I am total new and have not started to use Roon. I will get my Auralic Aries today and will connect that to my Burmester DAC. But there is one thing I do not find an answer to in the forum.
If I use my iMac as core. Must the iMac then be turned on all the time (24/7) Or can I put it to sleep and still use the iPad with out any problems. I have all my music on a Netgear Ready NAS. I have no music on my IMac.
If there is other ways to implement Roon that you recommend then I will be very happy to know about it.
Where ever your core is located needs to be on whenever you want to access it. You can try wake on network activity. I can’t say I have any experience in using that though as I run a headless mac mini with all power savings and sleep disabled.
On a secondary note. It might get annoying when the imac screen keeps turning on whenever something tries to talk to it.
Thank you for the fast answer. This means that the best way is to get a Mac Mini and install the core on that computer? Or is it recommended to install it on a NAS. And if so do you have any recommendations?
That is just the way I set it up, there are many ways to solve your issue. You can set it up on a mac mini, I use it for other things too like my iTunes library. It all depends on your budget and technical expertise. If your familiar with screen sharing on OSX it should be easy to remote control a mac mini without a screen keyboard or mouse.
Just to clarify are you saying that you want to run roon on a computer and output the music to your iPad ?
Qnap NAS, headless Mac mini, Auralic Aries here
Aries is always on, NAS is set to sleep at night, Mac mini to shutdown a few minutes before the NAS sleeps
When I want to play music I, first, wake the NAS (Wake on LAN) then turn the Mac mini ON
works a charm
if you’re using an iMac I’d suggest setting the display to sleep but not the iMac itself
What’s your sample rate? My experience is that an i5 can’t do anything over 192k up-sampling. Anything more than that and the processor speed comes in at about 1.3, which is not fine.
My point is that if one is going to buy a new Mini, kick in the extra $200 and get an i7. Why would you try to dissuade someone from that?
Didn’t mean to start a controversy by criticizing the i5 Mini.
I have a mid-2011 i5-based Mac mini, and I upsample everything (in Roon) to DSD256 (7th-order CLANS). That’s all the DSP I do, and I currently have only one zone playing at a time. Processing speed typically is around 2.8x–2.9x. I found that running Roon Server rather than full-on Roon made a big difference in terms of available resources on the mini.
When deciding on what kind of machine you need to run Roon core, I think it’s important to identify what you expect to be doing in terms of number of zones and DSP.
I think the 2011 i5 Mini has a better chip than the 2014 Mini. Nonetheless, after reading your comments, I rechecked my DSP engine. I don’t know if you have this switch set, but I turned on ‘parallelize sigma delta modulator’. That made a big difference. Now, DSD256 processes at 3.7, which is acceptable. DSD512 can only get 1.7, which results in unacceptable dropouts.
I have 5 endpoints, but I only use 1 at a time. I don’t use the Mini as an endpoint, only core and control. I have an dual XEON motherboard which I have yet to fool with. Once that’s running the core, the Mini, as far as Roon is concerned, with be relegated to control only.
I stand by my original statement. If one is buying a Mini new, for the pittance in cost between an i5 and an i7, get the i7. If one can exit the macOS eco-system, a brand new Kaby Lake i7 NUC comes in at about half the price of a Mini.
I agree completely, especially with ROCK availability and no new mini’s announced at WWDC this week. OTOH, if you have a Mac mini lying around with nothing to do…
I don’t upsample. Whatever the source is 44.1 - 192, is played direct. My DAC does not do DSD otherwise I would upsample to same (next DAC will do DSD).
Your point about the small delta from i5 to i7 is well taken but might be a deal breaker for some. My mini is loafing along as the core with one endpoint an sMS-200.
Hi all. A little left of centre from this topic but hopefully relevant. Should I, based upon the comments about the mac mini and using it as the core for Roon, use my Aries Mini as the core for Roon? All my music is stored on the 1TB internal hard drive on the Aries mini. I have it (ROON) installed on my mac book pro at this point and it is not reading the files on my aries. Any advice would be appreciated.
Cheers
Rob
I don’t think you can run Roon or Roon Server on the Aries Mini — IOW you can only use it as a network endpoint — but I hope someone who actually has one will chime in to answer the Aries questions.
The Aries Mini cannot be used as the Roon Core. It has a ARM based CPU the Roon Core can only be run on Intel processors.
You might be able to point the music on the Aries mini which is exposed as a network share.
But it is really bad idea because you will create more load on the processor in the mini.
It is better to either move the music to the MAC or buy a external USB case for the hard drive in the mini and connect it to the MAC.
i5 Mini.