Hello all,
It might be a silly question but I would like to know what it means that A&K SR35 is claimed to be “Roon Ready”…!?
Can someone please point out a scenario which includes the SR35 in a Roon ecosystem?
Thanks.
Best, Wolfgang
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It means that when the SR35 is connected to your WiFi, you can select it as a Roon endpoint and play to it. You should be able to plug headphones into the SR35 and hear the audio playing from Roon.
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Expanding on what Richard said:
You can run the Roon app on any Android based DAP and listen to music but if the DAP is not a Roon Ready device the audio passes through the Android Audio system and is resampled to 24/48.
Roon Ready means the device works with Roon’s network protocol: RAAT and allows bit perfect audio and higher resolution.
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Thanks a lot for your answers! 
There are obviously quite few things to learn for me as a ROON newbie.
- Do I understand correctly that the selection of available endpoints is shown in the list when clicking the “select an audio zone” button in the ROON Server software?
- And do I understand correctly that endpoints will appear there “automatically” provided they ARE endpoints? Would I see the SR35 connected to my WiFi if my Windows-PC hosting my ROON Server and my music files is connected to my network/Internet not via WiFi but via network cable?
- I was not aware about the usage of the ROON app on Android based DAPs. Thanks for this!!
Best, Wolfgang
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You’re close.
Endpoints show in Select Audio Zone but you may need to enable them in Settings>Audio.
So it’s not quite automatic.
And technically speaking you’re selecting Zones in the Roon app(s) rather than with Roon Server.
(Roon Server runs in the background on your PC. You can see it in the taskbar.
Interacting with Roon is done with the Roon app which will also be on your PC but could also be on a DAP or a phone, for example.)
There are some exceptions with atypical network setups but generally, yes, if your PC with Roon Server is connected via Ethernet cable and the SR35 (or other endpoints) are on wifi it should work just fine.
This is in fact the recommended setup.
Roon is rather demanding on the Network and it works best if Server is connected via Ethernet cable.
Welcome to the wormhole.
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Hi Jeff,
thanks a lot for the quick explanation - much appreciated!
You are right, I will have to pay more attention to correct terminlogy 
I guess I will give a try to this additional device.
Thanks for your help.
Best, Wolfgang
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If your after portable Roon device for headphones I strongly can recommend trying a FiiO M11 Plus or S over the Astell&Kern they work extremely well as Roon Ready headphone devices and sound great. I had an Astell&Kern one before this, but returned it as it just wasn’t reliable enough with Roon, would loose network connection all the time or Roon would crash on it and stop working only a reboot would restore it.
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Aha…
Good to know.
Thanks for the advice
Depending on your equipment you might find multiple options for them in the Audio settings of Roon.
For example my Cambridge Audio CXNv2 is Roon Ready and that gets used by default. But AirPlay and Chromecast are also options which I could use.
Nice option if you wish to group multiple endpoints into a single group so they all play the same music at the same time. They do need to be using the same protocol though (for example AirPlay).
Yep, I do get the hang slowly…
My main gear is a MXN10 by Cambridge Audio, so things are looking a little bit like at your end.
It would be nice to have some mobile player in addition.
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Well there is a mobile player in the form of Roon ARC. It allows you to stream music from your Roon Server to your phone both on WiFi and on cellular.
It is the sister app to the normal Roon app. It has to be configured in Roon to get it to work properly.
From what I’ve been reading is that the MXN10 is a very nice piece of equipment. 
I am aware of ROON ARC.
I does not work “right away” for me, my router and my ISP… for some reasons, still unknown. I will dig deeper into this after Christmas.
And yes, the MXN10 is a fine piece of hardware
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It took me awhile and some help from folks here to get my dual router setup configured.
But once all settings were correct, it has been continuously running here.
ARC is far Fromm being Roon when in the home or away. Misses way too many features. A Roon Ready dap gives you a purpose built device no dongles and full Roon capabilities so no limitations.
With the one limitation that it doesn’t work mobile, of course
ARC is an option as a portable player but for using at home, an advantage of a Roon Ready player like FiiO or AK is that it should have a good DAC and headphone amp to drive high quality headphones. You can achieve similar results running ARC but it is more clumsy with adapter and DAC/amp hanging off the phone.
DAPS can run ARC too remember, a little thing called hotspots ot free Wifi.
Not just that, its a better experience fullstop. Arc is too light cant transfer to my main system or other systems in the house its closed off, other than using its Airplay which is iOS system led so depednant on the phone completely.
Sure but then with free wifi it’s not fully mobile and with a phone hotspot it has another dependency. They can be a great solution depending on what the goal is. I was just adding the remark because it is a limitation and I thought the ongoing discussion was about mobile