Here’s a newbie Roon question…I hope one of you can please help me figure out what I need, or will what I have now work for me. I’m getting a Denon AVR-A1H receiver for the media room. which says “Roon Tested”, and I have an Asustor NAS 7004T with HDMI and Roon core running in it. I’m already using Roon ARC. Will the Denon A1H Roon Tested receiver act as the endpoint to play my ripped multichannel or hi-res files 24-bit/96/192 Khz from my NAS to Denon receiver via HDMI, or do I need to buy something else in between the two or after to make that work? I know Airplay will not play hi-res.
What’s the cheapest route to go to make it work for hi-res audio playing? I have over 10k ripped tunes and a good chunk of them are higher than CD quality. I don’t want to spend thousands for a solution…a DIY solution will work too. Please advise. Thanks in advance.
Being Roon Tested, the Denon will only connect to Roon via Airplay via the network. The unit will need to be Roon Ready to indicate that Roon can see it using RAAT (Roon transport Protocol) over the network. That being said, even if it becomes Roon Ready there is no guarantee that it will support multi-channel over the network.
Since, no one has any idea how long (if ever), that device will become Roon Ready; you might use a streamer to sit in between Roon and the Denon. One that will do multi-channel out via HDMI is the DMP-A6.
So you have the Asustor NAS 7004T already running roon and it has HDMI out. That should work as far as I can tell but the amount of memory appears to be below Roons recommendations. The specs i found online list 2gb of RAM for the NAS and I believe Roon recommends a minimum of 4gb. If you add more ram go with 8gb if possible.
HDMI out from a NUC/ROCK to my Denon 8500H receiver plays MC files up to 192/24.
Thanks for your note, Mike. The NAS memory has been upgraded to 10GB, so no issue there for the Roon core and it’s been running fine so far for my ARC. I was trying to prevent buying additional expensive streamers or servers to make it work for MCH and hi-res. I need to tap my NAS to make the most of it…what about using Roon bridge (RAAT protocol?) on a Windows 11 laptop and connecting that to the Denon via HDMI as the endpoint…will that work to play MCH out of a Roon Tested receiver? My receiver should be coming this evening.
Thanks, Rugby…the DMP-A6 is too expensive…can’t justify the price…there has to be a cheaper option…will a Roon Bridge software on a laptop connected to the Denon roon tested receiver achieve the same thing to play MCH or hi-res files? Or I can probably install the Linux roon bridge in the NAS to do the same? Is the bridge having RAAT protocol? I couldn’t find that in their material. I can’t believe Denon skimped on certifying their expensive flagship receiver before pushing it into the market when cheaper receivers have their roon ready certified…how did that happen. Geez.
Connecting the NAS to the AVR via HDMI is the only possible way to play multichannel files as far as I know. Denon models seem not to have a multichannel-capable streaming option.
Did you use the HDMI output as a roon zone already? Does it show up in the “Settings > Audio > Connected to Roon core” options?
If yes you simply have to activate this output option in roon and connect the HDMI out of your NAS to an HDMI input of your AVR. If it is not showing up you might have to activate a driver or app in the Asustor OS and select it as the preferred HDMI output.
I run such setup on a Qnap NAS and it works flawlessly but setup might look different in Asustor OS. PCM192/24 multichannel 7.1 as well as 5.1 and stereo is absolutely possible. No DSD option.
I think trying HDMI direct from NAS to Denon is the best route. Don’t see any reason to add anything else in the path unless the direct route doesn’t work.
As previously mentioned I’ve been playing MC Flac files from NUC to AVR over HDMI for 4.5 years without any issues. Looking at the signal path it shows RAAT in the path. Only issue with HDMI is Roon doesn’t play DSD. Roon converts the files from DSD to PCM for playback.
I added a separate 8 channel DAC in the path from NUC to receiver for MC DSD over Etherent.
Ah, you are right…I remember seeing a few HDMI ALSA showing under Connected to Roon core section and I was wondering where it was picking up those devices…I just have to activate each one and see which one belongs to the Asus and try it out. Good pointer, Arindal. The picture you attached helped jog my memory. Thanks. Good you have a similar setup with Qnap and confirmed it works well. My A1H is supposed to handle DSD (5.6 Mhz) file too along with FLAC (192 Khz) via USB and networks. Looking forward to trying these features out. Will circle back if I have issues. Appreciate it. Cheers.
I and several others on this forum have the exaSound S88 MKII. Pricey for me but I wanted the ability to play multi-channel DSD without the conversion to PCM. It will play PCM/DXD MC/Stereo up to 384kHz at 32 bits, and DSD MC up to 256.