Starting Out on Roon

Hello everyone,

I’m a new user from India. Consider myself a bit of an amateur audiophile so far.

I have been really excited by Roon in the preceding few months and have finally mustered up the will to download it , and utilize the 60 day trial I got with my Audioquest Dragonfly Black.

I have a few questions on which I haven’t been able to get clarity so far , it would be really helpful if you seasoned pros could help me out.

I plan to use my laptop as the core , endpoint and controller for a desktop speaker set-up since I lack NAS and streaming worthy speakers.

2016 Dell 7559 Inspiron
16 GB Ram
i7 6700HQ
Nvidia GTX 960M 4 GB
128GB SSD
1TB HDD
4K Touch Display

A few questions I had were -
1.How much space would be required on my Boot Drive to store Roon and it’s metadata library? I have about 27000 songs i.e. about 360 GB , half of it MP3’s , the other half CD rips in ALAC, as well as 16 bit FLACs bought elsewhere.
Do consider that my SSD boot drive is only 128 gigs and never has more than 10 gigs free , owing to my architectural softwares installed on the same drive.

  1. How much am I losing out on by having the core and endpoint in the same machine? I know about the concept of electrical noise and jitter , and I’ve had an AudioQuest JitterBug for the last couple of years to combat the same.

  2. Does the metadata get embedded permanently into the track files , or do I have to manually update the same on iTunes to sync music to my iPhone ?

  3. How to use my iPhone XR as an endpoint ?

  4. Best settings for an AQ Dragonfly Black on Roon?

  5. I have a 2005 Bose Lifestyle system as well. Will Roon recognize it as an endpoint and give me settings for the same?

Thanks in advance , for anyone with answers or even just suggestions and opinions.

Hello Roushan

For starting out and evaluating Roon, connecting to your laptop will be fine, especially if you use a jitterbug with Dragonfly DAC.

I didn’t see you mention the speakers, but in the long term, there are sonic benefits to using the laptop as the core and having an endpoint.

The laptop isn’t just electrically noisy, but once the fan kicks in, physically noisy as well. An endpoint allows you to keep the core in another room where it can make as much noise as it wants.

The good news is, an endpoint doesn’t need to be expensive. A Raspberry Pi can handle this well for you initially at only $35. You’ll need a case and a power supply, I got my case on eBay for around $4. A good power supply helps, the iFi iPower is used a lot, but costs more than the Pi. Other USB chargers can be used.

You then need an operating system, easiest way is to use Ropieee. Once installed and activated and connected to the same network as your laptop, it will show up as an endpoint. You then connect your dragonfly and jitterbug into that.

Aside from that, controlling Roon is best done using a phone or preferably a tablet. I use an Amazon fire hd8 as a low cost option.

Hope this helps, have fun!

I have almost the same setup (minus the Bose speakers) and it works great BUT I recently flahed a rasberry pi to ise as an endpoint and the system sounded 10% better. Last week I purchaed a used Allo USBridge on this forum and the improvement was a full 20%.

Just download the Roon app and your iPhone should show up in the audio settings.

My NUC has a 128GB SSD, 114GB are left for database and settings and only 4.5GB are used (Library holds about 34.000 tracks in ALAC ~1TB). You can also upgrade your Dell’s SSD for a few bucks.
When you embed metadata outside of iTunes, iTunes won’t recognize it and you need some tools/scripts to resync the library.

Hi,
Thank you so much for your prompt response.

I’m wondering whether Roon is so intensive on the CPU that it will kick the fans into gear on playback.
Also , I noted your points on a cheap and effective endpoint system.
I just need to get familiar with Roon for a few weeks and then see if it is worth further investment.

Hi ,

Okay that gives me hope that I can manage with the storage I have .
I would upgrade the SSD but that would require me to reinstall windows , every other application or software not to mention backing up everything precisely. And that sounds like a huge pain tbh.
Let me update you once Roon is done analyzing and backing up all the metadata into my SSD.

You could clone your SSD to the new one, install the new SSD and that’s all.

Roon may kick the fans on, depends on the processer and RAM. Also depends on whether you are using DSP, upsampling or volume leveling.

But the biggest cause is that Windows will just do it’s thing in the background, downloading updates, running malware checks that sort of thing.

You mentioned using the iPhone.
This is an endpoint, and it is separated from the Core, you can have it in a separate room, gives you all the goodness. You just need an Apple Lightning-to-USB connector, I use a Dragonfly like that with headphones.
Works great as long as you have stable WiFi. Some people argue about sound quality of wired vs. WiFi, I recommend not worrying about it, WiFi works or it doesn’t, if it’s stable the sound is good. And remember, this eliminates all the concern about noise from power supplies which is another thing people worry about, it’s all battery powered.

Hey Anders,

Does the Dragonfly get its power from the iPhone? I know when I use my Meridian Explorer² that I still need to supply power via the Apple Lightning - USB adapter otherwise the Explorer does not work.

Yes it does.

Battery noise is a thing too…don’t just assume as there is no AC supply there is no battery noise.

“Ultimately, batteries provide a non-constant power source that produces a variable spectrum noise that users are trying to get rid of by switching to batteries in the first place.” from link below.

Ah, yes.
I should have said that everything matters.
Mercury is in retrograde.
We always lie in a circle on the floor and clap our hands three times.

Fooey.

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There is as is often said NO FREE LUNCH. :innocent:

Hi guys,

So i’ve finally installed Roon on my core , and had a great time for the first half an hour marvelling at the sound quality and the recommendations of the Roon Radio.

But alas , the remote app on my iPhone XR refuses to connect to the Core.
It does recognize the core but keeps saying connection failed.
@support please help.

Okay @support , so I saw a thread on another page about disabling the firewall.
Did that and now my phone connected to the Core.
Will it stop working once I switch the firewall back on?

Hi @ro_bob93,

Make sure that you put exceptions in your firewall for Roon and RAATServer. Once you do that you should be able to re-enable your firewall without issue.

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