I am hoping to post some inquiries over the next few days, to clear my mind and understand what I do not know, so please bare with me and help where you can…I have read thru the knowledge base stuff but am lost there a bit.
Current setup is a follows;
A dedicated Win 10 PC i3, 8GB , 250GB SSD for OS and ROON, 1TB hard drive (was the original hard Drive) is now used for Music files, also installed a larger power supply.
Everything works fine, including DSF files and upsampling everything else to DSD 64, and volume leveling.
But if I read correctly, there are reasonable things to do to improve sound quality. Now I don’t know what questions to ask.
For what it’s worth , this is feeding a Lyngdorf TDIA-2710 Integrated thru a Lumin D2 or possibly the internal Lyngdorf USB, jury is still out on the on the battle between these 2.
Good question, I feel like I am missing some Sound Quality, by not doing something more sophisticated with the core, but maybe I am reading more into all this info I see… I have not move this dedicated PC out of the listening area yet. I read a lot about the noise if you don’t. Kind of confused there, as are we speaking about fan noise, or electrical noise that can be transmitted if the PC is in the same room ?
Speakers are Revel performa 3 F208, the Lyngdorf Room Perfect has allowed me to get these big speakers working into a rather small 12x15 room, with the speakers back against the wall. Also as an aside I have gained 3 feet of floor space because of this. Sound great like this.
Well, there’s the obvious fan noise from any computer device that uses a fan for cooling. If that’s an issue, you can move your computer to another room or get a fanless computer device such as a Roon Nucleus or NUC.
Some people say not to connect your DAC directly to your core device using USB lest you might hear electrical noises from your speakers. My Nucleus is connected using HDMI and ethernet and is totally silent.
IMHO, it’s mostly about using a computer device with enough power to smoothly run Roon with no stops or skips. Sound quality is mostly about your DAC, amp, and speakers.
Once you have all this to your satisfaction, you can start throwing money at magic fairy dust chasing rainbows.
Thanks Robert you can see in my response to Jim if you will, above some partial answer to your posting. But I would say I am covered for now on all your items mentioned. I also agree with the chasing of improvements.
So really what if any any improved sound quality could be missed by not having a core machine as sophisticated as NUC (don’t really know what to do with one), fan less quiet PC, Nucleus, Sonic Transporter, etc…
Don’t forget Unicorns !!! Seriously thanks, heading to bed, will review more from yourself, Robert and any others tomorrow Then maybe a few more questions.
AS i read around, the subject of the computer in the room seems huge to some and a must to to be isolated ?
I might look to move the computer to another room, and add an endpoint like a microrendu mR. Personally I would run a Cat 6 cable to the mR but you could get by with a bridge, although hi-res stuff might be tougher to stream.
Anyway to do with the rendu or Sonic Transporters, reach out to @agillis at Small Green Computer. Very helpful.
The core is just doing the number crunching… if you don’t need it in the same room for anything else, I’d suggest moving it elsewhere (near your router?) and (if you’re not already) feeding the Lumin ethernet.
If it’s working and sounds good maybe you don’t need to do anything. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Your setup appears to be pretty nice. I doubt many people would hear any difference separating the core from the endpoint. Maybe if they have a $200k setup and a dead silent room, but I’m skeptical of that even.
Maybe spend the money on a Qobuz subscription instead and enjoy more music. That has added more enjoyment and value to my setup than anything.
It sounds like you are new to using Roon. I would use your current working setup for at least a couple of months before thinking about changing things. Get a feel for the software, what it can do, what you might want to do with it.
Actually, I am on my second year, and just trying to see whats next ? I read about all these options, yet based on comments received here , maybe leaving things working well, the way they are, is the way to go.
I thought for sure I’d get , junk that PC, you should only be using a NUC, sonictransporter, Nucleus, etc…, but none of that, SO…
There are some appealing features of a quiet, small little aluminum box to run Roon, but will it truly make a difference enough to get rid of something working so well ?
Your probably right for now… I think I will conentrate on getting my cable media server out of my music room, along with my Roon PC. That cable media server is noisy with a noisy fan.
I guess concentrating on whether to us the Lyngdorf USB or the Lumin D2 as the end point first. Of course i lose partial MQA capabilty if I get rid of the Lumin, as i guess Roon can only partially open MQA files ?
I love my NUC. I’m sure you are fond of your Windows PC, but it will never be love. Not until you buy a NUC, undress it and put it in something silent and sexy!
