I’ve recently connected my Roon Core (2017 MacBook Air) to Ethernet after buying a 20 Euro USB 3.0-Ethernet dongle. Hoping it would solve the issue I have that streaming through AirPlay will stop after awhile. Alas it did not.
Apart from this, my Roon Core has been running on wifi for months without problems connected to my router. The core and the router are in separate rooms, but about 3 meters away from each other. Which means maximum signal strength.
i do have some neighbors who have strong wifi as well, as I’m living in a small apartment complex. But in my case that didn’t interfere here with Roon’s ability to play music. But your experience might be different.
What’s up @SandsOfArrakis, little bit like a family reunion here. You and Jim here sorry to hear about the airplay issues. I of course do agree that a hardwired connection takes one possible problem away from the equation but as you said it hasn’t been the difference in either case. I’m probably going to jinx myself now😂
Good luck with it, great to hear from you don’t forget plan “A” if needed TTUL🙂
Yes, a site survey is a good thing to look into on a periodic bases as the traffic changes over time as people leave or get new equipment. You can also look at the channels to see if there is a better less congested one for you to use on your WiFi access point. I have used WiFi analyzer in the past for this. It lets you look at all the channels and signal strengths so you can tune your system.
The main challenge when using WiFi for a Roon Core device is that WiFi networks are half-duplex: they cannot send and receive data at the same time. This is tricky when Roon is fetching files from the network and/or streaming services while shipping out raw PCM or DSD to one or more audio endpoints. Most of the time buffering alleviates this limitation, but it makes a setup extra vulnerable when the environment is slightly less than optimal.
That’s why Roon’s advice is to go the extra mile, wire it up and live happily ever after.
That’s on your laptop I assume? How about the iPad?
I see several others this morning on my laptop upstairs in a window basically, luckily none with full signal bars.
I’m certainly not going to argue that this eliminates a possibility that could cause some people to go down the rabbit hole chasing the wrong problem. If I had a problem/issue that would be one of the first steps to test out. I almost ordered the same Ethernet adapter again but so far I’m pleasantly impressed by how well it performs. Just a little bit of counterpoint on the issue.
It’s all good in my neighborhood…………so far………
“live happily ever after”
Good to have a guarantee in writing
When playing from non-local storage (streaming service or file server) this is aggravated by the fact that the Roon Core downloads (a big chunk of) the coming track as a burst that saturates wireless capacity long enough to interfere with the outgoing RAAT stream.
On a side note I love how this forum takes on a life of its own. I’ve only asked a couple of questions but both times there’s lots of answers and people discussing things between themselves with or without the OP. Really good to see such a vibrant community.
Anyways, back to the subject! It seems that ideally I’d have a roon core connected via ethernet. In this case I have two choices.
Choice A is to plug my laptop into the ethernet each time I want to listen to my headphones, not a problem as the laptop will be used as the remote anyway.
Choice B, have a separate roon core. This is the more complicated and expensive option but keeps everything separated.
Looking at what’s available second hand I’m seeing a lot of mac minis. Reading the forum it seems to be pretty easy to set up and give good results as a core.
So the questions are:
Would there be any sound quality benefit in using a mac mini as a stand alone roon core (not processing anything else) over using my laptop which is running multiple programs etc and is a high use work tool?
If ‘yes’ are there any limitations to using a mac mini when using a windows laptop as a remote? ie any system clashes or suchlike?
Sound: There will be some that will say no difference, there will be some that will say there is. In follow one or the other I think $$ are a major factor. I have trial and used roon about 3 month on my work iMac until I bought a Mac mini. The sound I think was almost the same (maybe more noise on iMac due to tones of usb drives, maybe also the monitor). When upgraded there was a better experience, maybe like moving the radio from your laptop app to a small one on the table. Maybe it was all in my head.
I hope others will answer, for the moment all my comps are apple.
Why only mini as option? Nuc or other I think can be found also used.
For me having a computer dedicated as a Roon Core is a must. As I am using Roon ARC a lot and I don’t have to keep my daily computer running 24/7 for this. My main systems are my M1 MacBook Pro and my Windows gaming laptop.
Just having my Air with attached USB hard drive running is also less costly electricity wise.
Rightly or wrongly I think the Mac would be more stable… I’ve always used macbooks until they introduced the macbook pro with the terrible keyboard and the ‘bar’ thing across the top, moved to a windows laptop and its just not as good… I guess I also trust that a mini has come from Apple, I don’t know the NUC situation so feel a little wary
Yeah I hated that, felt really let down that they’d introduced such a badly implemented feature. Even worse was the unusable keyboard and on a premium machine. Still, my next laptop will be a macbook of some description, I find them a lot more stable and predictable. Hence why I think (maybe ignorantly) that a max mini would be a less troublesome roon core.
However I may well be assuming too much and talking nonsense which is why I ask!
My core is currently on a Windows 10 machine and I have no trouble controlling it from Roon installed on my MacBook.
When my core was on the MacBook I could control it from from my gaming PC.
No worries there.
If you’re using an older Mac Mini as your core and controlling it from your laptop I’d suggest you install Roon Server as your core.
It’s less demanding on resources.
I’m my case I was getting occasional dropouts when using mild DSP settings with the full install on an older computer.
No issues after I switched to Roon Server.
This is all sounding very encouraging, what would everyone recommend as a minimum spec? The plan is to only use it as a core, the ‘streamer’ would be separate.
It will only be operating a single zone and will not be used as storage for ripped tracks as I listen to streaming services only…
And it the streamer is “Tidal compatible”, this means most likely (recommended) that it supports Tidal Connect, in which case the mobile or PC app also becomes a remote and the streaming is done by the streamer, which is wired in @Simon_Amos’s scenario, so I see no problem with that either.
Just in the Roon case the “wrong” device is wired, the endpoint and not the Core. But as others have said, may or may not work, have to try
