Hi Christian, I’m also experimenting with this new feature of Innuos. Can you describe what your setup was before you enabled the Squeezebox feature? What endpoint have you been using? Was it the Innuos with standard Roon Player (RAAT) or did you replace an external endpoint like an SOtM sMS200? And: what cables have/are you been using in these setups?
Also it would be interesting what the rest of your setup looks like 
Thanks for sharing! I’ll also report back my findings.
Hi Phillip
We know us from the PS Audio Forum. I am the one with the ATC SCM 25, Rockna Wavedream Signature Balanced, PS Powerplant 5 and since one Month now a Innuos ZEN MK3 with a 8TB harddisk
My Innuos sounded great in the Standard upnp mode, while it didn’t reach the same class in pure roon core mode. I found that very unfortunate, because Roon is simply perfect with my 120,000-piece music files. So I decided to buy a roon licensed.
The reason for this deterioration People Way was the lack of processor power of the Innuos. I was already thinking about buying a NUC when I tried the 3rd Roon mode in the Innuos. Roon Core with Sequeezeplayer. That blew me away and turned my little Innuos, NUC, Roon Hifi world upside down from one second to the other.
All these partly emotional discussions here in the forum I didn’t know, I don’t care.
The Innuos is now Roon Core and Endpoint together. The data then goes from the Innuos USB via an Audioquest Diamond cable to my DAC and from there directly via a Van den Hul
3T TheMountain to the Speakers. Apart from a powerplant There is nothing else in this chain.
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Just got a Mail from Innuos after I ask what are the reason for this Sound difference is.
If using the experimental mode, you are using our internal player which buffers all tracks in RAM for playback, providing less latency and less power noise as the HDD/SSD is not working.
This feature is based on Squeezebox support on Roon. Unfortunately Roon can discontinue this at any time, we have no control over this. Roon is a closed software system so we can’t simply build a player for Roon. On version 1.4.3 we will further upgrade the sound quality of our player but unfortunately this will not be heard with Roon. If Roon does open up it’s protocol to allow 3rd parties to build software players for it then there’s a chance we can do this natively but for the moment our hands are.
This means for me that I will definitely not buy a livetime license after the Roon Trial expires. I will be watching Roon’s progress very closely.
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I have no stake in this (not yet at least) but sounds like it might be of interest to, e.g. @danny.
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I’m interested in what the user experience with Roon is like with RAM playback enabled. Is it as fluid as normal, how quick is it for changing playlists and tracks, is there a longer delay before playback, any other disadvantages in operation compared to RAAT.
Hi crystalgipsy
First of all, … I made a detailed comparison between the good upnp mode and the Roon Core with Sequeezeplayers.
Squeezeplayer plays much more relaxed, calm, deep, lively and emotional. I’ve never had a digital source that sounded so good.
I have not had any longer dropouts in my chain so far. Here and there, with fast title changes only on Tidal, there was a short delay. With music from the Harddisc in the Zen I never had that. But that can be completely different with someone else in another network.
I can say without reservation that the unbelievable sound gain more than makes up for this minimal limitation. Not to mention the great Ronn interface.
It’s not like I switch on the memory mode. I only use the core mode with Sequeezeplayer from the Zen. In the end I don’t care why it sounds better, although I’m also dependent on Roon’s grace.
Therefore I ask myself again and again, what would be possible with the opening Roon for other players in terms of sound …
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I can’t see this will happen as its believed it won’t help other Roon devices. Innuos is a server and player and a
closed box system, most Roon endpoints are just a player and rely on a seperate core, so the belief is RAM playback is not that beneficial and the device itself would need to support it, not the server so this is highly unlikely to happen in all endpoints. They all offer some small buffering anyway but not to the level of Innuos.
Roon also don’t want to effect anything to do with the smooth interaction of their product and they believe RAM playback would. The CTO has made it clear that for Roon in general RAM playback is not advantageous. It might help the Innuos but not all products, and having split development for a small set of users I imagine is not desired. The other thing is they don’t officially support Squeezelite either only Squeezebox hardware as they are fixed and are not prone to development changes any more I guess.
If Innuos player works then their is no need for Roon to do anything and you have the best of both worlds. If it’s is a little flakey then that I guess is the trade off RAM playback with Roon as it was never designed for it.
They might change their mind but I would not hold my breath.
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I understand very well that Roon needs to see the big picture.
I just wish they wouldn’t just sacrifice this support on the altar of profit. I just enjoy it as long as I can.
It doesn’t have to be Sequeezeplayer, it could be any other player that allows 3rd developers to work here and improve things.
Particularly when other developers were working on it, the described problems could probably be solved
Maybe a too pious wish …
Roon has meanwhile too dominant a market position and a little competition would not harm here.
Hi Phillipp
Have you had any experience in the meantime? I would be very interested in them?
It’s not all about profit, to implement RAM playback the streamers have to support it it’s not down to just Roons player. Roon runs on a lot of devices remember and most don’t have that much memory for it. Innuos built their devices with a large amount of ram for this purpose. But to make a bespoke player for one set of devices would likely be frowned upon. Look at the negative feedback they just got for adding cd ripping to RoonOS.
Personally I’d ignore the negative feedback. Roon is that big now you simply can’t please everyone.
I still don’t fully understand what Innuos have done here. I have experimented with RAM playback on Roon endpoints and differences are minimal compared to conventional running in AudioLinux. Also Ropieee runs in RAM. This isn’t to do with endpoints. It has to do with the core and I think ties in to the way you use it as a USB host. The question is, if you do this across a network do you still get the gains? Because there is no incentive to make Roon a beast in core USB mode but less effective in the networked, multi-roomed environment that is the vision of the creators of Roon. What do you sacrifice on the alter of ultimate sound quality? And of course and most importantly for me, this still isn’t stable. Next experiment may be to load the core into RAM. I won’t connect my library, I’ll just sign into Tidal and see how it sounds across a network and via USB. The endpoint will be the same device, an NT-505.
Hi Henry
Personally, I have never sacrificed so little for better sound quality even though the operation is not perfect. And I can use Roon !
That’s a good question.
I think that the better sound of Innuos besides the memory playback is simply due to the classic hifi attributes:
- High-quality power supply unit
- General shortest signal paths
- Core+Endpoint+Hard Disk in one device
Maybe even the fact that the processor unit is not so fast …
Sorry, we spent the weekend on a farm… Ok, back to the topic: I’m just starting all the experiments, my listening time is unfortunately very limited.
First - before the Matrix arrived, I tried the Squeezebox feature. But as I experienced sounds dropouts (stuttering) three times in one hour, I decided to revert that setting. Soundwise it was no clear difference, it sounded as good as before (OK, with just one hour listing) - but dropouts rob the fun completely. I just can’t stand that.
Now the Matrix worked on its own for two days while I was away, so it should be on working temperature now. I’ll give it a listing test just now. With a normal HDMI cable, as the WireWorld had not arrived yet. And with no external power, just using the USB 5V. Step by step. I’ll report back.
Hi @Hugo_Sharp, I have experienced with the Innuos Zen Mini as a Roon Core, but also with my PC as a core, both using the Zen Mini as an endpoint also. I did not hear big differences in sound. Maybe the Innuos sounds a tadd bit warmer as Core, but it’s not that big difference. I noticed my PC is faster in finding artists and albums than my Innuos Mini (MKII).
So, I can confirm it isn necessary to seperate the endpoint from the core.
With me the sound difference is obvious immediately after switching. I don’t have to listen back and forth for long. An unmeasurable feeling of well-being immediately sets in.
However, I also have a particularly fine resolution chain, which does not necessarily make me representative here.
There are also dropouts from time to time. I found out that it is better to pause a song before selecting the next one. Besides, it’s better to select the whole music than individual songs immediately.
I also deactivate the background audio analysis and the speed of the audio analysis if necessary I switch off.
Now I’m waiting for the Innuos Firmware Update 1.4.3.
I made another interesting discovery. If sample rate conversion in Roon is disabled, there were no more dropouts till now.
So, although you didn’t state which Innuos model you have, at least the model you have can’t run Core.
Do you have more than one endpoint?
Curious as to what your chain is that an Innous streamer should make such a big difference. How were you streaming before? Did you ever post your chain here? -
Not trying to be snarky or singling you out. Please don’t take offense.
The OP asked how the how the Zenith MKIII was at running Core and, in spite of any protestations to the contrary, by the evidence of your own post, Zenith MKIII is not as competent as a lowly i3 NUC.
I suspect the Innous Statement isn’t much better since at 13,000 Euro it still uses an N4200 Pentium. By Roon’s own spec sheet that is not enough CPU.
I like the Innous products and especially the OS (Roon could take some pointers for ROCK OS), but they overstep when the say they can run Core.
Hi Slim, my Innuos Zenith MKII (with 1 TB SSD) is running as Roon Core since Feb 2018. It performs very well, even with basic DSP. Only DSD upsampling clearly stresses the CPU (but I don’t need that anyway). And I rarely play more than two zone at the same time (but when I did, it worked flawless). I also have only 3500 albums in the library. So for such a basic (but not unusual) setting the Zenith MK II (which is now the old model and replaced by the MKIII) works very well.
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Hi Slim
Which Innuos model I have, I have already written before in this thread, a ZEN MK3.
I wonder if the model really matters, because Innuos keeps the processor performance the same on all models, as you wrote correctly.
In the Experimental Modus and the Seequezplayer you can use only one endpoint.
In pure Rooncore mode I had no technical problems with 3 endpoints, but the sound was not good enough for me.
For me the rule is confirmed once more: Start at the beginning.
Data that are already bad here cannot be reproduced optimally even with the best chain.
Before I had an Aries Femto with a linear power supply.
My chain is in my Profile.
But maybe I should put it in the thread you linked.
What is an OP ? 
CPU performance back or forth, - too much or too little, or whatever … 
with me it sounds fantastic even with the small CPU power.
Thanks for the reply.
OP means original poster, i.e. the poster who started the thread.
If you put your chain in the thread I linked, use pictures please.
Everyone likes HiFi porn. 
Peace.
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