RoonReady digital players!

Hi everyone I don’t have so much experience on this so if some people can help, which digital player is Roonready full functional and not so expensive?

Hi Dimitris,

There are two network players that are RoonReady and available now:

Sonore SonicOrbiter SE

Auralic Aries (not Mini as yet)

The SonicOrbiter is relatively inexpensive, the Aries is a more expensive option.

Either of these are network players which will output to a DAC by USB or Toslink. The Aries also has AES and coax outputs.

After Roon 1.2 is released there will also be DIY RoonBridge options on a wide variety of devices.

Thank you Andybob For your reply but I think the sonore does not support has just one USB in/out because I will need 2 USB one to connect to my dac and the other for ssd drive.

The Meridian MS200 outputs analog and Optical

Hi Chris the meridian looks like a good product is it full functional Roonready?because I’m not so good at this,how do I connect a hard drive or ssd card on this?
Thank you

Are you using Roon already? The hard drive (I’m assuming for your musc) has to be connected to the machine running your Roon core, so it stays where it is. The RoonReady endpoint is just a final receiver of the data for your DAC

How does the the ms200 connect to my PC? Does it connect through wifi (lan cable)?

So you just connect the PC to the ms200 with a lan cable and then the ms200 digital to the dac?

I have Roon on a laptop now, my music is on a hard drive in an ‘Icybox’ connected via USB 3. The MS 200 is on my network feeding optical to my Meridian HiFi.
It will feed any brand.
I will put my music on a NAS in time but as things stand, it just works. The MS 200 will upsample or downsample to 24/96 and Apodise.
The sound is great.

Be aware that not all optical cables fit in the port on the SE. I purchased an SE and also a nice Wireworld Siuper Nova 7 optical cable but it will not stay in the port. I guess the company is aware of the problem but the manufacturer of the box will not change it. I have found this to be a huge problem.

3 posts were merged into an existing topic: My optical cable will not stay in the SE

The Sonicorbiter SE has two USB ports. You can use one for your DAC and one for a connected drive. For the connected drive I recommend that you use one that has it’s own external power supply.

Jesus R

While it is possible to connect SSD storage to the SonicOrbiter SE, as @Jesus_Rodriguez describes, when using Roon the audio stream will always go through the Core (in this case the PC running Roon). I don’t know if it would be problematic to have the audio coming from the SOSE to the PC and back again over the same Ethernet cable, but it seems undesirable. I tried a similar configuration with the Aries using Wi-Fi and it resulted in unlistenable stuttering and pauses. Ethernet, of course, has greater bandwidth.

Roon loves having a fast SSD attached to the Core. I’d reccomend putting your music SSD in the PC running Roon. That will then connect to the RoonReady network player by Ethernet LAN. Check out the new website and knowledge base for more info about architecture.

I did not meant to suggest to use it that way. Connecting a drive to the SE is just for local play back via LMS or MPD.

Jesus R

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Thank you everyone for your help.

Very cool! All Audiophile purchasing has stopped on my end, pending the release of 1.2 and DIY options with choice of RoonBridge endpoints for my home office desk, living room and home theater.

Seriously, I can’t wait…

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@Dimitris71 – the MS200 is not Roon Ready, and if all you use is the MS200, it’s pretty close. However, it won’t multi-room link with other non-Meridian zones.

The Auralic Aries, the Sonore SonicOrbiter SE and the IQ Audio products are the other 3 currently released Roon Ready products.

Note however, that even though IQ Audio is certified Roon Ready, a Roon build supporting it has not yet been released. It is only awaiting packaging and testing, as the work has already been completed. Can’t give you a schedule for release, but it will be the next release.

I think this was a really smart move. By end of year, we should be seeing a flood of Roon Ready devices in the market, and as you stated that Roon Bridge, especially with Linux builds, will really change the landscape quite a bit for the DIY people out there.

I think I read it somewhere that the auralic Aries mini will not be fully functional Roonready,is that true.

Hi @danny

Can you explain the roon bridge for linux builds comment a little more… does that mean a linux based computer/device (like the SE) being plugged into a network and connecting ANY DAC/Amp to enable Roon to see the endpoint and group them?