Does Roon download entire track into RAM? [Memory Playback Discussion]

Nope, not loaded, just trying to ascertain whether the CDP sounds better than the DAC or makes the DAC sound better.

I say ‘trap’ because I don’t understand what is gained by attaching a CD player (i.e. not a CD transport) which already has a DAC to another downstream DAC.

Would anyone put two external DACs in their chain?

Doesn’t make any sense.

May be using CDP solely as a transport … coax or optical out into external DAC. I kept a CDP connected that way for those odd occasions someone brought a CD along to listen to.

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You’ll have walk me through that, sorry can’t read your mind…

Amir again. You can bring up his tests all day long and I would discount them. He has a bias against Sonore and UpTone Audio products.

On top of that, I said ultraRendu, not microRendu.

Finally, I use my ears…not Amir’s faulty tests.

Scott, it’s not about his alleged bias, in a different thread you wrote:

So Amir’s measurements are out.
Archimago’s measurements are irrelevant because he used a Raspberry (even though he measured a lot of 9ther things as well, including the PC).
When I asked if your opinion was based on your measurements or your listening tests, you said it’s patently obvious.
You have argued an architectural point, about using a custom designed device and not a general purpose device. But the Raspberry Pi class of devices do not qualify, nor does the MicroRendu, so its not about system architecture.

So is it really just about the UltraRendu? Which power supply qualifies, in your mind?

Aside from Amir and Archimago, I take from your quote that no measurements would matter. And certainly not anybody else’s listening, as you said above. And not any examples of the archit3ctural separation other than your preferred one. So I wonder, what are we discussing here? And why?

Yes, anything Amir is out and to be avoided like the plague.

The RPi is a noisy animal and, while inexpensive, makes a poor endpoint from a sound quality perspective. Unless, of you course, you add special daughter boards with there own power supply. Then the sound quality improves. It is still not as good as more special purpose devices.

Pick some other well designed endpoint if you want…the sMS200 Neo is good too. The microRendu is good but not as good as the ultraRendu or sMS200 Neo. There are others that are very good and quite a bit more expensive.

IMHO, having tried the lot I don’t find they’re any better than a typical SOC powered by a LPSU that itself generates very little noise and also filters incoming noise. Power of suggestion and all that. Most significant differences came from two things: 1) powering the SOC using the LPSU and 2) if the DAC USB is externally powered, use a dual header USB cable and power the USB port using a LPSU also (very marginal drop in noise floor if SOC is already powered using LPSU). As far as I’m concerned these so called high-end endpoints are nothing but audiophile jewelry.

Totally agree with you. His tests and “measurements “ are pointless 90% of the time. It’s like measuring the sperm count trying to diagnose a patient with a heart condition

This is total balderdash! Roon sounds as good or better than any Squeezelite implementation to which I have listened, including iPeng.

Really Frank, what is your issue here. Fine, you don’t like Roon anymore. You think is sounds terrible and you don’t like the direction they have taken with the interface. I don’t see how Roon could do anything to make you happy. The Roon Core uses a robust TCP-based protocol to get the PCM data to the Roon Endpoints which pass that data on to DACs. Or the Roon Core sends PCM data to DAC directly. What else do you expect them to do? The PCM data can be bit perfect if no DSP functions or volume leveling is used. What does Sqeezelite do differently and better?

It seems you are complaining to just complain as you have no reasonable suggestions on how to improve the sound quality or the UI. Come with reasonable ideas or just go away!

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Roon does not sound terrible but it could sound so much better. Until Roon loads and plays a song out of memory it will not be better than the Squeezelite implementation. And it’s easily discernible. I’m angry because they could do this and I wouldn’t have to use an inferior iPeng software to get better sound.

I still like Roon. It has great potential. But after 3 years I’m not happy with the rate of progress or the response to user concerns on long standing/fixable issues

I don’t complain just to complain. My concerns are reasonable and I won’t be going away.

But thanks for defending the Roon wall at the expense of common sense

It’s a bit unfair to ask from a consumer, but provide evidence that your claims are correct, at DAC output (which is the only place that matters, you don’t listen to USB electrical graphs), and I’d bet that RoonLabs will be happy to get it done. You could also ask whoever’s selling you the memory-playback software to back their own claims up, in a way that’s independently verifiable (and not “just listen”) and share that.

How about adding some Feature Requests so we can discuss and potentially all benefit from your ideas.

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Of course that only applies to your Innuos Zenith MKII. People that use other devices like the sMS-200ultra or ultraRendu or most any other endpoint device can’t do what you are doing with SqeezeLite. Why? Because those devices don’t have enough memory nor are they user configurable at the OS level.

You are doing something that is unsupported and a little flakey based on what I have read. Yet you want Roon to implement this when it breaks their UI hurting the user experience.

All you guys in that thread over on CA have gone crazy with external clocks, low latency OSes, and now tracks loaded into memory.

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Understood @Speed_Racer & fair points.

I just know what is possible and a Roon implementation of playback via memory would be tremendous.
It is only flaky using the using the experimental Roon/Squeezelite option with the Innuos. The Squeezelite/iPeng option is rock solid (although you don’t have the superior UI of Roon).
Hoping Innuos continues to tweak this until the Roon/Squeezelite option is solid

Hello - these were listed above. I don’t have a major problem with the UI changes. My long standing issues are:

1 Want the ability to toggle between Roon or my meta tag data for track ratings
2 The absence of the above makes me have to tag all my 5 stars as favorites in Roon which is a very time consuming task and the Favorite heart is very buggy (Roon is aware)
3 I would like playback in memory to improve Roon’s sound quality. See this discussion:

I do not think the above is unreasonable

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More to the point, what this argument suggests that this particular device is poorly designed for streaming if it sounds better playing from its internal memory. There’s no technical reason why digital playback from internal memory would be sonically better than streaming playback with a properly designed digital device. Which is of course not what Innuos propaganda would have us think :wink:

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JRiver has this feature. Curiously, it is turned off by default.

This makes no sense at all. On any planet. In any universe.

Innuos makes an outstanding product. Try listening to one. They are pushing the envelope to extract everything they can out of their product, control software and interfaces with software like Roon.

Or try perusing the CA forums to see all the people who espouse playback from memory and are executing it in a myriad of ways

You believe what you want to believe. I’ve worked very successfully in science and engineering for decades, and I can make these judgments from understanding the relevant technical foundations.

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