I will live in a rented house for a while.
Brought the Nucleus, a DAC and some powered speakers, connected them to each other and to the internet.
Brought some iPads, gave them the wifi password.
Roon found Tidal and Qobuz and played.
The house had some Sonos gear, Roon found it and played.
Had some AirPlay gear, I didn’t activate it.
I brought a Chord headphone rig, plugged it in, Roon plays on it.
Brought a Chord 2go + Hugo2, gave it the wifi password, Roon plays on it in the back yard.
I have a desktop for work and photography, the Roon remote connects.
Everything just worked, as it should, no configuration.
Music all over the house, a few thousand albums plus streaming, used to be a big deal.
Why do I feel this story should be told?
26 Likes
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
2
I don’t know. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work?
I switch between two houses. To keep Roon in sync, I carry my fanless Roon server with 4TB SSD for music between them. Plug it in, music is ready to go. Different audio systems in both. Never fails to work.
2 Likes
AceRimmer
(Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!)
4
Absolutely but to read some of the posts in this forum it makes you wonder…
Where is your NAS? Your “enterprise grade” wifi? What about your audiophile switch? You didn’t say what super-exotic cables you were using.
Seriously, if you want things to not work you’re going to have to get seriously more exotic than the plebeian Roon cocktail of gear you’ve, successfully, put together. Please try harder to fail. The community is counting on you.
Core: Ubuntu Server 20.04.2 on ZOTAC CI662 nano, 4TB SSD. Networks: various combinations of Ubiquiti gear (EdgeRouter, UniFi, AmpliFi). Endpoints: Linn, Naim, Chord, Ropieee on Pi+Pi2AES. Various DACs, amps for headphone listening (from Ropieee endpoints). Cables: Blue Jeans, Sweetwater, Shunyata, Chord. Everything wired with off-the-shelf cat-5/6 and/or MoCA over existing video coax, except for mobile Roon Remotes (Android, iOS, macOS) and Chord 2go (the least reliable endpoint). NAS only for backup. Syncthing to keep various music stores in sync. Offsite backups via IDrive and portable HDs.
Over 2 decades ago, when I was in my early 20s, whenever I moved apartments, I used to always move my proto-Sooloos system with me on the plane or via taxi, separate from all my other stuff. It was the first thing I’d set up in the new apartment.
Unfortunately, my setup is too finicky and brittle to do that nowadays
Hoping you are being ironic. For me, I guess the network (LAN, Wi-Fi, router, PoE, UPS) is the most complicated bit to move, but that’s needed for pretty much anything at home to work these days. I suppose that’s the first thing I’d set up in a new place, closely followed by an output zone or two.
I’m not being ironic, but I’m also not a normal user.
For example in one space:
I have a Raspberry Pi with a USB serial adapter connected to a Meridan AC12 prototype board that Bob Stuart made me years ago, and a Chromecast Audio, driving my Meridian DSP7200 speakers, all mounted in a black cardboard box that a shirt came in.
It’s tucked away and looks nice, but one of the ethernet cable clips is broken and the kids keep knocking it out of the port. My power connector is some goofy iFi thing for the raspberry pi, because it’s all I could find here when i set this up, and if you look at it wrong, it flakes out.
I also test extensions on this machine so the OS is full of tests and half finished crap, and the RPI has multiple HATs attached to it for testing as well. Every time I play and it works (which is usually), I am surprised! Did I mention the IR remote is always either out of batteries or the kids have taken them out?
In another space, I have a pair of Dutch & Dutch 8c’s with pre-release Roon Ready firmware, and they are amazingly easy now. But that was after years of pain.
I do too much wacky stuff to be reasonable. I made a little video about a 1st generation devlaiet phantom that I wanted to work with Roon because I kept getting asked by a friend.
This was doing ok, until I decided to start screwing around with a Senic bluetooth knob. Now the system never seems to work reliably.
If you look in the OP you see I didn’t say anything about setting up networking.
The house had network, a Google mesh. They gave me the password.
Network is infrastructure.
Like electrical power. And heat.
I think i misread/misunderstood your post. I thought you had brought all the gear… but it looks like a lot of it was already at the rental house, like the Sonos.
This fact makes it even cooler… it’s like in the movies where all software/hardware is magically compatible with all others.
Yes, like in Star Wars where R2D2 connects into a port on board the Death Star.
Faster than light travel, light sabers, shields, tractor beams, ok I can see that.
But universally compatible ports, that’s science fiction.
For one tenth the cost just put another RJ45 on the end. Not the last word in precision tools but it should do the trick for home use, fixing 10 broken connectors:
With some disadvantages re reliability coming with self made crimp connections. Yes. If I have a preconfigured, sealed RJ45 jack that only has a broken clip I would prefer repairing the clip rather than start crimping. But that’s just me
Edit: That’s especially among cable nerds (aka audiophiles) a somehow unfamiliar approach. I can fix the clip w/o compromising the connection quality. With cheap crimping sets and done by amateurs the odds to screw up things are not too bad …
And chasing these errors can be a pain in the back. Been there, being an IT professional for decades, quite some times
Core: Ubuntu Server 20.04.2 on ZOTAC CI662 nano, 4TB SSD. Networks: various combinations of Ubiquiti gear (EdgeRouter, UniFi, AmpliFi). Endpoints: Linn, Naim, Chord, Ropieee on Pi+Pi2AES. Various DACs, amps for headphone listening (from Ropieee endpoints). Cables: Blue Jeans, Sweetwater, Shunyata, Chord. Everything wired with off-the-shelf cat-5/6 and/or MoCA over existing video coax, except for mobile Roon Remotes (Android, iOS, macOS) and Chord 2go (the least reliable endpoint). NAS only for backup. Syncthing to keep various music stores in sync. Offsite backups via IDrive and portable HDs.
