If I travel, a laptop with ROON, an explorer 2 and some music files does all I need. Nothing technical required.
@Chrislayeruk, I’m exactly the same. That is all I want to travel around with. But I also want to play to something external to the laptop when working in a hotel room. I actually bought a Bose Soundlink for that. Bad move. It was “confiscated” on my first trip to Lagos, Nigeria.
Once bitten. Twice shy. What I want to do now is play to whatever happens to be lying around in the hotel room whilst working. Usually a DNLA enabled TV. My work around is I use JRiver or Foobar to play and if I have some spare time I catch up with my conversion backlog on roon. In all likelyhood this probably means that I will have double work when I get home because I cannot merge or sync roon libraries.
Maybe others have more sophisticated “coexistance” strategies or solutions or even other issues created by their listening habits. I am interested in hearing.
We have plans for this case, and it does not involve UPnP or file browsing.
What you want is a (future) mobile-friendly Roon solution on your Android/iPhone + an optional USB DAC like a Chord Mojo. If you need an external solution with sound capabilties, there are already a ton of nice portable BT speakers.
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It’s the external sound device that is the critical requirement. I’ve already gone down the portable BT route. It hasn’t worked for me because:
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On some of the long-haul travel I do an inexpensive BT device is actually a luxury item subject to arbitrary confiscation at customs.
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On short-haul within Europe, arbitrary confiscation at customs borders is not an issue but space in an already small cabin trolly bag is. I have had broken laptops and other devices because of over crammed overhead lockers. I have almost missed several flights at transit gates because of lengthy delays created by increased scanning of electrical devices.
At the end of the day, it just doesn’t work for me. I have tried several times. I do sometimes use roon with an HDMI cable when getting ready for a meeting. But not whilst working.
@Tony_Casey If you could have anything you could dream of, what would solve your very restricted travel use case? It seems anything beyond your phone will be confiscated or broken and you require something beyond your phone. I can’t resolve that since I’m clearly missing something
@danny thanks for giving this unpromising case a go.
The short answer is a laptop based system (not phone) with external speakers I don’t have to carry around. Given the context that means an inexpensive hyper-portable RAAT enabled device similar to a Chromecast. I know that many here believe that is a raspberry pie but as roon has repeatedly said in the press, that is not a solution for everyone. I built my own fanless streamer years ago and will not do it again. I don’t need a cloud solution as the chances of getting it working in my travel scenario are close to zero but I would like a solution to sync a home and a road roon. SQ is also not a consideration. Any external speakers to hand or lying around will do. A modern flat screen TV exceeds expectations.
I sense that a requirement for such a basic solution is a surprise. But it is just the context. I have a goodish system at home and will probably continue to upgrade. I was also constantly upgrading portable solutions over a period of 20 years of constant business travel. That may make sense to some but it no longer makes any sense to me. Maybe it is different in the US but I saw business travel in Europe since the mid-1990’s become a real ordeal forcing myself and many colleagues to travel lighter and lighter. The process has been relentless. Load factors on planes, leg space, security queues, transit times at bigger and bigger airports got more and more squeezed. We all had to adapt. When I had a good quality BT speaker system stolen in Africa I never replaced it and re-assessed my needs and what “portability” really meant to me. I don’t believe my use case is extreme. Maybe the frequency of my travel was greater but it was a shared experience I had with many colleagues.
One last consideration is relevant. As I got older I also found earphones became more and more of a problem. It’s a lot of the reason for a requirement for external speakers and why even a low rez TV is preferable. Most people by the time they hit their mid-40’s cannot hear much above 12-14khz. But by the time you hit your late 50’s it falls off a cliff and it’s more like 10khz. I still have a good system at home but to be honest as long as it’s a good master I cannot distinguish reliably above redbook. Sometimes with a good master I cannot reliably distinguish above 320 MP3. I can usually distinguish below that reliably regardless the master. I may not be that unusual example of an aging audiophile in having less and less interest in high rez. But I still follow the debates here on DSD and MQA with interest and cables I pick up on my travels are catnip.
My work takes me all over the world and my solution is a pair of Shure 846 in ear monitors, an Oppo HA-2 headphone amplifier/DAC and a selection of 16/44.1 music on my MacBook Pro and my IOS devices, played via VLC and KaiserTone. Portable and audiophile quality.
Just curious. Roon is not in the mix?
No Tony, don’t see the need while travelling.
Just offering another point of view.
In effect I don’t either. But I have a lot of unconverted files and time on the road I don’t have at home. So I like to convert a few files or tinker with a box set if I have the time. Being able to merge roon libraries when I get home would probably have the biggest impact.
I dont travel much these days but Lagos is a bit famous for “Confication” so I here.
I have a 128Gb Ipad and Onkyo HD Player with a Audioquest Dragonfly Red and Bose 25’s I use FLAC , but to be honest in the situation I could put up with VBR MP3 if I had to
128 is a bit restrictive but I learned to be selective. I use this in our caravan and BT to a Bose Soundlink Mini
As good as it gets under the circumstances
Mike
Yes, interesting to hear that I am not the only one for whom high rez in a mobiity scenario is pretty low down the priority list. I wounder if there is a correlation with size of library?
The system you are describing is very similar to the last goodish portable system I had before giving up. The main difference was I had noise cancelling Sennheiser’s for the plane. I can’t remember the model number. I haven’t used them in years.
It’s a long story but we have been holed up in a “summer house” in a remote part of northern Denmark for a couple of months. Back to civilization at the end of the month. It’s a bit like a “fixed” caravan. Like you I was tempted to get another Soundlink online but the priority at the time was English language TV so I got a Chromecast instead and that is when I realised that VBR/320 MP3 over a modern flat screen TV speaker system was more than good enough. No roon though. I started off with Plex just to get an Xmas vibe going, then I remembered I still have a JRiver licence.
I do use roon to double check what any conversions I have done look like. I have also been tinkering with a box set. I am looking forward to getting back to my system at home but it’s not life or death and other than maintaining several systems I quite like the lack of hassle with such a simple listening (and multi-media) environment.