Just bought a 2nd home and looking to design my system from the ground up with Roon at the center. I intend to have Bluesound speakers in several rooms and one core listening room for me. The first of many questions - the house doesn’t have ethernet. How limiting a factor is this? What does it mean in purely practical terms? Does the player, DAC and storage all need to be in the same room? If anyone wants to point me at a good overview of things to consider, I’m all ears. This hobby has gotten out of control fast, and I’m thoroughly confused. Thanks!
Might want to start here if you have not already read this stuff:
https://roonlabs.com/howroonworks.html
https://kb.roonlabs.com/
ROON works best over Ethernet, however you can use WIfi also. comes down to how much DSP you will be using and how good the WiFi is. I run a cable from my den out to my living room as Wifi for me was not the best.
The components do not have to be in the same room just on the same network. see links above for details.
There is also a good video overview that Hans did here:
I use Devolo 1200+ Homeplugs where I don’t have ethernet. Seem to work fine with Room.
You can get a Media Bridge that connects to you router wirelessly and presents a series of Ethernet ports. I used an Asus 88 with an Asus 87 Router they talk at over 1000 MBs ( they claim), I gave up eventually …
A simpler one is a cheaper wi fi extender with a single Ethernet plug. Either just boost the Wi-Fi in the listening room or plug it in
All that said I eventually ran cable despite the complications I had
Hope this helps
Mike
Without seeing a floor plan, it’s a bit hypothetical, but the ideal situation would be to have a closet, cupboard or similar space just outside your main listening room with a nearby cable socket for Internet connectivity. In that cupboard you put your modem/router, Roon Core and music storage.
If space is no issue then a normal case server running Windows 10 on an i5 (or i7 if you are going to upsample to DSD or convolve multiple room corrections). If space is an issue then a ROCK NUC.
Then I’d drill a hole into your listening room, or under the floor and run an Ethernet cable from your router to a network endpoint in your stereo. I use a microRendu, but there are many choices these days. The network endpoint connects to your DAC which stays in your stereo stack. If your DAC is Roon Ready then it is its own network endpoint.
I understand you don’t have Ethernet throughout, but I would nevertheless drill a hole and have at least this one Ethernet connection into your main rig.
For the other rooms I’d use Eero mesh devices to extend your WiFi coverage throughout the house and connect Roon over WiFi to the Bluesound speakers.
Hang a USB stick off the ROCK or Server for Roon backups.
Control with iOS or Android devices and a remote PC/Mac for editing, grooming, RD into the Server etc.
Hey folks, I had a follow up question regarding networking. In my apartment (my original question was about a new house where I don’t have ethernet), I have a router from RCN and several other ethernet jacks in all rooms but with no patch box to enable the other jacks. What device do I need to be able to make those ethernet jacks usable for Roon endpoints?