Linking to RoonServer over Roon core on MacMini where the subject is diverging / being hijacked (!) and would be better addressed here. 
I got the results I wanted with a dedicated fanless PC running Win10, Fidelizer and RoonServer. Down the chain is Stello U3 converter and AudioNoteKits DAC 4.1LE. The Roon iPad app makes it work smoothly.
i3 processer, separate OS SSD and 1T SSD with mainly ALAC music files.
Question I have for the audience here, what additions to Fidelizer do AudioOptimiser and Project Lasso provide? There was a nice improvement from Win7+JRiver going to my current system.
I also wish for a PC app that does what the iPad app does.
A PC app to use as remote? Itās already there, just install another Roon and choose remote 
I used AO on win server 2012, fundamentally it helps to disable the unnecessary processes and also optimizes the core system components for the best sound reproduction.
Process Lasso allows you to optimaze the usage of the system resources for various applications running. For example, you can set the process priority and assign CPU cores to the audio player software. It basically, allows you to run the audio software with much less interruptions which leads to a better sound reproduction. I found that PL significantly reduces the system resources usage during the playback, CPU runs cooler and the battery runs longer on my dedicated audio laptop.
Richard,
Seems like you know Amarra well. I can get ASq+ to work with Roon, but get random clicks and pops, to the point that I donāt use Amarra. Looking around the forum I found someone who had the same issues but they were resolved when they upgraded to Win 10. Are there buffering settings in Roon or Amarra that can be tweeked? I am using a new Macbook Air to a Devialet 120. It happens whether I go direct with a USB cord or go thru a USB/SPDIF converter. Any thoughts? I contacted the Sonic Stream folks but they are not responding.
Thanks,
Dan
Dear Dan,
Thank you for your kind words. Yes, I know AsQ+/A4T (Amarra For TIDAL) both with iRC and Amarra Symphony with iRC, as I am a beta tester (volunteer basis since 2011). I am sorry to learn you are experiencing pops and clicks with AsQ+ and roon. As a contrast frame, I am not experiencing any pops/clicks. Iāll add my signature from Computeraudiophile.com to provide you wth my system.
I gather you have turned off Exclusive Mode for Sonic Stream as your Zone (otherwise it wonāt produce sound). Obviously, with the information you provided about your system which is sparse, i.e., build version of the software, OS software, drivers etc., such that the possibilities for what might cause pops/clicks are varied.
I employ the latest builds of every software program that may be involved in playing music through roon and AsQ+. And, because I do beta test, I am using the latest beta builds that are have not yet been published. But I do not think that is the reason for the absence of those peccadillos that are spoiling your enjoyment with roon and AsQ+.
Also, I do not employ Windows software other than Win 7/VMWare on my iMac. But do not use that system for music.
I also regret that you are being ignored by Sonic Studio, and in particular, Amarra Support. What a contrast with roonās support staff and principal owners. I am actually embarrassed by Sonic Studioās silence in response to your request for support.
As much as I would want to help, I donāt think I could assess what might be the triggers for the pops and clicks compared to the experience Amarra Support would provide given their exposure to the OS/hardware/software combinations they have experience with.
I know you donāt need me to state the obvious given that youāve come to me when the best experience should come from Sonic Studio. But I would email them back with a request for support and a remote session, if that is possible, to help identify and sort out the possible solutions.
Sorry I canāt be more helpful. I would wish that I could.
Feel free to let me know what you discover, if you care to.
Hoping you solve this issue sooner than later.
Best,
Richard
Software: OS X El Capitan, iTunes, Amarra SymphonywiRC, Amarra sQ+wiRC, Amarra For TidalwiRC, Audirvana Plus+, BitPerfect & DSD Master, Decibel, Fidelia, HQPlayer, Pure Music, roon & Dirac Live (Full), TIDAL HIFI; Computer: Mac Mini (2011, 2.7 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo i7, 16GB, int. SSD 256GB); Video: 27" Cinema Thunderbolt Display; Storage: Promise Pegasus 18TB R6 Raid 5 & 12TB R6 Raid 5; Digital: Oppo BDP-95; Wyred 4 Sound DAC-2 DSDse & Femto Grade Clock Mod; Uptone Audio JS-2 LPS, USB Regen Amber, MMK (Mac mini DC-Conversion / Linear Fan Controller Kit ); AudioQuest JitterBug X2; Atlona AT-HD577; Preamplification: Wyred 4 Sound STP-SE Stage 2; Amplification: W4S SX1000 (x2); Bryston 10B Sub LR 50Hz, 24dB/Octave/2-way active crossover; Speakers: KEF Reference 107; JL Audio F112 x 2 set to mono on Sound Anchor stands; KEF X300A on Sound Anchor stands; Cables: Light Harmonic LightSpeed USB (standard); Synergistic Research: Active SE USB, Tesla LE Acoustic Reference & Precision Reference XLR ICs, Tesla LE Acoustic Reference speaker cables, Tesla LE Subwoofer 2 cables, Tranqility Base, QLS9 & T2 power cable; Black Cat Veloce 75 ohm; DH Lab Silver HDMI 1.4; W4S P1 Ultra Power cables; DH Labs Power Plus AC Cable; Shunyata Venom 3. Pioneer BDR-208. iPad Air 2. Limited Edition NY Chrome Pono Player.
Dear Dan (again)
Part II: Itās no secret, in other words I am not violating any NDA, though I keep my experiences to myself prior to the official publications by Sonic Studio, that it behooves you to get AsQ+, with or without iRC, to your satisfaction as shortly there will be an A4T remote app release from the App Store, and over some time frame (donāt know ā really!) a remote app for AsQ+. As Sonic Studio has already posted this information at their own website, I am not violating any confidentiality.
I believe the remote apps will work for both OS X and Windows. Just wanted to add an incentive, which I am sure is high already, for getting AsQ+ to play nicely.
Hope Sonic Studio responds to your request for support,
Richard
Add me to this so called minority. Easy to make statements about minorities or the ubiquitous silent majority.
My player of choice before ROON was Audrivana. I with others was seduced by ROONās GUI and subscribed. Happy with the sound until a passage of music sounded distorted. Playing in A+2 the passage was clear. A/Bāing the 2 players A+2 was definately sounded better in my no where near a high end system and probably not even mid level. So for serious listening I have been drawn back to A+2.
With the integration of ROON and HQPlayer was curious. After downloading a trial of HQPlayer bought the license within 1 day. I have never heard computer based music so musical with no fatigue.
ROONās GUI with HQPlayerās SQ, heaven.
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Hello Keith
[quote=āk6davis, post:57, topic:3621ā]
The first of these Iāve set to āpoly-syncā which is recommended if your server has the processing power for it. [/quote]
How much processing power would that be to be on the safe side?
Would a Core i5 gen.5 with 8 GB RAM suffice, when driven headless as RoonServer? Could the power demands increase in the near future?
Thanks in advance for your guesstimation.
Sorry Cristoph, Iām only now seeing your message.
I run a higher end Core I7 and it handles HQP with ease. There is a short wait the first time music is played in a session as all of the filtering gets set up - once. That delay may be a bit longer with a Core I5, but itās not a big deal. I imagine that beyond that, your experience with a Core I5 would be similar to mine.
That was the short answer to your question. Iāll offer you some more info about whatās worked for me that you may find interestingā¦
Sending bit-perfect data to a DAC with no DSP is not a demanding task, so lower powered servers were (and are) popular with idea being that the less the computer is doing the better. But once I decided to upsample everything, all the time, I went in the opposite direction and got the most powerful Core I7 available at the time.
To take things further, I wanted to combine the benefits of heavy DSP with the benefits of server that is loafing, or doing as little as possible. jPlay is an app that (among other benefits) allows you to run two servers. The first server runs your audio applications, the GUI, etc. while the second server (which is connected to the DAC) does nothing at all. In fact my second server runs in a hibernate mode that jPlay makes available.
Initially, I had my doubts that this arrangement would very beneficial. Recently, I was experimenting and temporarily ran my rig with a single server. I was eager to switch back my dual-server rig. It turns out that the improvement it makes is significant. Obviously, adding an additional computer to your rig is not a trivial thing, but I wouldnāt be without it now.
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There is a thread on Computer Audiophile that is quite active on this very topic. Many of the posts seem to indicate that they tried HQ player and decided that ROON on its own sounded better! I havenāt tried HQ player but must say that ROON sq has improved recently.
I disagree with this. In my setup using HQP along with Roon has greatly improved the SQ over Roon alone.
I think it depends, greatly, on your DAC and what you are used to hearing.
My experience with HQP + Roon was that it changed the sound, noticeably, but I didnāt care for the sound after playing around with the various filters.
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Yes, ROON sounds much better now. The best results I heard after separating the core from the playback (the bridge) on different computers. After that I tried HQP and was quite happy with the change. Different filters and output formats of HQPlayer allow to tweak the sound for a specific DAC and setup.
I ended up upgrading my DAC to a tube DSD DAC (musical paradise mp-d2) and now use HQP to upsample everything to DSD256. The result is the best I ever had in my system. So, ROON+HQP+DSD DAC sounds way better than when I heard ROON 1.1 several month ago.
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Iād agree very DAC dependent, but with my Unison Research CDDue HQP (DSD128 / poly-sinc-shrt-mp / DSD5v2) does change the sound but IMO for the better, to my ears it reduces the harshness and digital edginess you do get and personally, Iām a vinyl junkie (4000+ lps) and I find Iām getting closer the that sound using HQP converting to DSD128 over just Roon.
Oh my. Iām still having all of your original problems from last year and agree with your sonic evaluation. My server is 30ā feet away, all wired ethernet, streaming to a Bryston BDP-2. I havenāt run an AO on the server because I use it for other things and Iām not sure what running AO would do to other processes. To eliminate the computer as a source of problems though, Iāll try a simple external networked drive and see if that helps.
I love Roonās interface, but if it canāt hit the quality I get from the same player using MPD and Roon canāt offer other streaming servicesā¦
As a devotee of the Amarra Symphony with iRC sound quality and beta tester since 2011, over the last several months with only one update after iTunes broke the latest Amarra Symphony build, and a persistent intermittent stutter stop at the end of a track that occurs randomly as far as I am able to assess, I just stopped employing Amarra Symphony, and deferred to roon.
Several other changes led me to assess roonās latest build as the best yet in sound quality and ease of operation. By ease I do not include selecting albums which seems easier in iTunes than in roon which for me includes making reservations in advance to reach the album I am seeking whereas in iTunes itās within seconds.
On the advice of several knowledgeable (in my opinion) audio enthusiasts, I removed from my present system the Bryston 10B Electronic Crossover which had been recommended to me by the same individual who sold me the JL Audio F112 X2 in 2011. Hello! roon just sounded better immediately. I had already given up on Amarra Symphony with iRC (sadly I assure you) and then made another significant change. I replace every cable for my 2Channel system composed mostly of Synergistic Research ICs, speaker and power cables and a few DH Labs cables (power and HDMI) and one Black Cat Digital. A QLS9 power strip and a dozen or so of the bricks used to power the SR cables.
I chose Nordost Heimdall 2 Power cables, QB8 Mark II and QV2 and all Heimdall 2 ICs and Speaker cables save for Blue Heaven Power cables and ICs for the JL Audio F112. And Hello part 2. My entire library raised several rungs on the SQ ladder played through roon nakedly and without the benefit of HQPlayer which I also enjoyed in tandem, but only added a level of complications that I can not say made enough of a difference to add to the complexity. Not opposed to working with Jussi Laakoās HQPlayer which I have employed for years. Rather roon renders the music in AIFF and DSD up to 128 without issue and with a level of enjoyment that is āgood enoughā which for me is not a compromise but recognition of a much improved build.
The synergy of roon with Nordost QRT and cabling and my W4S components without the Bryston (nothing wrong with Bryston, itās good as new and now sitting on the sidelines with no intentions of re-introducing) is truly an enjoyable listening experience. As good as the SR cabling is, the Nordost was sensory discernibly better in my experience. No only how it sounds, but how it feels about the way it sounds, which is the same criteria I apply to roonās builds throughout its evolution. I left out the Curious Cable Loom for USB having removed my long time LightSpeed (0.8M/red/standard) and the Regen in favor of the wonderful W4S Recovery USB Reclocker which is in my opinion a finer product in performance compared to the Regen (subjective but my subjectivity).
I also left out the change in racks from an BDI Icon 5 shelf component rack to a Steve Blinder extra wide three tier rack of black anodized alumunium and Maple shelves. The experience with the SBD rack was a disaster when the black lacquer Maple shelves were delivered to me in a finished condition that was, well, a disaster in finish. I kept them anyway and chose to employ the rack, but would never ever do business with this vendor.
roon has come a long way in my estimation since I joined as a life member from the very onset. I did not need any real trial time to decide. I knew at once roon was going to be a wonderful product that would be innovated far from the maddening crowd. Compare that with the other fine products, i.e., Richardās BitPerfect, Robertās Pure Music, Jussiās HQPlayer, even Decibel and Fidelia and, of course, Damienās Audirvana Plus (never tried JRMC), and roon offers a total experience that for me does it all and at a level of excellence I feel so comfortable about employing. I am aware of the better sound and the topic of this thread. The sound is better. Much better. And, yes, the sound also includes the rest of what member users experience with their systems that may be as essential as the sound quality to the enjoyment of the music.
In fact, last Friday, for the first time ever, I launched the remote program on my iPad Air 2 in the same room as the roon core playing on my Mac Mini mid 2011 (Thunderbolt edition) and suddenly, the remote program app lost connectivity over and over again and could not regain that connectivity forcing me to get some exercise to enjoy the improved sound as I was playing tracks and not albums. But thatās a matter for another thread topic.
Thank you roon for the improved sound and for all that you do to deliver the level of enjoyment of music with the plain vanilla roon thatās good to gol
The musicās the thing; the equipment seduces,
Richard
I have used Roon from the start with a Laptop core and Meridian MS200 endpoints.
The sound has not changed for me at all. I can never remember it being worse than my previous Sooloos set up, in fact the sound was identical to my ears. If it was worse, I probably would not have joined.
Today the sound is the same and equal to my usual Meridian 596 CD/DVD player through my main system. I do occasionally spin discs.
I am sure a better system you yield even more but I do t think, from my experiance, that it has anything to do with Roon software in my case.
Chris
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Roon was meant to be bit perfect to start with. Could it be more bit perfect now (or bit perfectorer perhaps TM dpstjp)?
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Iāve long ago jumped the train to hi fi nirvana. Becoming obsessive about sound just became very expensive and somewhat vexing.Once Iād moved away from this I was able to get back to the music. My modest system does not get in the way of the music. My father in law has a system that costs 10s of thousands. When he listens to my system he frequently comments on how clean, accurate and satisfying the sound is. We donāt talk about bit perfect this or jitter that.We just enjoy what the system produces. Iāve had more fun trawling the budget hifi alleyways than Iāve had in years. I takes me back to the time when I saved Ā£200 to buy a full second hand hifi ensemble. My system then was a Pioneer turntable(my wifes), a Marantz cassette deck,a Sony Tuner, Wharfedale 505.2 and a Philips CD player. I loved it.I think my diversion into obsessions about sound took away the fun and enjoyment of what hi fi is all about.
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