Streamer vs Mac

Roon Software Discussion
1

I’m currently streaming Qobuz music from a iMac i9 connected to a USB DAC. Roon core is on Mac.
What kind of improvement (if any) should I expect if added a streamer as a Roon end point ?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

2

When I got auralic aries music opened up. I would look into a Cambridge Audio Mx10, Nad S10 and or wiim pro. It’s been a while since my computer was connected to my Dac.

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3

Hi Abe and thank you for your comment.
Could you please explain why a “pure bitstream” sent by iMac to external DAC, with exclusive access, should be inferior from a quality perspective to a bitstream sent to DAC from a streamer ?

4

If there’s no audible noise/static/fizz/whatever other than the music, you’ve got no real reason to change anything - don’t be bamboozled by blurb, as long as it’s not substantiated with some comprehensible facts.
JM2Cts

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5

Unless you a) run some heavy processing on the Mac that causes it to stutter, or b) the DAC is bad (does not have internal buffers; passes electrical noise to analog output) there would not be any difference.

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6

Hi Marco
I’ve “upgraded” from direct usb to a Zen Stream. While at the time I heard a difference I did come back and test again and again. Sometimes I think that it is better sometimes it is the same (never worse). If you can afford one go for it but do test before. If you have better upgrades to do, do those upgrades. The difference t is not like when I’ve changed speakers or add a sub. But that it is just me with my gear.

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7

What you will gain is convenience and the cost of not running your iMac , unless that’s also serving as your core?
I’ve gone from a streamer to just an Raspberry Pi and I can’t tell the difference, my own view is that streamers don’t provide a great improvement in sound but others will disagree.

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8

I tried to run both iMac and a Synology NAS as a core, no differences at all

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9

Hello,

the theme is a snake pit. Just try.

If I read that correctly, you are running Core and Player on your Mac.

I’ve run Roon Core on a Windows machine, Nucleus, Prime Mini (i3/i7), Synology NAS and haven’t noticed any difference. Until then I said it doesn’t matter what the core is running on. Then I ran the core on an Antipodes S40 and I have to say it doesn’t matter. My ears like the sound better.

In addition, I have to mention that I separated my core and endpoint(s) or streamer relatively early and abolished a direct connection (via USB). I only stream from core to endpoints stably via W-Lan. At the beginning I had endpoints and DAC (USB) separately, now only streamers incl. DAC (Auralic, MeitnerMA3, Naim Cube 2 Gen.).

I don’t want to go back.

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10

My Aries also has a separate power supply and such. I felt there was some improvement. But like others said unless there is excess processing you shouldn’t worry too much.

I would try the Cambridge audio streamer though.

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11

??? This makes no sense. So you swap out the Mac for a music server (which is also a computer) and then you put in a Raspberry (which is another computer). So where is the cost savings of running a computer? Or where is the convenience of running the other options to using the Mac?

I’ve been using a server of some sort for almost 20 years (from a $500 Mac to over $50k enterprise server, Auralic Aries, all the different software versions (pure music, audirvana, lightning DS, Lumin software, and now Roon)).

I never have a server in the same room as my audio equipment and use Ethernet to my dac, so it makes no sense getting any of the music servers on the market because their so-called usb tweaks for better sound, doesn’t apply to me

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13

@Marco_Brivio If you look at the detail below it suggests how you should configure Roon.
It indicates you are better not performing everything on one computer.
So you may gain an advantage to separate the functions currently served by the iMac.

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14

Have you looked at the stats of any computer you run Roon on? My old 2012 Mac mini ran Roon just fine, internal ssd for the OS and the Roon app, and memory was max’d out. My new m1 Mac mini probably is 1 of the fastest computers to run Roon on. I have 8 endpoints for roon to stream too with no issues.