I have been using Roon and a Roon server for more than five years. It is a lovely piece of software, but there are a lot of “buts.”
While Roon boasts a range of impressive features, I was taken aback when I encountered an issue with my Lampizator Gulf Stream Roon server. This powerful machine, when faced with any interruption, necessitates the shutdown of all DSP and upsampling functions. This was a significant inconvenience that I had to investigate. The result of my investigation is that even the producer of the most expensive streamer Roon server on the market recommends turning off all Roon’s DSPs, upsampling, and indexing functions. So, in theory, and according to the producer’s marketing, we are buying a wonder software, a mighty piece of electronics capable of providing the best. Still, after you purchase and try to use it as it was marketed, it’s surprising that all functions must be on or off, like a very basic software on a low-entry piece of electronics.
The most disturbing function for me is Roon’s search function. You have to type the exact name of the song. It is not like YouTube, Google, etc. If you miss something or make a typo, you will never find what you are searching for.
The client paying for the software and compatible hardware seems to be caught in a dispute between the electronic provider and the software provider. When issues arise, the client is left to deal with the consequences, as both providers point fingers at each other. This leaves the client with a double problem that needs to be resolved promptly.
Never had issues for me. I typed 97.9 in the search and scrolled down to the Live Radio section and all stations with that frequency were listed. Can you give a specific example?
I would have to agree with the OP that Roon search leaves a lot to be desired. It is very “unforgiving” of typo’s. There is little point in drawing comparisons with other system’s search functionality, the issue highlighted by the OP is Roon Search.
There have been many posts mentioning the poor search and while some work has been done to improve the matter the results really don’t reflect the effort.
Having read the marketing speak for your server my opinion would be that it absolutely sits with them……….all of those hand picked components that are the best that they can be and are specifically picked to run the Roon software, they have surely set themselves up to take responsibility?
And I hate to think how much it must have cost you, wow!
I’m glad I started out with a Mac Mini running 10.15 and then graduated to NUC running ROCK and a couple of cheap unmanaged switches. Have you thought about cutting your losses and returning the server?
That assumes that they actually knew what a computer component is, which does not seem to be the case. Looking at the description, they have proudly picked a Xeon CPU, which is expensive but seems to be very much NOT recommended for running Roon. Really, seems to be a rather expected result when a company that only knows how to throw overpriced pieces and buzzwords together to produce some subjectively “nice” sound makes something where performance can be easily measured, like a Roon server. Of course it would not work well, literally nothing about that box suggests that they have any idea how to design a server, let alone a dedicated Roon server.
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Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
11
Now I’m curious. Is it actually powerful? How powerful? What exactly is in the Gulf Stream? CPU, memory, etc.? From your description, it sounds like it’s not up to the job of hosting Roon Server.
Also, “The mother-board is the best we could find with really “open budget”. It is dedicated to Intel XEON processors that are used only in professional servers. It fully supports our custom BIOS and remote management in case of need to do Remote Viewer.” So it probably is pretty good for running a database server. Not for Roon, but a circa year 2005 (see below) database would be right at home on it.
But then “16 GB DDR4 -PRO type RAM (Linux will not read more ram anyway, so we decided not to use more ) , the heart of the system - embedded drive carrying our own, home made audiophile Linux version, dedicated to Roon software and our hardware. It is so lean that there is not a single line of code we can remove further.” So they also have their own Linux with broken memory management, and who knows what else, but really insufficient for running any modern workload you would want to run on a Xeon. Although something tells me that it isn’t using a particularly performant one either…
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
16
Wasn’t I just told that one should not use a XEON in a Roon server?
It’s that “custom BIOS” and “home made audiophile Linux version” that scares me. From a hardware company.
Well, exactly. But that would presume that they could read and understand (and care about) Roon’s requirements and recommendations.
I wouldn’t really call it a hardware company, like most “high-end” it is mostly a marketing outfit, and from marketing standpoint saying that they use “same processors used only in professional server applications” or whatever does have a ring to it…
I do wonder how exactly do you break Linux kernel so it does not use more than 16GB of RAM though…
Well, that you could do even on Windows, but a) WHY??!! and b) they claim that Linux will not load more. It all makes very little sense, although really it applies to all of their products anyway…
I’m not saying that it’s generally a good idea or that it explains the ■■ regarding „Linux will not read more ram anyway“. It’s just the simplest way to make it happen.
Maybe a disgruntled janitor set mem=16GB in their grub config and nobody noticed, so that they now believe that Linux can’t use more than 16 GB
) , the heart of the system - embedded drive carrying our own, home made audiophile Linux version, dedicated to Roon software and our hardware. It is so lean that there is not a single line of code we can remove further.” So they also have their own Linux with broken memory management, and who knows what else, but really insufficient for running any modern workload you would want to run on a Xeon. Although something tells me that it isn’t using a particularly performant one either…