These are my first weeks in audio streaming, and they’ve been dreadful. I’ve spent many full days struggling to get any kind of audio out of three dedicated music streamers. (Two times Musical Fidelity MX-Stream and one Volumio Rivo.) The number of bugs I’ve encountered during the past month has far superseded the sum of bugs during my previous 30 years as an audiophile.
It could be some bizarre coincidence that all three units are defective, but more likely, there’s something about trying to play Volumio software on a Raspberry Pi-based system to my beloved Berkeley Audio Design Alpha USB. (Even though the Volumio Rivo was also defective with the Alpha USB out of the chain.)
Now, I see that Roon users in this forum use the Alpha USB seemingly with no complications. Will my problems go away once I install Roon on my Volumio Rivo? Or will I need to move to my fourth streaming device in a month?
Does anybody here have experience with Roon and Berkeley Audio Design Alpha USB?
My system is simple: Some high-quality streamer → USB to Berkeley Audio Design Alpha USB → AES/EBU to Genelec professional studio monitors with built-in DACs – one for each speaker unit.
Thank you for sharing your experiences.
You can read about my struggle with audio streaming here.
I started using Roon in 2019 and that was my first time with streaming music. While I have no experience with the equipment you referenced, my experience with Roon and streaming has been exceptional.
I have a NUC/ROCK sever with my CD rips on an internal 4 TB SSD and Tidal/Qobuz that feeds into my home theater surround system 3 ways, HDMI from NUC to receiver plays Stereo and multi-channel hi-res files, Ethernet to 2 Roon Ready MC dacs, and Ethernet to 4 Roon Ready hi-res speaker systems for whole house music, or something different in each location and all at the same time.
Based on my experience I would have to recommend building a NUC/ROCK server for Roon and use Ethernet to your Roon Ready MX-Stream. You can use USB from NUC to MX-Stream but my preference is Ethernet with ports available in most rooms in my home.
I don’t see the RoonServer listed in your setup. What computer are you using to run Roon?
The chain should start from and look kind of like this…
RoonCore → Ethernet →Musical Fidelity MX-Stream (set to Roon Ready Mode)→USB to Berkeley Audio Design Alpha USB → AES/EBU to Genelec professional studio monitors
You’re right. I don’t yet have Roon in my system. Because of the trouble I’ve had setting up a streamer with Volumio and my Alpha USB, I wanted to hear the experiences of others before I migrate to Roon and Alpha USB.
If the comments in this thread aren’t too scary, I’ll soon be a Rooner like the rest of you.
But of curiosity what was wrong with Rivo connecting to Berkeley Audio Design Alpha USB? And what were you playing with volumio, tidal or other?
I use Roon to connect to a volumio (installed on a old laptop). Just have to enable the roon bridge in plugins. usb connected to a Cambridge Audio Dac Magic 200M. I do not own the Berkeley Audio Design Alpha USB.
What went wrong? Well, everything. I’ve had never-ending error messages about all sorts of malfunctions. In 30 years as an audiophile, I’ve never experienced anything like it.
If you click on the links I’ve posted above, you’ll see an avalanche of dysfunction in three different dedicated streamers and three types of storage. It could be the three streamers; but more likely, it’s something in the pairing of Volumio software with Raspberry Pi-based hardware and the Alpha USB. But it’s a guess. I don’t know.
I play primarily Spotify and lossless WMA files ribbed from CDs. And I would like to also cast from the Chrome browser, and have the option of Bluetooth. My PC is a Dell XPS17. My speakers are Genelec 8351As.
At the moment my Volumio Rivo → Alpha USB → Genelec chain is working OK, with only acceptable malfunctions. But I don’t want to add Roon to the mix if there’s any risk of having to go through struggles similar to the ones I’ve had with Volumio.
You should try roon if you want to try Tidal/Qobuz in addition to you local files (WMA files ribbed from CDs - ribbed I take means ripped). Or if you want to stream to more than one endpoint (Multiroom). Or if you want better library management or… now I do not want to sound like I’m selling you roon.
I do not know what to say about chromecast or bluetooth as I never used
I’ll read the post liked, I did not realise it contains your story.
Ok, I had a quick read.
About the device
From what I understand MX is very much like my iFi Zen Stream. I have never used the mobile app for Zen Stream, always just used a browser on computer. Also I do have little local files and I do play them using roon, never tried Zen Stream alone for them (Zen Stream has Volumio software).
From the manual:
MX-Stream can be controlled via mobile App, in any web-browser and you can connect HDMI- and touchscreens for a full, haptic touch screen experience.
So you can control the MX from your computer using the browser of your choice, no need for phone app. You just need to find it’s IP or using: musical-fidelity.local/ into the address bar of the webbrowser.
Now think that all I do write I do write from my experience with another device.
Once you do all the settings Spotify and Tidal should work from the app using the connect feature. Or you can still use the web interface for MX to play your local files like in the image I did take from the manual
If you want to expand more in anything above let me know.
What I do not understand how you add volumio in the mix. MX and RIVO both are streamers so why connect both of them. Or you tried to replace MX with RIVO and it did not work again.
Both of them have roon bridge on them so you can trial roon. I think you’ll end up with having 2 nice endpoints for roon. I think you can trial Roon using one of your computers and if you like it you can get latter a dedicated computer for roon (you have better performance with a dedicated computer for roon. I did trial roon on my working iMac and after that got an Mac mini just for roon). What you should know: Roon does not have Spotty.
I’m a little blind as I do not know what specific question to answer but feel free to ask anything.
@Traian_Boldea: Thank you for your help. I just wanted to know if anybody in this forum had a positive or negative experience using Roon with a Berkeley Audio Design Alpha USB.
Since I posted my question, I’ve received an answer directly from Berkeley Audio Design. I quote it in this thread.
I think everything will be fine, but I’m still curious to hear from other Alpha USB owners.
