i’ve been using roon for a few years. roon’s biggest benefit for me is the multi-zone functionality. i play music with roon on 1) main stereo 2) computer headphone setup 3) sonos speakers for outdoors 4) appletv, etc… if i was still in my small NYC apartment, roon is less of a selling point.
Me too - in fact that's what I do every week. No separate DAC or " Node" or music playlists from "the cloud" Its all very clever but like vinyl music lovers, I just prefer physical albums that are not later subject to copyright playback restrictions or rising monthly subscription fees.
Apple music - iPad - Wiim Mini - Modi3S - Plays far better then i had imagined resolving but not fatiguing at all, plenty of air around the sound stage.
DACs depend on uninterrupted stream of data from your PC or Streamer. If the PC or Streamer (which is some kind of PC anyways) is not optimized for extracting the music file and sending bits of data without interruption to DAC, you will just get average sound. Roon or any other player or streamer can't do much (they are just players) if the operating system has it's own way on how and when it will do this extraction and sending. And if the DAC doesn't get the data in timely manner, you will get jitter and the music will not be natural and fluid. I use Roon for streaming music from Qobuz and I am very happy about it. Why? Because Roon can be installed on a Linux system which then can be optimized for these things I mentioned earlier. And then you get uninterrupted stream of data to the DAC, which equals natural and fluid sound that is pleasing to listen. To give you an answer, no you cannot do this on Mac or Windows. It's only possible on Linux.
lol @ pc not optimized for extracting music haha. perhaps consider upgrading your hardware if this gauntlet is the only way you manage to get clean sound
Nice comment if posted 20 years ago. Nowadays DACs run without data dropouts or clock jitter at no extra cost due to proper audio system architectures. Even your US$10 iPhone DAC dongle is free of audible jitter and dropouts and reason is that there is no special costly component involved in solving these (nowadays) trivial issues. Personally I prefer using Macs for audio and run Amazon Music HD in up to 192kHz 24 bits. Exclusive mode is only a click away if I want to avoid any degrading SBR or level attenuation. Nowadays the M1, M2 and soon the M3 Apple SOCs are wonders of high performance and low power with highly optimized audio on-silicon plumbing. Frankly, stereo audio is quite trivial and it's laughable when people think it's a hard thing to perfect. Essentially every PCM sample clocked into the DAC needs to be the original stored on the source file and the clock needs to be precise. That's all there is to it and it's not any more complicated than other modern data transactions where the flow needs to serve a real time presentation layer; e.g. a 4K streaming session is much more hard to maintain due to much more data involved. Only audio data needs special ethernet cables, re-clockers and other BS. Why not using it for online banking LOL... If you think you can hear jitter on any modern digital audio gear, let me know what gear exactly. I've engineered digital audio into consumer electronics since the 90s incl. audio products and the world's first TV that had embedded TOSLINK for digital audio support incl. DTS and Dolby Digital. BTW, we resolved both jitter and data dropouts back then. I still remember a terrible issue we had with an audible audio glitch (sample dropout) that was heard once every several hours that took weeks to solve.
@@GordonFadie If you want to avoid any headaches, go with Mac OS. Mac is the industry-standard in professional studios nowadays and simple stereo playback is done with no concern at all e.g. on a modern M2 Mac mini perfect for any high-end system. I've used Windows and Linux for ages and got tired of all the issues with security, compatibility, stability, bad user interfaces etc. The audio resolution you can get through a Mac is well beyond anything you would ever want (= anything human hearing can discern) e.g. 768kHz 32 bits PCM.
I've used ROON for a number of years.had performance issues right off. I bought a nucleus+ but problems still persisted. After 5 yrs I was told by ROON support that my library of 153,000 FLAC files of PHISH and Dead is too challenging for roon. . That's all well and good BUT it took Roon support 5 yrs and $3000 of my money to tell me this. It's a wonderful product but their support model is not good
Confusing ???? Bring back the humble CD .... I now know why vinyl has made a big comeback .... it's easy to use , reliable and relatively cheap .... all this data streaming , DACs and storage devices is beyond most people ... who wants a computer tied up with their home sound system ...
You still need a DAC somewhere in the chain to listen to a CD though, either onboard the CD player or external if using a transport or using the CD player as a transport. My system is mainly configured for playing CD so as far as I'm concerned CD has never gone away. 😂 Sometimes I can't find the CD I want to play (I have 1000's all over the place) so steaming is the backup plan 😂 As for vinyl. I seriously have to be in the mood as it's a faff. Cleaning the needle after every side, cleaning the vinyl, zapping them with a zerostat, getting the tubes on the phono preamp warmed up. Not to mention the days of fun zeroing in a new needle/cart. I actually find playing vinyl quite stressful 😂. CD still #1 for me 👍
I use Roon instead of tidal because of the ability to have finer control and for the features (more audio output settings, parametric eq, cross fade times). And I also just think the interface looks better
🤔Piotr .. it all comes down to interface, features, what you prefer in terms of delivery and storage options, and what you’re willing to pay for or how much. Everybody has different preferences and needs, that’s why so much variation on the theme.👨🏻
Definition of "Streaming" is frankly, all over the map. Some manufacturers include 3rd party content providers (Tidal, Amazon Music etc) , some do not.
Those devices that offer Tidal Connect, Deezer Connect, or even lossy Spotify Connect do make it much easier such that you can turn off your freaking phone and still enjoy the music.
@@rosswarren436 As long as your music is downloaded on the phone, you don’t need an internet connection. It will play your albums and playlists you downloaded. Even all your CZcams music downloads don’t need an Internet connection to play off line. Phones today have 1 or more terabyte’s of storage space.
@@davidfromamerica1871 I simply don't like using my phone for more than a controller. Just my preference. I don't even like keeping it on most of the time. I usually kick off a playlist or an album or set up my queue in Tidal, start it, and turn off my phone or PC. The Tidal Connect app on the streamer takes over and gets the stream from the URL and keeps playing.
@@rosswarren436 I only use my phone, I have no interest in the meta data. If I want to learn about any artist I use Wikipedia. I can also use Shazam to find artists and play Shazam music download’s off line on my phone. My phone has all the audio and video codec’s built it. Dolby Atmos, Spatial audio. OLED HDR screen. Has everything I would want. I have lots of rare music artist and rare concerts that are not available on typical streaming platforms, only available on CZcams.
@@davidfromamerica1871 different strokes for different folks. Do whatever makes you happy. I just prefer the way I do it and keep the damned phone off once I start listening. I don't want any interruptions.
They call it "The audiophile player for music fanatics". It is a program (and paid service) that can act as a server, controller, and player as Paul said. It can run on a PC but stand-alone devices running Roon can be purchased or created. It is also sort of an aggregator program. It can connect to paid subscription services like Tidal and play those files, but it offers a much more robust user experience and interface, giving you background information about tracks, albums, and artists that the streaming services like Tidal don't. It also can index, display, and play music files from your local hard drive storage (a NAS) if you have one. Is it worth the additional cost to have Roon? You'd have to decide that.
In other words, you don't.... Invest in a good DAC, which you probably already have. That gives the flexibility to upgrade the streaming software part in the future. The DAC can go on for years without having to upgrade, but software changes over time, not to mention the streaming services and their protocols.
That rarely happens these days. Streamers are far better than they were even just a few years ago. Even ones as cheap as $100 work easily and reliably. The main selling point for streamers is having nearly every single album at your fingertips to listen and check out. We only dreamed of this back in the day. We'd have to buy music blindly without hearing it first based on hearing maybe a single on radio or on the recommendation from a friend. Even in the 1980s where you could go to a record/CD store and listen to albums via headphones, you only had a very limited amount of time to invest in doing that. But now, you can sit in the privacy of your own home and hear nearly "anything you want, anytime you want". For those who love music discovery or catching up on albums you heard of but never got to hear, streaming is a godsend.
@@rosswarren436 Sounds like Martin Fox needs a WiiM Mini and the WiiM Home App to play with through his Wi-Fi 😂 Everyone should at least try audio streaming these days, even the diehards of yester year. No excuse these days. It’s also mainstream It’s probably going to be obsolete soon lol
Qobuz and Spotify thru a Lenovo M8, IFI Purifier to dac, amp, headphone. Oh yeah, and a wireless mouse as a remote control. That's my streaming. Great sound.
@@martinfox2244 well then, you don’t need to make bad assumptions about other equipment, do you ? Lol Btw, you could stream to speakers too and get good sound.. I find headphones to be restrictive at times.
@@martinfox2244 that's a way to do it. I use an old iPAD in one room that way. Works OK, but I like my streamer in the living room. Just easier to use and always on ready to go.
Streamers are just an unnecessary accessory to me. I just connect my laptop with Audirvana and Tidal to my DAC via USB. Plus Audirvana has an awesome app now so you can sit back and control it with your phone.
All streaming is, is the Internet..LOL..you are personally connecting to and retrieving data from a outside data center or someone else’s server. It could be some guy sitting in his closet in Russia that has a internet connected server.
Paul's explanation wasn't really complete. Without a dedicated streamer, your computer is still involved in the process and is connected to your DAC and that's were much of the problems lie.
computers/laptops are too noisy. I like the Small Green Computer set up---an i-transporter as the core, and an ultra rendu as the streamer....Mytek DAC---ipad as remote.
i’ve been using roon for a few years. roon’s biggest benefit for me is the multi-zone functionality. i play music with roon on 1) main stereo 2) computer headphone setup 3) sonos speakers for outdoors 4) appletv, etc… if i was still in my small NYC apartment, roon is less of a selling point.
Wonder if Paul could make a video of the Boulder manufacturing facility, just for chit and giggles.
I think I'll just pull out some CDs and play them. LOL
Me too - in fact that's what I do every week.
No separate DAC or " Node" or music playlists from "the cloud"
Its all very clever but like vinyl music lovers, I just prefer physical albums that are not later subject to copyright playback restrictions or rising monthly subscription fees.
Well at least there is no confusion sets in … 😊
Paul I love your videos
Ahhh, you got me Paul... i'm confused with this one😁. Thanks for the share.
Paul you are awesome
I did the same for my corners... what rock wool are you using? (there is a lot of specialized products like 40-60 and so on)
For me it's usually Tidal to an Android phone then to an IFi Zen Blue v2 via LDAC. A CD player to the reciever's DAC is option 2.
Apple music - iPad - Wiim Mini - Modi3S - Plays far better then i had imagined resolving but not fatiguing at all, plenty of air around the sound stage.
We have thick carpet & underlay plus a large rug & fabric sofa.
That seems to be enough to condition our room Paul 🙂 🇬🇧
Do you people using Roon on your network provide security updates using that software..???
DACs depend on uninterrupted stream of data from your PC or Streamer. If the PC or Streamer (which is some kind of PC anyways) is not optimized for extracting the music file and sending bits of data without interruption to DAC, you will just get average sound. Roon or any other player or streamer can't do much (they are just players) if the operating system has it's own way on how and when it will do this extraction and sending. And if the DAC doesn't get the data in timely manner, you will get jitter and the music will not be natural and fluid. I use Roon for streaming music from Qobuz and I am very happy about it. Why? Because Roon can be installed on a Linux system which then can be optimized for these things I mentioned earlier. And then you get uninterrupted stream of data to the DAC, which equals natural and fluid sound that is pleasing to listen. To give you an answer, no you cannot do this on Mac or Windows. It's only possible on Linux.
lol @ pc not optimized for extracting music haha. perhaps consider upgrading your hardware if this gauntlet is the only way you manage to get clean sound
Nice comment if posted 20 years ago. Nowadays DACs run without data dropouts or clock jitter at no extra cost due to proper audio system architectures. Even your US$10 iPhone DAC dongle is free of audible jitter and dropouts and reason is that there is no special costly component involved in solving these (nowadays) trivial issues.
Personally I prefer using Macs for audio and run Amazon Music HD in up to 192kHz 24 bits. Exclusive mode is only a click away if I want to avoid any degrading SBR or level attenuation. Nowadays the M1, M2 and soon the M3 Apple SOCs are wonders of high performance and low power with highly optimized audio on-silicon plumbing.
Frankly, stereo audio is quite trivial and it's laughable when people think it's a hard thing to perfect. Essentially every PCM sample clocked into the DAC needs to be the original stored on the source file and the clock needs to be precise. That's all there is to it and it's not any more complicated than other modern data transactions where the flow needs to serve a real time presentation layer; e.g. a 4K streaming session is much more hard to maintain due to much more data involved. Only audio data needs special ethernet cables, re-clockers and other BS. Why not using it for online banking LOL...
If you think you can hear jitter on any modern digital audio gear, let me know what gear exactly. I've engineered digital audio into consumer electronics since the 90s incl. audio products and the world's first TV that had embedded TOSLINK for digital audio support incl. DTS and Dolby Digital. BTW, we resolved both jitter and data dropouts back then. I still remember a terrible issue we had with an audible audio glitch (sample dropout) that was heard once every several hours that took weeks to solve.
Can you recommend a version of Linux that's good for this? Or maybe just a decent website that walks one through optimizing?
@@GordonFadie If you want to avoid any headaches, go with Mac OS. Mac is the industry-standard in professional studios nowadays and simple stereo playback is done with no concern at all e.g. on a modern M2 Mac mini perfect for any high-end system. I've used Windows and Linux for ages and got tired of all the issues with security, compatibility, stability, bad user interfaces etc. The audio resolution you can get through a Mac is well beyond anything you would ever want (= anything human hearing can discern) e.g. 768kHz 32 bits PCM.
I've used ROON for a number of years.had performance issues right off. I bought a nucleus+ but problems still persisted.
After 5 yrs I was told by ROON support that my library of 153,000 FLAC files of PHISH and Dead is too challenging for roon. . That's all well and good BUT
it took Roon support 5 yrs and $3000 of my money to tell me this. It's a wonderful product but their support model is not good
Confusing ????
Bring back the humble CD ....
I now know why vinyl has made a big comeback .... it's easy to use , reliable and relatively cheap .... all this data streaming , DACs and storage devices is beyond most people ... who wants a computer tied up with their home sound system ...
Me
@@jjarango2 ... no it's not ...😂
You still need a DAC somewhere in the chain to listen to a CD though, either onboard the CD player or external if using a transport or using the CD player as a transport.
My system is mainly configured for playing CD so as far as I'm concerned CD has never gone away. 😂
Sometimes I can't find the CD I want to play (I have 1000's all over the place) so steaming is the backup plan 😂
As for vinyl. I seriously have to be in the mood as it's a faff. Cleaning the needle after every side, cleaning the vinyl, zapping them with a zerostat, getting the tubes on the phono preamp warmed up. Not to mention the days of fun zeroing in a new needle/cart.
I actually find playing vinyl quite stressful 😂.
CD still #1 for me 👍
I dont understand having roon for streaming if I can stream directly from tidal to my stream player like Denon for example.
I use Roon instead of tidal because of the ability to have finer control and for the features (more audio output settings, parametric eq, cross fade times). And I also just think the interface looks better
🤔Piotr .. it all comes down to interface, features, what you prefer in terms of delivery and storage options, and what you’re willing to pay for or how much. Everybody has different preferences and needs, that’s why so much variation on the theme.👨🏻
Totally why I like physical media......
i replaced my renderer with an isolating ddc which offers me i2s to the dac and made streaming more simple
My setup: AppleTV (Apple Music) HDMI -> Marantz 8015- Rotel endamplifier -> focal speakers --> 2 x Dali Subs
I still don’t get Roon
Nobody is forcing you to 😅
Your in trouble, don't laugh after you say my wife is in charge.
Definition of "Streaming" is frankly, all over the map. Some manufacturers include 3rd party content providers (Tidal, Amazon Music etc) , some do not.
Those devices that offer Tidal Connect, Deezer Connect, or even lossy Spotify Connect do make it much easier such that you can turn off your freaking phone and still enjoy the music.
@@rosswarren436
As long as your music is downloaded on the phone, you don’t need an internet connection. It will play your albums and playlists you downloaded. Even all your CZcams music downloads don’t need an Internet connection to play off line.
Phones today have 1 or more terabyte’s of storage space.
@@davidfromamerica1871 I simply don't like using my phone for more than a controller. Just my preference. I don't even like keeping it on most of the time.
I usually kick off a playlist or an album or set up my queue in Tidal, start it, and turn off my phone or PC. The Tidal Connect app on the streamer takes over and gets the stream from the URL and keeps playing.
@@rosswarren436
I only use my phone, I have no interest in the meta data.
If I want to learn about any artist I use Wikipedia. I can also use Shazam to find artists and play Shazam music download’s off line on my phone.
My phone has all the audio and video codec’s built it.
Dolby Atmos, Spatial audio.
OLED HDR screen. Has everything I would want.
I have lots of rare music artist and rare concerts that are not available on typical streaming platforms, only available on CZcams.
@@davidfromamerica1871 different strokes for different folks. Do whatever makes you happy. I just prefer the way I do it and keep the damned phone off once I start listening. I don't want any interruptions.
What the hell is Roon?
They call it "The audiophile player for music fanatics". It is a program (and paid service) that can act as a server, controller, and player as Paul said. It can run on a PC but stand-alone devices running Roon can be purchased or created. It is also sort of an aggregator program. It can connect to paid subscription services like Tidal and play those files, but it offers a much more robust user experience and interface, giving you background information about tracks, albums, and artists that the streaming services like Tidal don't. It also can index, display, and play music files from your local hard drive storage (a NAS) if you have one. Is it worth the additional cost to have Roon? You'd have to decide that.
It’s not difficult to find out, just search and it will be made clear!
@@rearwingnoire27 I don't do homework.
@@HansDelbruck53 And I don’t care, so we are even!
@@rearwingnoire27 Sometimes it's better to be odd than even.
In other words, you don't.... Invest in a good DAC, which you probably already have. That gives the flexibility to upgrade the streaming software part in the future. The DAC can go on for years without having to upgrade, but software changes over time, not to mention the streaming services and their protocols.
Streamers to me are an answer that has no question. I can only imagine what ons has to go through when you press play and nothing happens.
That rarely happens these days. Streamers are far better than they were even just a few years ago. Even ones as cheap as $100 work easily and reliably. The main selling point for streamers is having nearly every single album at your fingertips to listen and check out. We only dreamed of this back in the day. We'd have to buy music blindly without hearing it first based on hearing maybe a single on radio or on the recommendation from a friend. Even in the 1980s where you could go to a record/CD store and listen to albums via headphones, you only had a very limited amount of time to invest in doing that. But now, you can sit in the privacy of your own home and hear nearly "anything you want, anytime you want". For those who love music discovery or catching up on albums you heard of but never got to hear, streaming is a godsend.
@@rosswarren436 Sounds like Martin Fox needs a WiiM Mini and the WiiM Home App to play with through his Wi-Fi 😂 Everyone should at least try audio streaming these days, even the diehards of yester year. No excuse these days. It’s also mainstream It’s probably going to be obsolete soon lol
Qobuz and Spotify thru a Lenovo M8, IFI Purifier to dac, amp, headphone. Oh yeah, and a wireless mouse as a remote control. That's my streaming. Great sound.
@@martinfox2244 well then, you don’t need to make bad assumptions about other equipment, do you ? Lol
Btw, you could stream to speakers too and get good sound.. I find headphones to be restrictive at times.
@@martinfox2244 that's a way to do it. I use an old iPAD in one room that way. Works OK, but I like my streamer in the living room. Just easier to use and always on ready to go.
Streamers are just an unnecessary accessory to me. I just connect my laptop with Audirvana and Tidal to my DAC via USB. Plus Audirvana has an awesome app now so you can sit back and control it with your phone.
All streaming is, is the Internet..LOL..you are personally connecting to and retrieving data from a outside data center or someone else’s server.
It could be some guy sitting in his closet in Russia that has a internet connected server.
Paul's explanation wasn't really complete. Without a dedicated streamer, your computer is still involved in the process and is connected to your DAC and that's were much of the problems lie.
Can't Terry paint them give her a tin and a blush give her something to do
computers/laptops are too noisy. I like the Small Green Computer set up---an i-transporter as the core, and an ultra rendu as the streamer....Mytek DAC---ipad as remote.