it which is far from ideal.

[trickydickie]

@Camphuw

I don’t know how RooUPnP handles software upgrades but it’s a neat solution.

So far it’s been necessary to create a new SD card and then reconfigure the extension. This isn’t as neat as it could/should be.

[Tamarin]

@Camphuw

I had been using a software solution: UPnP2LMS on my MacMini. This allows me to connect up my ‘Qutes in addition to a Sonore Bridge for a NDS. For the last week

Is UPnP2LMS being maintained? 0.2.9.0 appears to be the latest, which is from May 2016.

[Camphuw]

Here’s the most recent link from last month … 1.49.13

philippe44/LMS-to-uPnP

[Tamarin]

@Camphuw

Here’s the most recent link from last month … 1.49.13

Thanks Camphuw. I see now. The “Releases” info on the github page should be ignored. The code itself is being maintained and updated.

[AllanP]

@CrystalGipsy

No not yet. He said 4-6 wks I will be chasing him next week though. It comes with a meanwell switching PSU,which are medical grade I believe. This will power it and the pi.

Has your Pi2aes arrived yet? If so, what do you think of it compared to your Allo Digione?

[CrystalGipsy]

I cancelled it was waiting too long, and then other commitments came up that needed my money so cancelled it and got a refund. Will not be bothering updating the endpoint in this case as I aim to save up for an Atom HE now.

[AllanP]

I had a look at the Pi2aes HAT. I might have had a use for one myself but looks like it’s gone up significantly in price recently, plus the HAT needs a 24v supply. By the time you add the acrylic case and the costs associated with getting it here it’s quite an expensive proposition. If your primary use for it is in a headphone setup then nowhere near as neat a solution as the Atom HE.

[CrystalGipsy]

It was only £200 when I ordered it with psu and case would not call that expensive. Have they increased it by a lot?

[AllanP]

The HAT is now $200 (was $150), case $25, 24v supply for HAT $30, shipping, dunno, maybe $50, brokerage fees $10, so about $300 / £215 plus about £35 VAT. So about £250 roughly.

[Mike_S]

I have a numpty question please. In my garage / games room I have an older Uniti 2, which has to run on wireless. Currently I can mulitroom to it from the NDX2 in the listening room, which is next door.

When my SN2 is freed up from my main system, I’m thinking of using it in the games room with a spare DAC I have in place of the Uniti 2. The thing is, I’d like to use mulitroom with it. Is there a wireless Roon transport I can use for this? My DAC (Heed) only has optical and coaxial inputs. For multi-room, I’d want to use a signal from a Bluray player connected to the NDX2 to stream to the SN2 - does Roon enable this?

My easiest option is to just run the line-out from the Uniti 2 to the SN2, forgoing Roon, but keeping the Naim multi-room. But, I think I can potentially get a better result with the Heed DAC if I can get a wireless signal to it that enables multi-room somehow.