“expensive” is always a question of perspective, however I wouldn’t consider the microRendu expensive compared to Bryston equipment. Bryston’s own BDP-pi costs more, or there’s always the option to go a cheaper DIY-pi route (HiFi berry etc.).
What I can say is that support from Sonore is absolutely first rate, and they continue to add features, such as the new bridge feature which can enable Roon ready support for UPnP /DLNA devices.
All the heavy lifting in Roon is done by the core and the end result is then sent to your Roon Bridge (which is for all intents and purposes idling) for passing through to your DAC. A RPi running DietPi, an Odroid C1+ or C2, a Cubox etc. all work fine as Roon Bridge hosts and I seriously doubt spending more money on a device that claims to do a better job is going to make any tangible improvement in what you hear. Start with a Pi, load DietPi and see how it works for you.
Thanks Evan - raspberry pi doesn’t do DSD, which my DAC does do.
The rpi should not be involved with DSD if you use DoP. If you need direct DSD, you need kernel patches and a new alsa.
I run FreeNAS with RoonServer within a VirtualBox. The FreeNAS Server (9.10) runs on an AMD Fusion E-350 with 16Gig of RAM. It’s a dual core 1.6Ghz CPU. It runs more than fine with up to three RoonBridges attached over a wired network.
One of them is a Raspbery PiI 3 with a Hybrid Tube Amp bought in the Kickstarter.
I thought I’d share something I hadn’t known until recently: That Intel processor nomenclature conceals a lot. Similarly-named processors designed for mobile use can have half the number of cores and threads as “desktop” processors. Thus, if buying a small quiet PC for audio use, one needs to be acutely aware of what one is being sold. Some i7-based solutions are based on mobile processors; by spec, they appear less powerful than i5 desktop devices.
Maybe I’m the last one to know this?
References here: https://ark.intel.com/ and kudos to Steve at SPCR who made me aware of the issue and the ARK resource.
Yes and also these mobile cpus often require less power and generate less heat and require less cooling and so can be a quieter which can be a plus for audiophile use.
I am a new Roon convert just getting started and your post was extremely helpful in helping me determine what I was going to run Roon server on!
Thanks!
Jim
At the moment my NAS runs on FreeNAS 10.0 with RoonServer in a VM running Ubuntu 16.04. Still on the same hardware. I changed the mounting within the VM of the Music share that is on the NAS from SAMBA to a 9P Virtio mount and this easily outperforms SAMBA.
@Rob_Kamp Just curious, having not had any issues with Samba and Roon I wonder how 9p virtio easily outperforms it for Roon?
Cheers
Russ
Because 9P Virtio is a block device guaranteed to be on the same platform. You won’t see any different during playback, but you will during import and analysis.
Danny
Thanks for the update.
Russ
The amount of data throughput between SAMBA and 9P virtio is twice as fast:
On a Samba mount
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=speetest bs=1M count=100 conv=fdatasync
100+0 records in
100+0 records out
104857600 bytes (105 MB, 100 MiB) copied, 14.5384 s, 7.2 MB/s
On 9P mount
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=speetest bs=1M count=100 conv=fdatasync
100+0 records in
100+0 records out
104857600 bytes (105 MB, 100 MiB) copied, 7.69619 s, 13.6 MB/s
And with 3200 records of 64K on samba
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=speetest bs=64k count=3200 conv=fdatasync
3200+0 records in
3200+0 records out
209715200 bytes (210 MB, 200 MiB) copied, 13.4879 s, 15.5 MB/s
Adn on 9P mount
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=speetest bs=64k count=3200 conv=fdatasync
3200+0 records in
3200+0 records out
209715200 bytes (210 MB, 200 MiB) copied, 7.24949 s, 28.9 MB/s
I hope this helps!
Hi, I am running Roon on a dedicated mac mini hardwired to my local network. I stream Tidal and listen to my CD library.
Now, I want to add synced music to another room (office). I am looking at a Peachtree Nova 150. My question is will the USB input on the Peachtree see and play my Roon as a new zone, or do I need a dedicated Bluesound device, such as the Node 2?
Thanks, Ken
You need a device that will translate ethernet to USB. And you will need to use the 2nd USB port. That can be the mac mini with a USB out to the Nova, a MicroRendu plugged into the USB slot, for example
Someone mentioned using a Rasberry Pi plugged into the second zone Peachtree. I assume this would need a network cable, or would the network cable go into the Nova? Please comment.
Could I also run a LAN USB cable from my main (Core) Mac Mini to the second zone Nova Integrated amp?
Are there limitations on control in not having a Bluesound Node at the second zone?
Thanks again! Ken.
?? Does such a cable exist? Are you suggesting USB over LAN? That, to me, sounds like a huge technical challenge - I see that there are some solutions for this, but I have to believe they are not meant for a DAC versus a USB mouse or something like that…
The Raspberry Pi is the right idea. Yes, you would need a network cable. I do not think the Nova is in any way LAN enabled.
No experience with these, but they do exist.
Looks like 2 parts snake oil, one part iffy technical solution, one part hope! That said if I had a problem this could solve, I’d be obsessed with it until I was able to try it.
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OK, yes I did potentially reignite the debate over whether the USB chain cleansers are snake oil. Didn’t mean to, just trying to make a pithy comment. I actually own a SoTM USB card… 