Showing (off) your Roon setup - description and photos [2015-04 .. 2021-03]

Yes, the newer movie audio formats like Dolby Atmos with the object oriented sound is pretty amazing even for someone like me that is deaf on the right side. The overhead sounds, from planes, helicopters, an avalanche, etc., from the height/ceiling speakers tends to add some realism. If I could get that from ripped videos I would give it a try.

I listen to music most of the time, with the NUC HDMI to receiver connection and the Dolby Surround Processor all the music is multi-channel from all the speakers and subs. The Denon receiver with 13 amps does a pretty good job. If the signal from Roon is multi-channel it plays it as is and stereo gets processed to surround. I like the sound all around me but it all goes in one ear anyway.

Just proves that speakers are the most important part of a system.

@Darryl_Caillouet - your next project?

Yes without speakers all bets are off. :sunglasses:

Donā€™t headphones count? :frowning_face:

In case you hadnā€™t noticed headphones are just small speakers on or poked into your head :flushed: I have lots of both and enjoy switching them around and listening on different pairs as the mood takes me. Custom IEMā€™s are my headphone of choice when I want absolute solitude and listening with concentration.

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Really? And here I was thinking that they were some kind of telephone. I learn something new everyday! :astonished:

All kidding aside I really like what you wrote and I do basically the same with all my different headphones. Not much of IEM fan since many years of commuting made me grow to dislike them. Check out all my posts on the Roon headphone thread: Cans

Great setups, all! Some I like, some I love, some Iā€™m a bit dubious on - doesnā€™t matter, as long as weā€™re happy with our own setups!

You guys inspired me to share mine. I split w/ my spouse and moved into a condo about 18 mo. ago. I decided to put together a great system. So Jamesā€™ comment about divorces leading to extravagant systems hit pretty close to home, :grinning: Truth hurts! Anyway, I took my time, researched carefully, and tried to maximize value. I wanted it to be a chill, low key system with SQ as good as possible within a reasonable budget. I think Iā€™ve largely achieved that.

First Iā€™ve got a PC which serves as my Roon core, Plex Server, media storage, and just generally the media hub.

In my LR Iā€™ve got a raspberry Pi hidden away w/ Ropieee (or Volumio, canā€™t remember) which serves as the Roon endpoint, connected via Wifi. This has the HiFiberry + Pro DAC hat, with analog outputs. This goes to my Denon AVR S910W receiver. Iā€™ve got Polk S55 (GREAT speaker value, they are amazing) front speakers, S35 center channel. (rocking a 3.1 setup for home theater, rear surround I find distracting, personally) SVS SB-1000 sealed sub. I also have a U-Turn Orbit TT w/ a nagaoka MP-110 cartridge & Uturn Pluto preamp. RCA cables are Audioquest Evergreen, Speaker cables are MediaBridge. I bought an Amazon tablet to use as a dedicated Roon remote. Iā€™ve been fortunate, thereā€™s been no duds at all equipment-wise & everything plays nicely together.

I also have a modest little HP setup, another Pi w/ Ropieee, USB out to an Olympus 2 Fiio dac/amp and Grado S80 'phones. Iā€™ve been eyeing a Schiit Mani/Modi stack and Sennheiser 6xx phones from Massdrop as an upgrade path. This HP setup does pretty great for hard rock and metal but seems to lack a little something with electronic music.

Through careful planning and research, the willingness to do a bit of DIY with the Pi endpoints, and probably a good deal of luck, I got a system that absolutely shines for a semi-reasonable cost! Itā€™s given me so much joy. I love hearing nuances Iā€™ve never heard before in well-loved music Iā€™ve heard a hundred times. Sometimes, if the system is nice and warmed up, with the perfect album and Iā€™m really focusing on the music, I experience what Iā€™ve taken to calling ā€œaudiogasmsā€ - these moments of transcendence where the music just gives me chills and Iā€™m sort of gobsmacked by the sound, itā€™s like the music is writing itself directly onto my brain or something.

Anyway, hope this isnā€™t too long of a post! Would love any comments/suggestions for improvements etc. and Iā€™ll do the same as well. Iā€™d be happy to answer any questions as well, Iā€™ve learned quite a lot through trial and error. Anyway, cheers and happy listening!

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Nice setup. How sound proof is the condo? That is, can you really crank it up when you want to (or is that the purpose of the headphones?).

My question was how many expensive sound systems caused divorces, not, how many divorces caused expensive sound systems?

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Thanks! Itā€™s pretty well soundproofed. I was a bit concerned about that. But itā€™s fairly recent construction, and each unit, according to the home inspector, is encased in concrete for fire safety, but more importantly (haha) that seems to isolate the sound nicely. I rarely hear my neighbors so they probably donā€™t hear me much. Iā€™d be mostly concerned w/ my downstairs neighbor, except she is paranoid Iā€™m going to turn her in for having more than the allowed number of dogs (which do yap loudly on occasion). Iā€™ve assured her I will not, so I donā€™t really worry about her getting mad at me for music LOL.

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haha James, sorry man, I guess I misunderstood. In my case it definitely went the other way :grinning: Perhaps there was a dash of midlife crisis in there too.

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And you did get your audiogasm.

Hey @xxx, ever since I read Nelson Passā€™ article on building the ridiculously awesome Kleinhorns, the idea of building a set of speakers has been an idea rattling around in the back of my mind. My DIY folder on my computer is full of images & ideas of possible projects almost all of them way more advanced & complicated than they need to be. Because I donā€™t have enough stuff in my already overwhelming ToDo list, I bought both of Morgan Jonesā€™ books on Building Valve Amplifiers and Iā€™ve been reading through those learning all the different ways I can electrocute myself.

Having cobbled together my dream stereo system, the next go around Iā€™m thinking I might build a system for my kids who are both in college.

But first Iā€™ve got to finish a wooden sailboat, a pair of chairs Iā€™m building, restore that old motorcycle I have stored in my brotherā€™s shed, start printing the 4x5 negatives that are piling upā€¦and the list goes on. I need twice as many hours in the day and to figure out how to survive without sleeping. :wink:

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What is it? I remember most of those motorcycles when they were new. :grimacing:

@xxx, My freshman year at LSU, I wanted a single-cylinder Yamaha SR500. But it cost a few hundred more than my impoverished budget could afford. So I got an XS400 instead. For some reason, I always wanted that kick-started thumper. I picked up a 1980 model cheap and Iā€™m just waiting for some free time to appear. It never doesā€¦

It will be a simple minimalistic ride if I can ever get to it.

Yes, remember it well.

I had the same passing infatuation with thumpers, but never acted on it. Bultaco comes to mind.

Have fun.

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I always wanted either a Bultaco or Husqvarna. A 1968 model! They seemed to be the coolest dirt bikes in my motorcycle magazines in Junior High.

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Siegfried Linkwitz (RIP) was a good friend of Nelsonā€™s and lived near him at Sea Ranch. Check out some of SLā€™s speakersā€¦I have several. Www.linkwitzlab.com

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Go with the Massdrop Sennheiser HD6XX headphones - quite possibly the best bargain in headphones. I donā€™t know enough about Olympus amp to say for sure whether or not it has enough power to drive the HD6XXs but you can try. Oops, I just looked up the Olympus amp and sorry to say that itā€™s not going to work with the HD6XXs. You might want to go with the Massdrop x Sennheiser HD 58X Jubilee Headphones - also a very good deal and much lower impedance than the HD6XX (150 ohm versus 300 ohm). By the way both of these headphones are on sale at the moment.

Hopefully that mess of wiring shown in the photo of your computer desk has been resolved :rofl:

I have a similar ceiling, and I have been playing with room acoustics since I moved in at the end of 2015. My biggest problem with such ceilings is that they make your room atypical. For that reason, the formulaic methods of speaker placement tend to be less reliable. Speaker placement becomes more of a dark art at that point.

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