Hi all. I’m happy to find you.
I’m an experienced home audio person, but am a total newbie to streaming. I’m hoping that you’ll excuse a couple of very basic questions.
I’ve not yet downloaded Roon. I’m currently streaming using Tidal—Simaudio Moon 280d----audio system. That is working great. But I want to start ripping part of my CD collection and playing it through this system, with Roon. The Moon is a streaming DAC. My w-fi router and desktop are downstairs, while my entire audio system, including the Moon, is upstairs. I have a very strong wi-fi signal to that location. I’d like to avoid investing in a NAS at this time, if possible. Would this work:
The desktop is plugged into the modem.
Rip CDs to an external hard drive, plugged into the desktop.
Will the streaming DAC upstairs (the wi-fi router is plugged into the same modem) “see” the audio files on my desktop (presuming, of course, that the desktop is awake), and therefore be available for playing?
Again, many thanks for any help for this ignorant professional musician!
Jenn
If you run Roon core on your desktop, there is generally no problem using a USB hard drive for your music files from a performance perspective. Roon core itself runs much better on SSD for its DB, and that is likely the more important component specification.
Have you read the intro information about Roon’s design? I’d start there if you haven’t already:
It depends on your house geometry, materials etc, WiFi doesn’t do well with concrete walls. That said rip a few albums , create a folder say Music library and play
If you are all std CD res you should have few issues. Hi res may need an ether net cable
Download the trial 2 weeks when you have time go dedicate to really try it there is a steep learning curve
You certainly don’t ever need a NAS. I have an external drive attached to my ROON Core and it works very well. The combination of Tidal streaming and ripped local files tied together by ROON is a real pleasure to use. I prefer to have an Ethernet connection but I am conservative. Ripping a large cd collection is time consuming, so a robust data backup plan is essential.
Sunrise (Jeff)
Ripping a large cd collection is time consuming, so a robust data backup plan is essential.
I’d definitely agree with that.
Although I’ve not yet started my Roon trial I’ve been streaming ripped CDs for decades using another system. For me there is a positive advantage of having my rips stored on my main PC. I already have a really strong backup procedure for the documents, photos etc that I store on my main PC (real-time online backups to two separate cloud backup providers plus other real-time or near-real-time backups to other local hard drives) so adding my ripped FLAC files to the data drive that already gets all this backup attention on my main PC gives me more robust protection that relying on a NAS.
The nice thing about CD rips is also that, once done, they are quite static so although in my case it took weeks for my cloud backup services to get them all uploaded they now put no additional load on my incremental backups to the cloud.
“The desktop” would then become the Roon Core. What would be important here are a few things:
The configuration of the desktop - processor, hard/SSD drive, RAM, graphics specification - the larger one’s music library the more powerful computer one will need for the Roon Core. As stated above Roon runs best from an SSD. Also Roon is fairly graphics intensive so the better graphics one has the better and faster Roon runs.
Using an external hard drive connected to the Roon Core via USB is not a problem.
The DAC will see “Roon” and not the individual audio files. One then controls the audio via Roon, which can be controlled via the Roon app installed on a smart phone, tablet, laptop, etc.
I know that all of this sounds complex but once one understands how Roon works it’s really not all that complicated. Download and install the Roon trial and be sure to ask the Roon Community any questions that might arise.
One can also get great advice here on the Roon Community on how best to rip and properly tag (proper tagging is very important) one’s CDs and on what type of computer one would need based on the size of one’s music library.
THANK YOU EVERYONE! Roon is now on the desktop and iPad and working great. It is “seeing” and playing the music that is in the desktop. Today I’ll rip a few CDs to see if that is working, but all signs point to “go”. Again, THANKS!
Like many of you, I have MANY CDs, and don’t plan to rip those that are in Tidal, but rather just the ones that aren’t, including personal performances, rare, unreleased live performances, etc. Great idea from Mike on that. This is fun!
Reliability can be a factor. As rights permissions change over time in different countries you can find versions dropping out of your library and being replaced by versions that have to be added to library again.
So long as you hang on to the CDs you can rip them if and when they go missing form your streaming service. I think that is what I would do now though I ripped all my CDs long before cd resolution streaming services were available.
Andy mentioned one point. Albums on Tidal/Qobuz do drop off and get replaced with new versions that require you to re-add and potentially re-edit them. But, that is not the main reason for me.
But, it is sound quality in terms of version control.
When you listen to an album, one of the most important things about it is the mixing and mastering. The mastering of an album and its dynamic range means more than it being in high res, imho. Re-masters, sadly, rarely produce a step forward in sound. Usually, the remaster add a lot of compression, destroying the dynamic range of the music. The difference is stark.
Streaming services will only offer the latest provided version by the record labels. So, when a new version or remaster comes out, you have no guarantee that the older versions will be retained and you might be stuck with only the new and crappier sounding version.
Thanks. I didn’t consider that stuff on Tidal can come and go! I certainly agree about compression. Yuck. I hang with a bunch of ProTools wizards, and I hear the effects of over-compression now quite clearly.
Probably but there is also little doubt that many of the early CDs were pretty awful too. There are also many really good more recent masters too. I guess you just have to listen and see.
Having your own CD enables more control, however you have to buy the CD to find out if it is any better and you have to be able to find CDs of specific masterings.