Roon Ready certificate for Buchardt A500

Join us crazies over on the Hegel thread. :crazy_face:

Hi @Mads_Buchardt Happy owner of S400s here. You should know that the only reason I haven’t purchased both A500 AND A700s from you by now is this whole Roon-Ready mess you speak of. Until this is resolved and is clear as to the solution then I won’t be buying any more of your speakers I’m sad to say. And let me plug Airplay 2 integration while you are at it as that would also be a requirement for my family use.

Hi Michael.

Glad to hear you consider them. What is important for you to know here is that the offered Hub we have is just an option, it’s not something that is necessary for the speakers to function, you can use basically what you want here. The Hub is a product of another brand that we sell with the speakers as it offers great value. But from what I know, the roon ready for this Platin hub is coming, last I heard was that they succeeded in internal testing.

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Awesome News… :slight_smile: This is my third week with A500’s, and they are killing it…

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Thanks @Mads_Buchardt Quick question for you: if I go the Primare SC15 route since that IS Roon-ready (and they are promising Airplay 2 in future) then what is the connection/data flow to the A700s? The SC15 has its own DAC - which I am paying for - but you have your own DACs built into the A700s. Are the internal DACs bypassed if I am using an external DAC? What is the input method since the A700s appear to use XLR inputs but the SC15 lacks XLR outputs?

Okay @Mads_Buchardt I now see that you recommend the Primare because it does WISA. So same as your hub. But the DAC question still stands. Is the Primare DAC stream being sent to the A700s decoded again by the internal A700 DAC?

I asked a similar question, and below is the response from @Mads_Buchardt. I hope it helps.

Thanks @Tushar_das. So it appears then that I would be paying a lot to get the Primare preamp just for its Roon and Airplay 2 support vs the Buchardt hub. Hey @Mads_Buchardt Why do you suggest the Primare preamp as a ‘premium’ solution? If your DACs are always in the stream I’m wondering what makes the Primare ‘premium’? It would be great to see a feature comparison on your website to show customers why they might want to use the Primare preamp.

@Michael_Grant I see what you mean. While the Primare SC15 seems like a “premium” product I don’t think it will manifest itself in audio quality (maybe on the analog input). What you get is features as I see it (and premium look of the cabinet).

You get multi room, AIRPLAY2 and Roon Ready (and not ready yet?). The last two may end up in the platinum hub anyway.

However, you won’t get room correction. In my book this is a dealbreaker.

The perfect product for me would be the Primare SC15 with Dirac Live :slight_smile:

I do not think that Primare SC15 is Roon Ready, at least not yet.

Br Morten

I know many people see it as kind of a scam but I wonder if the platinum hub will get MQA at some point.

I think it has MQA built in. With my Roon Core decoder switched off, I still can play MQA via chromecast. At least that’s what I see in the signal path…

Curious to hear if there is any progression on this front?

Even though it’s a separate product, it is bundled together and currently on sale for the next week as such.

If this is pretty much in the bag and it’s just a matter of time (the promotion is to be delivered early Feb), great, I’ll probably move forward with the promotion. If not I’ll likely wait until it is and the next sale… and possibly see if other options materialize. Coming from the 1st gen LS50W for the past 3+ years.

And I guess on a second note - can anyone explain what the drawback/difference is from having the streamer itself Roon certified vs. using Chromecast as a Roon endpoint, which appears to be built in? Is it a convenience issue (ie. more button presses on the remote), is it an audio quality issue?

I don’t think there is a noticeable audible difference in quality per se. You do lose some features that you may or may not find important. I find the gapless playback a must have feature. Try listen to Pink Floyd Dark side of the moon with a stupid gap between the tracks.

You can read about the protocol: https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/raat

(EDIT) There has been some stability issues but it seems to be ok now.

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As far as I know roon‘s proprietary protocol RAAT enhanced stability and als ensures time alignment in a multi room setup and several other minor things.
The main drawback when using chromecast is that chromecast doesn’t support gapless playback - in 2020. Which is an absolute no go for fans of classical music or music like the already mentioned “dark side if the moon”.
So if you listen to music which doesn’t only consist of detached 3 minute snippets chromecast is not an adequate alternative.

For me the solution would be simply to add an inexpensive streamer like a Raspberry Pi running Roon Bridge into the setup. That will work just fine until there is some device with official Roon certification.

Chromecast is usually gapless with Roon - and i’ve heard it as such with the A500s - but this has been broken in recent builds.

I just tried (again) with the two chromecast devices in my household (Pioneer AV-Receiver and Philips OLED). Gapless with Roon works on none! Whereas it works with Airplay.
But Airplay is yet again limited in bandwidth… I did not invest in a audio software for enthusiasts to be victim to all those limitations again :slight_smile:
I just seems so ridiculous that we even have to still discuss a topic like gapless playback in 2020. Unbelievable :slight_smile:
I just hope, that the hansong Hub and therefor the A500 pass certification soon. I can assure you (I have tried) that it also sound best via Roon’s RAAT.

LIke i said in my previous post, gapless is temporarily broken which is why you are hearing gaps. Roon are working on a fix.

See here -> My Roon is not gapless playing through Chromecast