Roon in the garden

I just moved and the new house has a lovely garden that is perfect to enjoy morning coffee and reading/writing (doing that now). I have a couple of pairs of closed planar headphones (MrSpeakers Ether C Flow and Æon), so what I need is a good quality portable, battery-powered DAC/amp with a WiFi Roon streamer. I could try to build something out of components I know about, but I thought I’d ask here in case there are nice all-in-one solutions I don’t know about. Thanks!

How about an old phone with a dragonfly DAC. Not quite all in one but pretty compact and portable.

Mojo and poly will get you all of that but it’s not cheap. Any newer iPhone or iPad with a dragonfly cobalt would be pretty good, just got this DAC my self and it’s awesome. You could also use a laptop with the dragonfly, it’s got the same tech as the AudioQuest jitter bug in it to keep usb noise at bay and it’s tiny.

A&K is suppose to come out with Roon Ready DAPs. My Kann is not yet Roon Ready, but is slated for a future firmware upgrade according to A&K staff. Some of their higher end ones may be already equipped.

1 Like

Im using a RPi 3 with an Anker powerbank that is the same size as the RPi case, an Edimax WiFi dongle and a Meridian Explorer² DAC. I also have MrSpeakers Ether C Flow that I use on this endpoint. It works fine if you have good WiFi.

This pic is from the What are you drinking now? [Pair with music for double points] thread.

1 Like

Pricy devils but I would expect they do sound quite nice but will they drive Hifiman HE4XX rated 35ohm seems more like 80ohm in reality?

The larger amp ones might. Kann / Kann cube.

Another pic:

I’ll second the suggestion of a Chord Mojo + Poly. The sound quality of this combo with a good pair of headphones is amazing.

1 Like

I’m of the opinion that my neighbours should enjoy too :blush:

Not seen a pair of Castles for some time.

I still haven’t got round to setting up a proper garden system. Currently use my Squeezebox touch or phone and Dragonfly. I want to install a pi in the outhouse with an amp hat and feed some decent outside speakers. But other things got in the way again this year.

They aren’t castles anymore just using the shell. Pair of Thiel in wall speakers inside. Chromecast into a Cambridge A1.

Nice you could make them actives with a pi and amp board. I did for some bookshelf speakers for my daughter sound great.

Thanks for all the suggestions, except for the speakers-in-the-garden :wink: Beautiful garden in the but right downtown close to other houses, neighbors would not appreciate the entertainment.

An iPhone/iPad endpoint and iFi xDSD DAC/amp. Both have their own built-in battery, so no need for powerbank.

No use of your not an Apple user though :slight_smile: Roll on the Android update .

I’ve used MrSpeakers Ether C Flow (ECF) and Æon Closed (AC) with quite a few amps. They need lots of power, especially the AC. From looking at all the suggestions so far, related products, and various online reviews and forums, it looks like that iFi micro iDSD Black Label has ample power for both headphones, and Chord Mojo will be fine for ECF and maybe for AC (there are disagreements on this). I can drive either DAC/amp from my iPad (and eventually my Pixel phone), serving as a Roon control point.

I use one of these. It’s a cracking little player and you can install Roon and Tidal Apps on it. It only has 3.5mm headphone output or Bluetooth though. No Balanced.

For the price, it’s a steal.

https://www.fiio.com/m6

That player looks very nice. Has anyone done measurements of the performance?