How do I enable Audio-gc NFB-28 headphone amplifier/DAC? [Solved]

Hi Greg,

This KB page on Roon Architecture may assist.

Roon Server is pre-installed on the SonicTransporter. This is why Roon didn’t like you installing another Roon Server.

The Sonic Transporter will be your Core. No need to install Roon Server anywhere else. All audio signals will pass through the Sonic Transporter.

Install Roon on the Dell Desktop, point it to the Core on the Sonic Transporter. This is a Control, sometimes called a Remote installation of Roon. You can now use this version of Roon to configure the Core and create Watched folders where your music is stored. Roon works best when the storage is located “close” to the Core (eg: an SSD on the Sonic Transporter or USB off it) but can work by accessing network storage (such as the Vortexbox). The thing to remember is that all audio goes through the Core, so with network storage files are retrieved over the network to the Core and then music is sent over the network to any network zone. This real time duplex is fine with wired Ethernet, sometimes not so good if any part is Wi-Fi.

Controls can be Wi-Fi, the music doesn’t actually go through a Control unless it is also being used as an Output.

You can install the Roon Remote app on your iPhone, and point it at the Sonic Transporter, it is now another Control that can configure your Core. You can have multiple Queues to different Outputs controlled through either Control simultaneously.

Now let’s look at Outputs. Every Control will see all Outputs which are either network zones or connected to the Core or a Remote (unless configured as a private zone exclusive to that Remote). The iOS apps don’t have an Output (yet). So you can directly connect DACS or DAC/amp integrated devices either to the SonicTransporter or your Dell using SP/DIF, Toslink or USB.

If you want to connect to a device over Ethernet as a Network zone with RAAT then it needs to be either Roon Ready or running Roon Bridge. Roon can also connect to Airplay, Squeezebox or Meridian Network zones, but not Devialet Air or UPnP/DLNA.

Your micro-Rendu has Roon Ready pre-installed as an app you configure through the SonicOrbitor software. All your Roon controls should see the micro-Rendu as a Network zone when the Roon Ready app is selected and a USB DAC is connected to the micro-Rendu, switched on with USB input selected. That could be either your Devialet or the Audio-gc.

Unfortunately the Devialet Amp is not Roon Ready, so it will not appear as a Network zone. You can either connect it directly to the SonicTransporter or Dell, or use a network zone device (such as the micro-Rendu) to connect to it.

There are quite a few Roon members with Devialet gear who have been lobbying Devialet to implement a Roon Ready solution through firmware. So far that has not been successful, but there may be some workarounds using Squeezebox (which Roon can see as a Network zone) that I am not familiar with. Let’s ask my fellow @moderators and Steve @hifi_swlon who might best be able to guide you there.

Hope the above helps clarify things.

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Well, I’m by no means the Devialet expert (no pun intended) and no idea about squeezebox, but I can probably offer some other pointers. :slight_smile:

As much as we’d all love it, I don’t think RoonReady is realistic, not any time soon anyway. Aside from Devialet not being a customer focussed company, they’re still struggling away trying to get AIR working…and I don’t think RAAT is even technically possible on the Expert range even in competent hands (maybe the Pros if they ever release their streamer board, but who knows).

If AIR happens to work for you, you could potentially use your laptop as a RoonBridge also running AIR. I can’t remember if that setup works, it may need to be on your core machine, in which case you’re out of luck with the sonictransporter. Depends if you’re happy having the laptop running all the time.

Beyond that, it’s anything from a raspberry pi or Cubox or odroid running RoonBridge DIY style, right up to any RoonReady network streamer - ideally for you with USB or AES out.

You’ve got a microrendu so you know the score there already. You could try that on the Devialet. The sotm SMS-200 has come out since and is cheaper and according to some also better. Many people also use a USB bridge into something like a Mutec with AES out to the Devialet, and this definitely gets good feedback. The dcs network bridge should do all that in one but is hugely expensive. Personally I gave up on AIR and use a rendu.

I’d say if you’re happy with AIR, try that first, then get something along the lines of the rendu or DIY so you can have RAAT running to both your units. Or swap your rendu to the Devialet and replace it with an experimental thing.

Hope that’s of some use.

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@andybob

After your explnation of how Roon works here is the solution to uninstalling Roon Server from my Dell Desktop.

Because it was also installed on the RoonReady sonicTransporter i5 server, everytime I went to uninstall it from my Dell Desktop computer, the following message came up: “Please quit all instances of RoonServer before continuing”.

I therefore disconnected the sonicTransporter i5 server (which as RoonServer pre-installed) from my system but even then could only get rid of the message when I rebooted the Desktop computer. After that the message disapeared and I was able to uninstall Roon Server from my Desktop computer.

@andybob

After successfully installing Roon this morning, on my Dell desktop computer, I am trying to follow your instructions to set it up. The following screen shots show my choices.

In the first screen shot it asks for a Network Path. I have a Vortexbox IP address and a Vortexbox web page but where do I find the Network Path to the Vortexbox server? I suspect that this is the way to go for me because of the volume of FLAC format music on my Vortexbox Server. Another alternative may be to access the portable USB Backup drive for the Vortexbox server files.

In the second screen shot, how do I drag folders or files from my Vortexbox server (Unix based operating system) and where will these folders or files be stored.? I have over 19,000 songs in FLAC format on my Vortexbox Server so storage could be an issue. Do I have to drag them after opening up the Squeezebox software that controls playing of the music stored on the Vortexbox server?

Do NOT drag and copy anything to your Roon Folder. You need to add the network path of your vortexbox as a Network Folder. Also, you need to turn off the LMS server on the vortexbox if you are going to use Roon to send music to your Squeezeplayers.

I don’t have any experience with a vortexbox, but my NAS network address is “\\[SERVERNAME]\media\music”. I would recommend using [IPADDRESS] of the vortexbox instead of [SERVERNAME]. @Easysqueezy did a similar thing and got the paths. I’ve tagged him so he can chime in. A quick internet search on vortexbox paths in windows brought up the following to help get things started:
“\\[IPADDRESS]\files”

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Hi Greg,

This is the KB page about adding Network folders. The folder must be accessible or shared to the network, usually using SMB.

Like Daniel, I prefer to use IP addresses to identify network folders. I do that by accessing my Router over it’s web address interface, noting the IP address assigned to the device and then pointing Roon to the folder using the path to the folder on the device. There is a wide assortment of free network software that can also report the IP addresses of devices on the network.

Edit: Rereading your post I see you’ve got the IP address but are looking for the path. this post describes the default path as follows:

\[IP Address\storage\music

The Roon folder in your screenshot above is the default Organised folder on your Core. Organised folders are on their way out, there is no need to drag anything to it and it is best left alone for now.

The Roon User Guide is a good resource to guide you through the learning curve for Roon.

Otherwise you are on the right track. Soon hope to hear you can listen to music.

Andrew;

Attached are two screen shots from my computer.

Is any of the information in those screen shots what I would use in order to point Roon to what you call “the folder using the path to the folder on the device”?

Greg

Hi @Greg_Johnson — Let me see if I can offer some help here based on the comments left from above along with the screen grabs you’ve provided.

As @Greg has mentioned in his post, this KB article nicely highlights how to go about adding network folders in Roon. From the screen shot you provided it appears that the IP address for Vortexbox is:

With this in mind, as it states in the article, when working on Windows your network path should look like this:

[quote=“Rugby, post:25, topic:17391”]

quick internet search on vortexbox paths in windows brought up the following to help get things started:"\\[IPADDRESS]\files"
[/quote]

-Eric

Hi Greg,

Try creating a Watched folder using the various paths suggested above, ie:

\ \192.168.0.5\storage\music

or

\ \192.168.0.5\files

Delete the space between the initial forwardstrokes. It’s just there to stop this editor treating the double forwardstroke as a character code.

If Roon finds music it will start analysing it. Let us know if neither of the above work.

Andrew;

I tried following your instructions in order to get Roon to recognise the FLAC music files that I have on my Vortexbox server. As the attached screen shot shows, the first pathway that you provided did not work but the second one did & Roon immediately began analysing my music collection as the other screen shot shows.

Now I am back to my original problem which is that I am still not able to enable my Audio-gc NFB-28 headphone amplifier/DAC or my Devialet 220 integrated amplifier in order to use Roon. (see the attached screen shot that shows the error message that I still get at the bottom, when I try to enable it)

Steve@hifi_swlon in his December 31, 2016 e-mail suggested that with respect to the Devialet 220 amplifier I consider using AIR. I was not able to get it to work properly so have been using an app called ipeng9 on my i-phone to control the music on my Vortexbox server in order to play music through the Devialet 220 amplifier to my speakers.

He also suggested using my microrendu or another microrendu on the Devialet 220 amplifier but I bought the microrendu to play music through my Audio-gc NFB-28 headphone amplifier on the understanding that it would be recognised as part of my network & along with the Devialet 220. Obviously I was mistaken about this.

Is there anything else that you can suggest to get both the Audio-gc NFB-28 headphone amplifier/DAC (or its Amanero combo 384 USB interface) and the Devialet 220 integrated amplifier Roon ready?

Andrew;

Regarding enabling my Devialet 220 integrated amplifier on Roon, I have attached two computer screen shots.

What would I type for the zone name for Devialet AIR to see if this will work?

Greg

Hi Greg,

Name it whatever works for you. It doesn’t matter to Roon.

Cheers, Greg

Neither the Audio-gc nor the Devialet are Roon Ready. There is nothing that users can do to make them Roon Ready.

You can either connect directly to the Audio-gc or Devialet or use a Roon Ready device or a device running Roon Bridge as a Network zone to connect to them.

Your microRendu is Roon Ready and you should be able to use it as a Network zone to connect to either the Audio-gc or the Devialet. You will need another device to connect to the other. That could be a second mR or a Raspberry Pi or similar device.

In order to see the microRendu as a Network zone in Roon the following conditions have to apply:

  • microRendu is connected to Ethernet and by USB to either device and turned on;

  • Roon Ready app is selected in the microRendu Software Manager;

  • The connected device is turned on and the USB input is selected.

If the microRendu doesn’t show up as a Network zone when the above conditions are satisfied, then come back and we will try to sort out why not.

Andrew;

Thanks for your patience with respect to trying to help me get Roon to work on my network and to play music through my Audio-gc NFB-28 headphone amplifier/DAC. (“DAC”)

Yesterday Andrew Gillis (Small Green Computer) took remote control of my computer and was able to get Roon to access my FLAC format music files on my Vortexbox server through the microRendu such that music is now playing through my DAC.

Attached is a screen shot of Device Manager on my computer. The strange thing is that even though music is now playing through my DAC, the DAC is not identified in Device Manager. Furthermore the microRendu is identified as not being connected which is clearly not the case

Thanks for all of your help to date.

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