Roon Initial Setup

Hello,

I am trying Roon with the following devices:

Synology NAS
Marantz SR7010 Receiver
Cambridge Audio Azur 851N Network Player
Hegel H160 Amplifier

Is it possible to stream directly from NAS to one of these players without Roon playing the file?

Any help will be appreciated.

Hi Ertan,

You may find this Knowledge Base page about Roon Architecture helpful in understanding how Roon works.

As I understand it, your question might be rephrased as “must the audio signal go through the Core ?”. The answer to that question is yes. A Roon Core must always be in the signal path between file storage and output if you are playing music in Roon.

You can, however, separate the Control functions to a different computer/device than the computer running the Core. Some people run a RoonServer Core on their NAS, others (like me) use a dedicated server or NUC to run RoonServer and control it with a tablet or with a “remote” installation of Roon on another computer. This means you can turn different Control devices on or off without affecting playback.

You’ll find other users on this Forum happy to help with beginning questions about Roon. We all remember when we started out ! I’ve shifted your post into Roon Software where we have that kind of discussion, but if you find something not working properly for you we can alert Support and get assistance.

Edit: on rereading your post you might also be asking if you can send Roon via an Ethernet connection to your Network Player, Receiver or Amplifier. Roon supports the following network protocols:

RAAT - this stands for Roon Advanced Audio Transport and is a protocol developed by Roon. It connects a Roon Core to any Roon Ready or Roon Bridge device. Roon Ready is a RAAT receiver usually implemented in firmware on existing components. I don’t think any of your components are Roon Ready. You can check a list of Roon Ready hardware partners here..

The other way of using a RAAT network connection is to use a small computing device like a Raspberry Pi or similar or a proprietary equivalent such as SonicOrbitor SE and run Roon Bridge.

AirPlay - Roon will stream to an AirPlay capable device but playback is limited to resolutions supported by AirPlay;

Sonos - Similarly to AirPlay;

Roon also supports streaming to Meridian and Squeezebox network players.

Roon doesn’t support streaming via DLNA/uPnP but there is third party software from Sonore which can enable you to stream Roon via UPnP.

Hello Andrew,

Thanks for quick reply.

I am running Roon on a PC. But these devices (Marantz, 851N and Hegel Amp) are standalone devices on the network, not directly connected to any computer. They all have a DAC and a player. They accept files from Synology NAS and play them.

Roon sees them as Airplay devices and when I stream high quality flac files like 24/192, it converts them to 16/44 and plays them.

I want them to be played with original quality.

Hi Ertan,

I edited my first reply to include info about streaming. Unfortunately the resolution is a limitation within AirPlay, and was one of the drivers for Roon to develop RAAT.

You can read further about network Outputs in Roon here.

What I would suggest for you is:

  • directly connect your Roon computer to a digital input in your existing gear. This is not network streaming but is one way of listening to hi res Roon for evaluation purposes.

  • Use a Raspberry Pi or Allo Sparky to run Diet Pi and Roon Bridge. This can then connect from Ethernet to a USB digital input on your existing gear. Other digital outputs such as spdif coax or Toslink can be supported with add on boards.

The Pi does a fine job for all PCM resolutions and up to DSD 128 but the Sparky is preferable for DSD 128 or higher. You will find a thread about DietPi installation here. There are many users without Linux experience who have painlessly installed Roon Bridge and are enjoying hi res streaming Roon. The Forum is always happy to help in this regard.