Hi All,
I’m new to Roon (LOVE IT) but am NOT a techie. I would like to set up a core off of my iMac and feel overwhelmed with tech info (incomprehensible to me btw). I do not have a NAS but am looking at a Sonic Transporter i5 with 1 TB of storage. My music library is approximately 45,000 tracks. My iMac is vintage (2007) but running 10.11.6 and it only has USB2. Can’t go over $1,000 to come up with set up either. Also have Tidal and Sonos speakers.
Does anyone have experience with Sonic Transporter? Is it easy set up and would it allow me to not have to run my iMac to use Roon?
Yes it’s easy to set up. It comes with simple directions that you should be able to follow. If there are an issues there is plenty of help here on this forum.
It runs Roon Server and you need to control it from another device somewhere else on your network. That can be an iPad ( not the older ones) or an andriod tablet or you Mac mini if it has a screen and keyboard. You also use smartphones as your control device but they are a bit small and don’t do everything the other remotes do.
Have a look at this for a general overview of how Roon works.
I have a Sonic Transporter i5 but I use an external SSD for storage. Setup is super easy and @agillis is there to help if you need it. However 1 TB of storage won’t do it for a library of your size and I’m not sure 2 TB would either. You might have to go with a few external HDDs to stay in budget.
Thanks everyone so much for the help! Just one more follow-up. I’m sort-of starting from scratch and thought that upgrading to 1TB on the Sonic Transporter would be easier. If it’s smarter or more versatile to just go with the base Sonic Transporter and get a separate NAS, I could do that too. Do you guys have any recommendations? Preferably around $400-500 as that would keep me in budget.
Really appreciate the help!
PS: My library currently fits on my 1TB iMac (shows approximately 300 GB used) but maybe that’s because none of the files are lossless? I’d like to try buying some lossless from Tidal to see if I can hear the difference in which case I might start to need more storage space.
I went with a refurb’d Sinology DS213j I found from Synology on their Amazon store. I think it was probably brand new…just an older model. It’s pretty darn quiet. But honestly, I think its overkill. If I had it to do over again I would probably buy a WD hard drive to attach to the ST and be done with it.
Love my ST…its just a dumb quiet box that does its thing everyday. Love Roon too. Just keeps chugging along with so much flexibility. Having Tidal at my fingertips is awesome too. If I could get groceries delivered in this small town, I’d never leave my house!
I just received the Sonic Transporter and am getting a “Failed to Connect” message. I’m able to see the device in my finder window but unable to transfer my music library over. Also, I had to disable my VPN in order to see the device. Am I going to be able to turn it back on once I set up?
PS: Thanks Stephen for your reply. I love Roon too but I must admit, it’s a real challenge getting everything set up.
Ask Andrew from SGC…he’s great t helping diagnose these things. I also had network issues (just because of the way I had it hooked up prior to the ST, but he helped me figure it out.
Keep in mind I could only use Apple wireless (because I have no clue otherwise) and no idea what VPN even means! So if I could get it working…
Just saying
Nope. Sent a message to Andrew last Friday and haven’t heard back. Tried again this evening and still getting the “Failed to Connect” message. Going to get it working by this Friday or will return it! Urghhhh.
Hmmm, the complete opposite of my experience with him.
So you have an internal large HD in the ST? And you can’t see the ST to send files to it?
Is that correct?
Hey Stephen,
Talked to Andrew yesterday and he got it all sorted out. Evidently it was a bug in the Apple version I was running. All’s working well now! Love not having to use my computer as the core
Thanks for your help!
