Roon can be installed on some QNAP NAS’s although most will be under the minimum recommended specification as the Intel ones are generally Celeron processors which are not favoured by Roon. Having said this I had it running on a TS 453-Pro using an external SSD for the Roon database for a time until I was sure Roon was for me.
I moved to an NUC as I found the performance inconsistent, the NUC, even the i3 which I bought is much faster. However I was using the QNAP during a ‘difficult’ time for Roon and performance as there were issues with a specific release of software.
It’s worth trying as it won’t cost you anything, the main consideration is to put the Roon database on an SSD which can be external but for evaluation purposes to see if you like Roon then I wouldn’t worry too much if you don’t have one to hand.
Roon is quite an investment if you take the cost of the hardware and software into consideration so it’s worth spending some time to make sure it’s really for you.
If I can get the software solution to work, that is the way to go, I reckon given it is all open source. Looking at the Roon site, My NAS might just work for Roon database, but not well. However, I have a high end windows PC on 24/7 and a spare 110gb SSD, so no reason not to put it on that.
You are right, my NAS probably isn’t up to it, however my windows PC which is usually on 24/7 is much more capable and has an empty SSD too, so I’m installing the roon database on that, which is very straightforward. I’ve also installed the LMS to upnp software as a windows service. Looking on the thread here about this software, i’m a little concerned, it all seems a bit too easy and I expect to run into some snags when I start. I haven’t gone any further yet, because I need to trigger the Roon 2 week test period to continue and I’m reluctant to do that until I have a reasonable idea that I’m actually going to be able to use Roon with my Qute and Muso, so making some checks.
Crazy!! When I triggered the ROON trial all I had to do was switch on “squeezebox” in the Roon settings and it all just worked with both my Qute and the Muso 1 in my bedroom! Really wasn’t expecting it to be that easy. I did have an initial problem connecting to Roon core from ios, which I have on a windows PC SSD, but that was solved easily by configuring the windows firewall. So I then added Qobuz to Roon… with zero problems. Didn’t take more than an hour or so to get the whole thing working.
ROON looks exceptionally useful and solves a lot of gripes I have with the presentation on the Naim app (and Spotify for that matter) not to mention that it can integrate Qobuz - although I expect that for many people it will have a steep learning curve, given that it has entirely different ways of doing things - but it also does a whole lot that existing apps don’t - just to be able to easily see track times is a big improvement, for instance.
As to Qobuz, this looks exceptional too, particulary for Jazz and classical, which tend to play second fiddle on other streaming services (although no doubt it has a lot of the usual stuff too).
If anyone else wants to enable the squeeze to upnp software, then it is a little technical, since you need to have a basic facility with the command line (on windows systems or linux), but don’t let that put you off, as I’m sure someone here (including myself now) can step you through it. You do need to have something to act as the Roon core, which needs to be sufficiently powerful and (perhaps obviously) needs to be on whenever you are listening to music
Thanks to Alan, Josquin, Trickiedickie and everyone who helped out with this.
I wish there was a way that Naim could ‘bung an updated board’ into the Unitiqute 2, I would happily pay, say, up to 10% cost of new Atom for such a service.
Technically and commercially this might be wishful thinking?
Would be great if all integrated units were modular with respect to streamer and even pre/power amp, but I can think of several reasons why that isn’t likely to happen. In any case, the modifications Naim are adding to their latest units are firmware, so theoretically they could be added to earlier models - but maybe they didn’t put enough ROM in the their older generation or something like that. I doubt that Naim are aiming for planned redundancy in order to attract upgrade buying, since they made their reputation by supporting their products, but who knows?
In any case Roon and Qoboz were really the two things I wanted my Qute 2 to do and the software fix describe in this thread and others appears to do that already.