Is there a Roon ready endpoint somewhere WITHOUT a DAC?

andybob · February 17, 2018, 6:29am

Very satisfied Allo DigiOne User here.

dpstjp · February 17, 2018, 12:20pm

All Meridian kit (whilst not RAAT) will give you a digital output.

mark_board · February 17, 2018, 2:13pm

Raspberry Pi using ropieee.

Greg_Guillot · February 18, 2018, 2:36am

+1 on the Digione / Raspberry Pi combo. Works very well. Rivals many dedicated streamers out on the market. Mine sounds great - I pieced it together with an “Invasion” case.

Brent_Chapman · February 18, 2018, 4:45am

Just keep in mind that the Oppo does not support multichannel nor DSD, via Roon!

R1200CL · February 18, 2018, 10:54am

What outputs can be used when the Oppo is a Roon endpoint ?

Peter_Madnick1 · February 19, 2018, 6:09am

Take a look at the Audio Alchemy DMP-1. ROON-ready endpoint or local MPD player.

topper · February 19, 2018, 4:10pm

Me too! I’m using the USBridge and it sounds great. Easy to set up too.

Barry_Morgan · February 19, 2018, 5:03pm

I use a Meridian MS200, Cat 5e in, optical out, no set up required, it’s automatically recognised by Roon. I used to have an airport express providing airplay as an optical source into my amplifier, doesn’t compare with the MS200 at all.

Ratbert · February 19, 2018, 5:06pm

None of Meridians current products run the RAAT protocol which could be an issue for some?

Barry_Morgan · February 19, 2018, 5:44pm

Not sure what the issue could be. Roon just sees the MS200 as a lossless end point on the network and has an optical output. Works for me without any fuss or bother.

Andrew_Strutt · February 19, 2018, 6:11pm

The MS200 won’t link zones with RAAT devices eg the raspberry Pi so if you want to get your house jumping with multiple endpoints playing simultaneously you will need to get more Meridian kit.

Stephen_Graham · February 22, 2018, 12:35am

I use a Sonore Ultrarendu on my main system and two Microrendus on my secondary system and for headphone listening. Very happy with these solutions. Roon ready, very good sound quality and pretty affordable.

HBz · February 22, 2018, 9:00am

I have made videos on several Roon endpoints without DAC

Allo USBridge for USB DAC’s: https://youtu.be/f0tMX8EdP4Y
Ropieee endpoint software for Raspberry Pi: https://youtu.be/JazqOEwNN4U
HifiBerry endpoint software for Raspberry Pi: https://youtu.be/f66wH_MCiJg
If you want to go for higher quality: https://youtu.be/TV-FvRF9KGA
If you want to go for very high quality over USB: https://youtu.be/nCoFIdPLcUk

I even have a complete playlist on Roon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrRfhWcLoqA&list=PLMbsmejHnP8G1SNPFesNWKEXI9eHamMx1

David_Hamby · February 22, 2018, 3:48pm

I have a HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro feeding a Parasound P5 via coax SPDIF (AES 3 variant). The results are gorgeous but with the occasional fade/dropout. I’ve not identified the cause yet but resetting the endpoint to defaults appeared to improve things.

HiFiBerry is Swiss and ships promptly to the US. The base box is a Raspberry Pi 3B with a standard Raspberry PI 2.5 A power supply. The device is not critical of power supply quality. Basically, anything > 2 Amps that meets USB specs is good.

If you are not handy transferring system images to an SD card, HiFiBerry has a pre-loaded Micro-SD card available at a reasonable price.

agillis · February 22, 2018, 3:59pm

Several users pointed out our microRendu which when used with a good quality USB to SPDIF converter works will with A/V receivers to make them Roon Ready.

What has not been covered here is the Sonore Bridge. This can bridge Roon to a DLNA network player device. You can use a microRendu for this but you really only need one of our Roon servers such as a sonicTransporter. The sonicTransporter can run both Roon Server and the bridge. So you get playback on a DLNA device from Roon with no other hardware.

Plus you now have a dedicated Roon server that works with all your other Roon Ready devices.

Larry_Herrett · February 22, 2018, 4:26pm

Thank you for pointing this out, I have traveled to your home page and begun some investigation. So right now I keep a workstation running 24/7 with Roon running on it to provide the server capability, but, it seems that your device would then eliminate the needs for this computer if it is running server. That might be helpful to me on a couple of fronts. Thank you again for the additional product to consider.

Cocooning · February 23, 2018, 11:44am

Aurelic Aries is an excellent streamer / roon endpoint without dac.
http://www.auralic.com/en/

jon_michaels · February 23, 2018, 3:07pm

That Aurelic looks sweet. Reminds me to some degree of the Logitech Transporter, which I loved but ultimately was showing it’s technological age.

In my latest system design destinations I went in the opposite direction of the OP though, looking intentionally for a combined DAC / streaming endpoint. I see the advantages to both approaches, but right now I need more simplicity and less boxes. Imo it wasn’t until fairly recently that solution existed in a high end implementation (such as Mytek, PS Audio, Ayre, etc).

I could easily see down the road though, something like that Aurelic, or Pi-based, or Sonore, rendu etc, feeding a nice DAC like a Lampi.

It’s nice to see the digital music industry maturing enough to offer excellent equipment satisfying both approaches! I’ve been doing all-digital/computer-based for many years and until recently it felt like pioneering. So exciting.

Jennifer_Kellogg · February 23, 2018, 5:48pm

I use an SMS-200 by SOTM. Its a roon endpoint with a usb output feeding my integrated amp’s dac. It is small(ish), and offers exceptional sound to dsd256