Roon or Roon Bridge for Aurender W20?

I have an Aurender W20, I am desperate to get Roon running that, I can use airplay but that has massive restrictions. Is there any way that RoonBridge can be configured to run on the Aurender. I believe it uses a Linux OS.

Hi Simon,

You can find Linux installation instructions for RoonServer and RoonBridge here.

In theory you might SSH into the Aurender over Ethernet if you know the IP address (easy) and login details (hard).

I don’t know whether the Aurender has SSH enabled, whether login details are available or whether any warranty will be voided by messing about with the OS.

Ideally Aurender themselves would implement the necessary software. Until that happens there is always the uncomfortable reality that an amateur, like me, could easily brick the system. Taking that risk with a Raspberry Pi is one thing, an Aurender W20 is a whole different kettle of fish.

I would also like to see that. I currently have an Aurender S10 and it’s a really nice piece of hardware that fits well into any high end audio system, but unfortunately the control app feels really dated and limiting compared to Roon, and it’s impossible to get any information from Aurender about their future plans. To be honest, I’m currently considering throwing out the Aurender, but haven’t found anything worth replacing it with from a hardware perspective but that might change moving forward considering the amount of Roon hardware partner.

I have a slightly different perspective here. I auditioned an Aurender W20 last week, soon I plan to try the N10. I have to say that I was very impressed with the sound quality of the Aurender, it was absolutely magical. But I don’t have to buy one, and both the N10 and W20 are a LOT of money. The silence from Aurender re Roon will probably make me look elsewhere. There appears to be a lot of secrecy regarding the future plans from many audio manufacturers. It will cost them sales.

It seems there are a few posts at CA, including one from Chris Connaker, which indicate Aurender no longer plan to adopt Roon. Some other quotes cite technical support/costs/marketing etc.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f11-software/roon-v1-2-update-huge-good-way-28281/index5.html#post536691

When I was considering a N100 they lead me to believe they were going to add Roon support, so I guess things changed. I’m glad I didn’t make the purchase now - for once I held the impulse back and decided to wait and see how things panned out…

I agree… The Aurrender App just doesn’t cut it from the user interface perspective, ROON has the potential of being so much more desirable, but running the W20 with ROON is not an option via Air Play… It sounds horrible. Given the options, I reluctantly quit using ROON and am forced to use the Aurrender App with my W20.

My friend and I each purchased a W20 About 6 months ago, after being told they were working on ROON Ready integration, and that it would likely be re released around April 2016. Well, here we are in July and now they are saying they are not going to support it. My friend sold his W20 and I’m likely going to do the same. Don’t count on ROON Ready compatibility anytime soon. [quote=“hifi_swlon, post:5, topic:9694, full:true”]

It seems there are a few posts at CA, including one from Chris Connaker, which indicate Aurender no longer plan to adopt Roon. Some other quotes cite technical support/costs/marketing etc.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f11-software/roon-v1-2-update-huge-good-way-28281/index5.html#post536691

When I was considering a N100 they lead me to believe they were going to add Roon support, so I guess things changed. I’m glad I didn’t make the purchase now - for once I held the impulse back and decided to wait and see how things panned out…
[/quote]

Nov 30 allready, and still only silence on the Roon vs Aurenderfront.
Please Aurender, give your customers their own choice between your own (still fine) Aurender app and the Roon experience which, there is no denial, is lightyears ahead of Aurender’s own and all app’s I ever used…

If this situation lingers I sure will sell my beloved Aurender.

I’m sure many would love Aurender to be RoonReady, but I think you’re writing on the wrong forum - I very much doubt Roon are holding it back, it will squarely be Aurender. You’d be better served writing to them and posting on their visible places like Facebook or their forums.

I nearly bought an Aurender but decided against it after they seemed to shy away from Roon. My understanding from when I last asked them (over six months ago) is that they’re not making their devices RoonReady.

I love aurender but i will buy it only when it will be roon ready. Still waiting.

I am the original Thread starter, I have come to realise that perhaps its not so good IMHO to be running Roon, don’t get me wrong I much prefer the UI no question, the issue, however there are aspects of running the Aurender App that benefit users over Roon.

A. With the Aurender App I get to use Qobuz as well as Tidal, something that Roon have not managed yet.

B. I had a hardware issue with the USB that due to a recent firmware update meant that Aurender had decided to remove the option to switch off the USB power as it was causing issues with some DAC’s. I needed support to turn mine on, which they were able to do within a few hours of me hitting the “help” button in the app. I doubt they would still be able to do that if Roon was running.

C. I understand from an engineer at Aurender that they have run Roon successfully, however the Sound Quality was not in the same league as their own app, as with their own app they are able to do things with the hardware that Roon would not allow for.

I dislike the colour scheme, and I would love the option to be able to run Roon but not at the expense of losing Qobuz support and online hardware assist.

I also checked yesterday if the W20 would be MQA compatible and the answer was yes it already is as long as the DAC has there ability to hard ware unwrap the MQA files.

Just my 2 cents with a bit of experience behind use of the app now.

Can’t comment on the other points - all sounds sensible. Per point C it would surely be better for them to release it and let their customers decide what sounds best - especially if they’d actually done most of the work. And/or give feedback to Roon about what they’d need RAAT to do for their hardware to perform at it’s best - I can imagine their needs would be similar too all other high end manufacturers.

Any new from Aurender on Roon compatibility ? Roon 1.3 is nearly out it could be a christmas gift a bit late but acceptable :slight_smile:

I think you’d need to ask Aurender about that.

Now Roon 1.3 has been issued and written from the ground-up to reduce its memory footprint. Hopefully Aurender will take a good look at this. Now I been have fiddling around with the DSP and Cross Feed I now prefer the sound over anything else.

I just hope that Roon will be able to drag QOBUZ along to the party.

Was that their issue? I didn’t think so…

I wonder how far you would get in terms of sound quality if you use a really good endpoint with Roon. An interesting test would be to compare an Aurender connected to a dCS Rossini DAC with a setup where the Rossini operates as an endpoint. I don’t really understand why an Aurender connected to a DAC through USB, S/PDIF or AES/EBU would perform better than the same DAC with built-in endpoint support being fed from a Roon server!? :confused:

I’ve done this both with the Rossini as well as the Vivaldi DAC and Upsampler. In both cases the built-in network endpoint functionality from dCS bettered the Aurender W20 (using dual AES and word clock). The differences were subtle, but ultimately the all-dCS presentation had a better sense of space and less grain. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with the Aurender as it is an excellent product, but the native network interface of the dCS gear bettered it. Built-in Roon support is a definite bonus as well.

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Thanks Andrew, but my question was comparing Roon -> Rossini/Vivaldi as end point/DAC with Aurender -> Rossini/Vivaldi as Dac in terms of SQ.

Or in other words, would I loose in SQ replacing my S10 connected to a PS Audio DSD, with Roon and a dCS end point/DAC?

Sorry if I wasn’t clear. That’s exactly what I did.

No loss in sound quality at all. In fact it would be a pretty significant upgrade in SQ from what you have now. The Rossini is a vastly superior DAC to the PSA and its built-in network card will outperform the S10.

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Ok, that sounds great! I really love the Aurender given its rock solid hardware and high-end feel, but the lack of development and dated feel in the conductor app is what makes me looking for something else based on Roon.

Some additional questions:

If going for the Rossini, would the external clock improve network streaming, or is that mainly for locally connected digital sources? Same question for the external Vivaldi clock.

Is there a major difference in SQ between Rossini and Vivaldi?

Where does the dCS Network Bridge fit in/would you benefit from it, or do you get the same/better functionality and SQ with “only” Rossini or Vivaldi?

Thanks,
Christian