Some questions regarding "Bridge"

Audio Gear Talk
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Dear all

I’m actually using my Synology NAS as a Roon Server. The Files itself are on a Lacie Quadra external HDD attached to the Synology NAS.

To push the music to my Dali Zensor 5 I’m using a RaspberryPI with Hifiberry DAC+ Pro (used as a “Bridge”, right? Software used: Roon Bridge). Everything is delivered to my Yamaha A-S810.

Now, I’m not an expert…the RaspberryPi was a kind of “let me test” stuff…but I think I can get much more out of the RaspberryPi (with ALLO?). Is the Hifiberry DAC+ Pro enough or should I replace the complete RaspberryPi with another “Bridge”?

My plan actually is to put the Roon Core to a Intel NUC 8th Gen. i3 and not on my NAS.

Can someone give me some help regarding RaspberryPi and “Bridge”?

Many thanks for your help.

BR

Piero

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Same plan here, but with i5

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Your current Raspberry Pi/ HiFiBerry DAC hat combo is both transport/ end-point and DAC. Think of the RPI (including OS) without the hat as Roon Bridge. Whether you connect a Pi “hat” (I2S connection) or an external DAC (USB connection) is largely immaterial. These are devices you connect to the Bridge.

So, you have a number of options to consider:

  1. Keep RPi as bridge
    a.with DAC hat using I2S
    b. with external DAC using USB
    c. with external DAC using coaxial plus an SPDIF hat
  2. Buy a consumer Roon-ready network player/ streamer/ DAC

Moving Roon Core to a NUC should have no bearing on this.

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If you want to step it up a notch you should consider getting a separate DAC and use the Pi only as transport.

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but i have a DAC…(yamaha a-s801)

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Then you don’t need DAC on the endpoint that is serving your Yamaha. In fact, it’s worse than redundant, it’s counter-productive as you will be performing multiple, unnecessary Digital-to Analog Conversions.

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Yeah. Wat @xxx said.

I presumed the Yamaha has no DAC on board. If it has then remove the DAC HAT and use a digital transport (USB, Coax, Optical, I2S).

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seems that coax is not technically good enough

my own post before this one.

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https://europe.yamaha.com/en/products/audio_visual/hifi_components/a-s801/index.html

here some info’s about my yamaha.

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It’s technically good enough as it’s used as the mainstay of digital audio transports. It’s wether you want to play or have anything above 192/24 in quality as it can’t go higher than that. So if you plan on buying any DSD recordings or already own some then you won’t get the full benefit of them. If you don’t then stick to coax.

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i will stick to coax…that’s clear…this would mean, no problem for dsd

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Not sure what you mean by this, that amp can only get PCM via Coax port. As per it’s manual page 18. USB is required for DSD.

• Supported digital audio format (OPTICAL/COAXIAL)
PCM (2-ch) … 192/176.4/96/88.2/48/44.1/32 kHz

Your best option is to get a small computer running Windows and the Yamaha ASIO driver and connect that to the Yamaha via USB. Run Roonbridge on it and you will have a Roon Endpoint that can feed both DSD and PCM to your Yamaha.

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what??? a small computer attached??? no way…sorry…

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I think here is Yamaha my main problem…I’ve had a look into Sonore UltraRendu…if I have to install ronpiee it will not work…because of “linux”…which is not supported as i see in the manual.

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The Moon MiND2 Network Player is fantastic (I have 2 of these, one at my home office and one at work). Highly recommended.

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and how much?

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According to link in previous post; 1800 USD.

Edit:
I know it is expensive, but it is really good - always works. It also got internal support for Deezer, Qobuz and Tidal (in addition to being Roon Ready and can also stream from local network shares).

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no way…sorry…seems that my post is getting a “buy this…” post…i really wanna use the digione and raspberry pi…should be a solution incl. my yamaha a-s801…

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I was just letting you know what you needed if you wanted to play DSD. If you don’t, then a Digione is a great input, I use one myself.

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but it will not work with the coax-in of my yamaha a-s801