Short story: I now have two Node 2i’s, and they are both wired to the ethernet. They communicate flawlessly with each other and sound excellent, together or apart. Also, TIDAL CONNECT streams beautifully to both without a problem.
I thought to try setting them both up as Roon endpoints and was hit with a plethora of confusing choices with the Settings page in Roon showing all the previous failed attempts at linking it to external DAC’s, previous things, Chromecast, etc. When the Node was finally listed, the one in the room-other-than-where-my-Core was was showing as being connected “Via Airplay”. I tried the sound quality and it sucks; considerably worse than leaving the Bluesound alone to play via it’s own software.
So…now what? How do I set it up to do what I naively thought it could: communicate via Ethernet to my Node 2i – sitting there four inches from it, also connected to the Ethernet – and have that communicate via Ethernet to the Node in the other room? Go back and eliminate all end points and start from scratch? And set it up how?
Do you see why people are rushing for the simplicity and excellent sound quality of Bluesound and leaving Roon behind in the dust, a distant memory?
I may have solved my headaches. Simply enabled it to “This Device” and connected it to the ONE Bluesound Node 2i right next to it. Had that set, in Blue OS, to stream to both rooms. It now shows the path going right from Qobuz or Tidal to Bluesound to Output as Lossless. I’m hoping I can be done with Roon setup. User friendly? Well-documented? If you are a MIT engineer, maybe. Sorry: old guy griping. But delighted with the sound.
Roon definitely drives someone up the learning curve. If you have a simple setup it will seem overly complex. But if you consider Roon allows you to play synced music across multiple zones that include devices from dozens of manufacturers with any necessary up/down sampling occurring automatically, applying dsp and room correction to some or all zones, handing MQA files with proper pass through or decoding, and seamlessly integrating music from multiple services and local content with enriched metadata…it is and must be much more complex than software from a single device manufacturer who only supports its devices. Be patient, keep learning and ask questions if you get stuck. It’s a worthwhile journey…
Well said. And when it is working “effortlessly” it is sublime. The Radio function alone is incredibly predictive and satisfying. Every now and then, though, I have to step back from the setup and forget it and just…breathe.