This KB Page sets out the various audio settings in Roon.
Core Audio is the low level OSX sound layer and can be configured with Audio MIDI settings.
No Problem. But, how your Time Capsule, Mac Book Air is connected is not clear to me. Is the Time Capsule connected to the Air via USB, is the Mac Book Air connect via ethernet or WiFi?
If you can fill in the audio Chain:
Time Capsule ----?----Mac Book Air ----?----rest of network.
Why? Because Roon Server running on the Mac Book Air will pull the file from the Time Capsule, process it and then send it back out. If there is WiFi hop between the Time Capsule and the Mac Book Air, then you are sending the music back and forth over the WiFi connection which, imho, is not optimal and can be the cause of playback issues.
The Time Capsule and Macbook are connected by wifi. I am essentially using the hard drive on the Time Capsule as NAS. When I was using iTunes, I just created an iTunes media directory on that hard drive and under advanced itunes settings pointed the program towards that drive. Again, when I was using iTunes, the chain was then macbook airâwifiâairport expressâtoslinkâDAC.
Now, with Roon Ready, my basic understanding is that the Macbook air is just acting as a remote control of sorts, and that the microrendu is doing all of the heavy lifting, so there shouldnât be any more hope between NAS and mac, correct?
Thx again.
No. The microrendu does not do much heavy lifting it just uses Roon Bridge o receive an ethernet network signal from Roon and pass it on to a USB DAC. The heavy lifting is where the Roon Server is on your Mac Book Air. Have a read of this to better understand Roonâs architecture.
This is a good read, thanks very much. It gets down to the philosophical question:
Is there a difference between âAirPlayâ and âstreaming data from TimeCapsule to Airport and not downcodeâ?
I feel like thereâs possibly a misunderstanding here between AirPlay, and how itâs used with Roonâs ecosystem.
In the setup you describe, AirPlay should be nowhere to be seen.
Also, since your signal path shows down-sampled files, it doesnât point to wifi signal, but configuration issue in Roon or the microRendu.
It might be helpful to post some screen grabs of your audio setup in Roon, and the signal path.
Actually, I see in your original post the target is âairport expressâ. That should say âmicroRenduâ
I will do some screen grabs on Wednesday morning which is my next day off work.
Thx everyone
Iâve been thinking about this more. I think the fact that your signal chain ends in airport express indicates youâre actually bypassing the microrendu and going airport express to your DAC. Is this possible?
I would go into Roon audio setup. Disable the airport express zone and to remove chance of error unplug any direct connection between airport express and your DAC (except the rendu).
Make sure the microrendu graphic is shown in the bottom right hand corner by the volume control. If not click there and select it.
My hunch is that will fix things for you. But itâs a hunch!
After a week or so with some help from Vinnie Rossi and the awesome tech support at Sonore, we are up and running.
I first restarted my whole home wifi network, renaming the time capsule and getting new passwords. I then set up the airport express as a wireless network extender, which required to hard reset the airport express, and confirmed that the home network is indeed working. That required the airport utility.
The next step was to hook up the microrendu to the airport express via Ethernet cable. Once I ran diagnostics on the microrendu and confirmed we had the updated firmware, we moved on to ensuring the system was booting up on the correct order. Itâs important (apparently) that the DAC boot up first and then the microrendu. So, once I did that, the Microrendu automatically popped up in Roon as an audio out. In audio settings, the microrendu showed up AND the other devices in my system that are AirPlay showed up (those are the ones that were causing pesky downcoading.
Apple either was wrong and didnât know it or they misunderstood when I asked them what Airport Express could handle. Theyâre right in that if you use the toslink to optical or analog 3.5mm jack out of the back of the Airport Express, Airplay will downcode it to redbook territory. However, if the Airport Express is used as a wireless network extender, and all data from the TimeCapsule/NAS was wifi to wifi, that should be a lossless transmission, which should continue to be lossless from ethernet to microrendu to usb to DAC. And, thatâs what the signal path is revealing on Roon right now. Anyhoo, very interesting situation. That makes twice that Iâve stumped Apple techs on their own issues.
Thanks so much to Vinnie Rossi and to Jesus from Sonore for their help. Just wanted to let you know how it all turned out for the best!
Matthew
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Proof that the Apple tech support didnât understand what I was asking, and that Airport Express can function as a wireless extender without using âAirplayâ or downcoding to redbook etc.
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Glad you got it resolved.
Man, you and me both! I think it was a combo of doing a hard reset of the whole wireless network, followed by making sure the DAC is turned on before the MicroRendu. After my somewhat annoying glitch with getting the NAS folders to mount in Roon, it is now up and running very smoothly. Very good experience so far.
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