Hi, I am thoroughly enjoying my experience with the Roon music system, and I have decided to go yearly once the trial is up. I am hoping this is in the right area to ask this question.
I am outputting my audio through a Sim Moon 100D/Allo Digione running Ropieee and it sounds fantastic with local files and Tidal.
My first question is regarding my Roon Bridge setup, I have an old PC from early 2010’s…? that has 8GB of RAM and an E1-1500 CPU, so I have repurposed this with Ubuntu Server and the Linux version of Roon Bridge and seems to be playing everything I stream from it with relative ease.
Mind you, apart from Tidal MQA that is converted down, I play nothing above 192kHz as that is the most my DAC is capable of. Should this setup be ok, or should I have something with more power give a better experience/sound quality?
I may see a two to three second delay when first playing a track in some instances. That is the most of the problem that I see, but as far as audio goes, it sounds great. Without any drop outs or audio degradation.
Also for my second question, I want to connect a RPi 7inch display, (a former Squeezebox user here) are there any cases that would accommodate the display and AlloDigione/Rpi3b (currently housed in the Allo acrylic case). Would any of the screw holes line up to attach the display? ha
What is the OS on? SSD will probably get rid of that lag. But Roon likes power. I would suggest though that you won’t get better SQ. just a better user experience.
Thanks for the links. I saw the top one while browsing, wasn’t sure if it would work, but as mentioned it will likely require some modification to fit.
Update: I have received the unofficial generic rpi 7" capacitive touch screen, and I have attached the Allo acrylic case to it, very easy. It sits at a good angle, and apart from the stiff Kimber DV30 I have running to my DAC, the business end of the streamer is invisible to the eye. No issues with this working with Ropieee.
I do like the look of the SmartPi Touch case, though. If it would fit this one.
The OS is Ubuntu Server 18.04.3 where my Logitech Media Server, and Plex reside. I may try Roon Bridge on my new pc, (i7 9700k). My experience with the pc waking for network access hasn’t been so good when I attempted running LMS on it previously.
Your old PC is more than capable of handling this load. The ‘two to three second delay’ you experience can be explained by Roon acquiring the network stream from Tidal (dependent upon your connection to the Internet), buffering it, negotiating transmission capabilities with your Raspberry Pi, synchronizing clocks, etc. A faster CPU will not improve this experience.
Although I am not using Tidal I do have a large library and I am running Roon Core on a refurbished i5-3470 PC with an SSD, 8GB of memory and Windows 10 Pro - I have not experienced any issues around performance so far and that includes running a couple of different streamers at the same time. I am not using multi-channel (at the moment) and the PC is in a different room to the playback system. I bought this particular PC to prove that Roon was the right direction to go with the thought that I could always replace the refurbished PC (it was cheap) if I just needed more processing power. So far no issues with Core at all…
Thanks, that is good to hear. I was hoping this would be the case. There is nothing wrong with inexpensive if it works, I rescued mine when someone was going to throw it out. ha Good idea with the ssd, I may look at adding one of those into my machine to see if it helps the initial loading times.
I only have a three month trial for Tidal, so I have been seeing how it may fit in my listening habits, value of the service to me, etc. Roon actually made it more personalized/functional, as most of the Tidal recommendations weren’t very valid in my case. 90% of my digital library is from my CD collection (alac, flac, aiff), so with @8k tracks I thought Tidal would be worthwhile trying with Roon for a little more variety. Not sure if I will continue, but it sounds very good.
This is likely it with Tidal, thanks for the clear explanation.
I do find some delay with the Desktop/iOS apps when first opening as the Roon icon looks like its thinking for five seconds or so, after the software has opened, then everything is snappy. I notice it most on iOS devices, Roon seems to refresh every time I go to back to the app. For example if I am listening via shuffle on or Roon radio, I may get a song I don’t want to hear through Tidal, so I switch back to the app on my phone to skip it, and it’s the three second delay again, while it refreshes; where I do not have this issue on the desktop.
I’m sure its more to do with power saving capabilities of iOS when I am switching apps on my phone etc, than something unique to my Roon setup. Nothing that keeps me from using it regardless, just something I notice frequently on portable devices.
This is correct. Your iOS device will shut off WiFi after a period of inactivity and has to re-acquire a connection to your network. That’s typically going on in the background as you open the Roon app, causing a delay, and then again there’s a short delay while your iOS Roon app and Roon Server negotiate the connection to each other.
Roon is a very ‘talkative’ app in that it keeps a steady stream of communication open between the Roon Server and each endpoint (your iOS device, with the Roon app opened, is considered an endpoint). This communication can’t be maintained while your device is in standby mode and so has to be re-established each time your bring your iOS device out of standby. All perfectly normal.