Seek for system setup advice for Roon, pls help. Thanks

Audio Gear Talk
1

Hi, planning to upgrade my existing gear and move to Roon, need some advices, thanks.

My existing devices:
Bluesound Vault 2i as CD ripper and storage for music files, also Tidal for MQA music. Vault 2i is connected to B&W Formation Audio.

Formation Audio is connected to B&W Formation Duo Speakers wirelessly for 24-bit/96kHz music.

May I know if I wanna play around with Roon, what should I add to my existing setup? A Roon core? Any suggestion?

Thanks for the help!

Ray

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Raymond,

Yes, the first step in moving to Roon is to create a Roon Core on a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer, or purchase a dedicated computer such as Roon’s Nucleus or Nucleus Plus. This does not have to be a computer dedicated solely to Roon (I use my MacBook Pro running the Core in the background), but if you have a large library many users tend to created a dedicated Core server.

PS Audio created a great two-part summary of Roon, and part two explains the Core options as well as networking overview:

As you are just starting out, it may be best to use a computer you have and utilize the two-week Roon Trial period to determine if Roon meets your expectations. The Formation Audio and Bluesound devices are Roon Ready, so that is a good set of equipment to ensure things work with Roon.

Roon’s description from their Help Center of what you need for the Core is linked below:

Roon also places a bit more demand on your network, so you may need to check with their best practices to ensure the network does not cause any issues when using Roon:

WiFi is not recommended in general, but improvements in WiFi capabilities have allowed it to be used succesfully (my network is all-WiFi and works fine for Roon).

Hope this helps.

2 Likes
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Thank you Robert, it’s really helpful. My music library is now located inside the Bluesound Vault 2i, does it mean I need to move them to an external drive and plug it to the computer which will be set up as Roon core?

Thanks!

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Raymond, you do not have to move your music files off the Vault. The Vault can act like a NAS on your network and Roon can be configured to simply access the files on the Vault. It will catalog and index them directly from the Vault server over your network. See more about using the Vault as a NAS device on your network here https://support1.bluesound.com/hc/en-us/articles/200387457-Accessing-the-Bluesound-VAULT-s-Internal-Storage-From-a-Computer

1 Like
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Thanks Karl!