Hello Roon Community,
I am hoping for some advice on how to proceed. I love music but I am not an audiophile… my hearing is not the best and I don’t have a ton of disposable income. My current setup is very simple: I have ripped all of my CD’s to a NAS as FLAC files using dBpoweramp, I installed LMS on an old Windows 7 laptop, I have a squeezebox classic player 3 connected to a Denon AVR-2308CI receiver using the digital audio cable. This setup has worked for me for the last 7 years. I need to replace the laptop I’m running the LMS server on so I thought I would see what options were out there, which is how I found Roon.
I have a trial version of Roon running and I have mixed feelings. I love the interface but it says almost all of my files are corrupted and won’t play them. I don’t have that issue with my current setup, so the thought of having to re-rip everything is not good. It also doesn’t play nice with Squeezebox player so if I commit to Roon I would need to replace it with something else. My questions are:
Is there an easy way to resolve the issue with the corrupt files without having to manually re-rip everything?
If I remove my Squeezebox player from the setup, what do I need to purchase to have Roon play music out of my receiver?
Thanks in advance for any insights.
Mike
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
2
The simplest (and cheapest) way to do it, until last week, was to plug a Chromecast Audio into your receiver. Google has discontinued it, but you may still be able to find one being sold out online somwhere. Your receiver has both optical and coax S/PDIF inputs, so I think the next cheapest thing is a Raspberry Pi with an S/PDIF hat, like the HiFiBerry Digi+.
I have a Squeezebox classic 3 running a coax cable to an amp. It works fantastic. What do you mean by “it doesn’t play nice”. We might be able to help you get it working well.
I also have a Boom which plays great as well.
Since you describe yourself as not audiphil: the cheapest option would be to connect the AVR via HDMI. I connected my NUK with ROCK via HDMI to my Denon AVR 1300W and it works fine.
Thanks everyone for the advice, I appreciate it and will look into the suggestions provided. I also want to acknowledge that I have uninstalled LMS so there is no conflict beteen it and Roon. @Rugby, my issues may just be lack of understanding on my part so here is what I am currently experiencing. I was finally able to have Roon see my Squeezebox so I thought problem solved. When I tried playing an album, only one track would actually play. When I looked at it closely this is when I found that most of the tracks were marked as corrupt. The confusing thing is on an album that has 8 tracks and 5 are tagged corrupt, only one of the the other three will ever play. Using logic, I would think that any track not corrupt should play but that is not the case. On other albums where I have no corrupted tracks, none of them will play. So my current experience is I never know when something in my library will play.
I currently subscribe to Pandora which I think is not an option on Roon, so I started trying out Tidal. I have no problem streaming songs from there so, so I just to use the app to see if I like enough to begin paying for it. The fact that Pandora isn’t an option isn’t a deal breaker but it is a small con. Can I stream A Sirrius/XM subscription through Roon?
My last issues are with the Squeezebox player itself. The player will randomly power down, which is has never done before, and the only way I can wake it up is to unplug and reinsert the power cable. When I was using LMS server, I would set output level to 100% and use the volume control on my receiver to control volume. I thought I did this when I setup Roon but I can control volume through both Squeezebox remote and receiver volume knob and neither is really able to increase volume as much as I like sometimes.
Sorry for the long post, but again thanks for the information everyone.
I hope you are able to work through these trails, because as a new user myself, I have never been happier with a piece of music software. I am dumbfounded at just how cool all of this is. So stick with it if you can… the newness will wear off and you will be a wiz at it. The good folks here are quite nice and will help you with those things that they can. For me, I am very pleased.
Hope you can figure out why so many of your tracks are identified as corrupt and avoid having to re-rip them.
Just my opinion but since Pandora is only available in the US ( where I live too ) it would not seem to make much sense for it to be integrated into Roon. Same for Sirius XM since it’s only available in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. Also I don’t know if either service even supports third party integration.
I’ve only been using Roon since May of 2018 but in that time I’ve seen many feature requests for Roon to add the capability to ingest local audio ( from Pandora, Sirius XM, Spotify etc. ) and then send it out just as it does Internet Radio. Can’t say I’ve seen any indication this is on the Roon road map which makes sense to me since the feature would let you process the audio and distribute it to your Roon endpoints but Roon would have no idea what was playing unless it also integrated the ability to analyze and identify the incoming music in real time.
First what flac setting in dbPowerAmp did you use when ripped your CDs?
Using dbPowerAmp try “converting” the flac files for one album using flac Level 5 and then in Roon have Roon re-analyze the album. Then see if the files are still corrupt.
If the above method works then use the dbPowerAmp batch program to “convert” all your flac files to flac level 5.
Sorry, Bill is not mistaken. Google has confirmed that it is discontinuing production of the Chromecast Audio device. They are just selling off the inventory now.
Thanks Ralph. I ripped these about 10 years ago so I don’t remember which settings I used. I just purchased the latest version of the app and will try what you suggest.
Hey Evand,
Thanks for the info about the Audio test app. I dumped my collection there and the files that are marked as corrupt either have an MD5_Mismatch or LOST_SYNC @ 0m 00s error.
Thanks,
Mike