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To Roon or not to Roon?

I recently have tried the 14 day trial of Roon and I could not get Roon to sync with my Auralic Aries G2.1 LD Lightning app and after a couple of days of trying everything my LD Lightning app itself went wonky and started to skip tracks and not play. I had to reinstall the Lighting app and restart my Aries. I read online where some people just preferred the sound of the Lightning app as opposed to the Roon app. Is Roon worth the trouble and expense over the Auralic Aries app which is pretty good on it’s own. I spent a lot of time with Roon and it just messed up my streaming setup. Any advice would be appreciated.
128x128mitchb
sns
3,241 posts
 

Another plus for Roon, integration with Tidal, Qobuz, embedded HQPlayer if so inclined, great graphics, information about artists, playlists, saved personal playlists, Roon radio, excellent sound quality, I could go on and on.

 

Vast majority of issues I see are network related. Use wired network with server capable of decent processing capability one should have no problem.

 

The proprietary nature of the Lightning app and connectors is the reason I left Auralic.

jerrybj
862 posts
 

I'm considering using Roon for my music, and possibly Qobuz.

Are there any advantages to having an Intel Nuc as the core vs a MacBook Pro?

pdreher's avatar
pdreher
1,211 posts
 

I switched to Roon about a month ago and have been totally delighted.  I went with a Roon Nucleus paired with an IFi Zen Streamer as the Roon endpoint... all for less than $2K.

jbuhl's avatar
jbuhl
984 posts
 

I tried Roon on my MAC Mini  as a trial.  Didn't like the setup with all the MAC updates and the flaky behavior of my old Mac Mini (slow).  I work with DB servers as a living and have affinity for dedicated hardware.  So I jumped in with both feets and got a SGC ST and bought a year subscription of The ROONs and switch my Bryston Pi to an Roon Ready.  At first the SQ of my little Bryston BDP-pi and MPD was better.  But after network tweaks I got Roon really close.   I was on the fence about keeping ROON but when I realized SONOS connects can be endpionts I decided to keep it. I even had a W4S moded connect that actually sounds purdy good for being as old as it is.   People are  dumping the old connects left and right for dirt cheap.  I put one on a desktop and in the garage. I fired up the Roon app on my old mac mini and realized it recognized the little Audio Engine headphone DAC/amp I had connected to it so now I can stream directly to that via ROON.  Hell, I can even stream back to the iPAD that I use to control it with, crazy.   I suppose the Roon app will see audio output devices where its running. 

jbuhl's avatar
jbuhl
984 posts
 

Little clip of the iPAD functioning as the Roon controller and Endpoint.

Qobuz-->RoonCore--iPAD-USB-24/192-->DAC-->AudioEngine

 

 

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