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

Evand you’re joking, right?

I don’t need to run any software to prove there is a difference. I run my ears.

Many Zenith SE owner have testified to the LMS player beating Roon for SQ by a large margin.

The onus is not on me to prove it. The decision is for Roon to decide if they are serious about SQ or would prefer to focus on gimmicks like casting the image of what you’re listening to, to a TV screen.

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Not at all. Roon were clear as to what is required to have them invest time here. You’re making an unsubstantiated, subjective claim based on nothing more than opinion and expect them to investigate, yet you’re not prepared to do anything more.

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Step 1. Enable Roon Server on the myinnuos.com controller page.

Step 2. Listen to a track playing.

Step 3. Disable Roon server and enable the LMS player.

Step 4. Listen to same track and wow it sounds WAY better.

How in holy hell is that unsubstantiated?

Roon markets itself as audiophile software so I don’t think I’m being unreasonable in asking them to spend some time exploring improving the SQ.

It’s just your sayso, could simply be cognitive bias.

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If there is any difference it is probably due to the zenith which is not really up to running the Roon Core.

Have you tried running the Roon Core elsewhere on your network and using the Zenith as a Roon endpoint only? Does that make any difference.

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Actually I think the request is totally unreasonable until you get a good separate endpoint and try that. Roon has architected what should be as good as memory playback, which you say you won’t try, and instead you want them to consider what would be likely to be almost a complete reconfiguration of how their system works.

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If you are asking me, quoting my other thread, no, I have not. Simply because I don’t own an Innuos, and was asking people who did

@evand cognitive bias! That’s brilliant. Tell me, are you here all week or is your comedy show today only!

@James_I I understand the endpoint argument. But to repeat what I said earlier I had an endpoint. Actually a couple endpoints, the original MicroRendu and the 1.4 upgraded version. But I then bought a high end Zenith SE server where Innuos had done such a great job it no longer needed an Ethernet endpoint to shield it from noise on the server. Put simply the Zenith straight to DAC sounds better than the Zenith to MicroRendu to DAC.

So yes, I can buy an endpoint. But it’d have to be a very good one to surpass or match my Zenith in terms of low noise.

Or I can save myself a grand and 119 bucks recurring annually by listening on the LMS server because Innuos achieved what Roon didn’t care about and improved the all important SQ thru paying attention to what other innovations were happening out there.

Beyond that I’m out on this thread as its getting unproductive trying to explain that this is a software request and getting told I need more hardware as the answer.

Thanks for the feedback. Even the cognitive bias hoot!

Over and out.
Alan

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As long as you’re in need of amusement I’ll be here for you.

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OK I didn’t see that you’d put in that effort to truly validate that decent-quality endpoints didn’t improve the sound quality. I have to admit that has me scratching my head. In theory the .wav (or dsd) stream shouldn’t be that different from memory playback, if the endpoint device is of good quality.

I don’t have any inherent bias against memory playback either, but I assume that it must affect the user experience substantially - loading time etc.

It would be an interesting experiment if there was a way to have Roon use memory playback and compare that to what you hear via LMS.

I suspect that Roon doing memory playback won’t cure it. You’d likely have to do away with much of the interface and high function of Roon to get back to the low level of processing that memory playback is supposed to entail.

My understanding is that memory playback is meant to minimize anything else the computer is doing, and if you’re using Roon otherwise you’re not accomplishing that anyway. Even minimal overhead on watching folders, background processing and all that Roon does is why it’s on a core separate from an endpoint.

I think the changes to Roon that would be required to make it benefit from memory playback would either (1) take it away from being Roon, or (2) still require a separate endpoint, probably a limited subset of current devices that have sufficient memory, to which the audio stream is fed into memory and then played back.

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It may or may not, benefit is not a given.

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I think the thing to remember about the LMS situation is that this isn’t the work of Logitech or anyone in the corporate world where LMS originated. It is an enthusiast lead evolution that Innuous have taken the time to adopt. As such Roon have supplied us with RoonBridge and if we want to run that in memory we can. But running the Core in memory is a different and in my opinion virtually unsupportable option because of the potential size of the database. So I can see the reasons why Roon are reluctant to engage in this. It would be a shit load of work to implement and support. Do we really need a Roon employee to confirm that?

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Alright, I think I have an idea. Have you tried using your ZENith as the endpoint only?

Here is their website on use of the Zenith in the Roon ecosystem:

As a Roon Player only
Connect to another system running Roon Core and use as a player only. This is useful if you plan to use Roon with computationally-heavy Digital Signal Processing (DSP) scenarios, where a very powerful computer is required to perform the heavy-duty processing, such as upsampling to DSD.

I would ignore the part about computationally heavy. Let’s see if the quality of the ZENith hardware as solely a Roon endpoint would help. I would uninstall Roon, or also install Roonbridge/RAAT, and run that alone (don’t run the Roon interface / core at all) on the Zenith.

Set up a different machine as the Roon core. Play it that way. I think that is truly the apples to apples scenario you need to suggest that Roon should consider memory playback. This compares your LMS playback to the lowest-level Roon based playback on the same device.

I’d love to hear your results…

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I could be wrong, but I thought of memory playback as having the .wav data all loaded into memory and then the computer effectively shuts down processing other than feeding that memory-held data stream to the DAC.

I don’t think it is the software interface that runs in memory - well it already partially does, but different point.

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Same guy that was developing lms for Logitech is still developing it. There’s been no fundamental change in how lms works. It’s always had the ability to decode at the server and stream that to endpoint.

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The stuff on Computer Audiophile is about running the entire application in memory I think.

The point is the evolution has not been supported by the corporate entities that originally birthed Squeezebox. They got out when the potential for profit evaporated. That actually enabled what has been done since, allowing the developer to go where the users took him.

I’m seeing if I can find that. But the title of this thread is about loading the track into RAM…

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Not a hell of a lot has been done since. LMS as it is today is pretty much LMS as it was when Logitech were still involved. It was 7.9.x then and it’s still 7.9.x

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Point taken. The thread is the “ A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming” thread. It is pretty massive but has resulted in my having a go with an AudioLinux end point. It isn’t beginners stuff though so I am yet to get things working as I would like them. But the primary point is it does seem to benefit Roon anecdotally.