Roon buffering song before playback?

Roon Software Discussion
1

Today when I was doing some changes on my network I pulled out a cable between my router and switch but Tidal keept on playing from my NUC with ROCK (I use USB out from it right now untill my endpoint arrives). I thought ok perhaps it buffers a couple of seconds so I tried with a new song and hit play and pulled out the ethernet cable and the whole song keept on playing to the end then it stoped playback as son as I put in the cable again radio mode in Roon played the next song.

How does Roon work with Tidal regarding the buffer and is it the same using an endpoint?

2

Roon’s TIDAL streaming will buffer more aggressively, if your bandwidth allows it, to avoid skips due to intermittent internet congestion.

Endpoints only buffer a short period, due to many devices having extremely limited RAM for holding the buffered data.

3

But if I use ROCK and output is via a endpoint how will the buffer work will ROCK buffer the song and then output it to the endpoint so if I disconnect the LAN cable to the switch that my NUC and endpoint are connected to the outcome will be the same as happened to me today the whole song is buffered.

I have 100Mbit fiber to my house so it buffers a song almost directly.

4

It depends on the endpoint, but most don’t have a very large buffer… you definitely will not buffer the whole song in many cases. In your above test, there was no network-to-the-endpoint since it was USB – so buffering didnt matter there at all. If you pulled the USB cable, it wouldn’t play back for very long :slight_smile: A networked endpoint would last longer, but I wouldn’t rely on it buffering the whole song.

What are you trying to accomplish?

5

Ok, I am not trying to accomplish anything I just wanted to know how ROCK buffered a song as it could play a whole song from Tidal withou LAN connection when I disconnected the cable a few seconds after I hit play. And of course I know that this does not matter with USB out from ROCK that was not my point.

Today there are so much talk regarding streamed and local playback but what would the difference be if ROCK buffered the whole song from Tidal and played from memory compared to play a file from the internal SSD? I stream a lot from Tidal and are super happy with it and use USB out from my NUC until I get my new SOtM SMS-200 Ultra.