Wild Speculation: Full MQA software decode bundled with ROCK [debunked]

[wizardofoz (Mr Fix It aka The Wiz)]

Gary in this situation just use the Linux distro of your choosing. And install Roon server for Linux

ROCK is built as a limited hardware support option to remove much of variability of who knows how many variables of diy pc or the numerous proliferation of commercial ones.

[hifi_swlon (Steve)]

Oh, my apologies!

Don’t know the answer to that one, I think the supported hardware is to be limited to a small subset like NUCs for exactly the reason you mention.

I doubt the team has resources (or desire) to make it compatible with every generic PC. but who knows in the future.

[JWC (Jim)]

This may be helpful.

ROCK Hardware Primer

There’s obviously a lot of confusion over the hardware requirements and support for ROCK so I hope that this helps some people out. I think what many of us forget is that while computer lingo is general vocabulary for some of us it’s not that way for all of us. Nothing wrong with that as I would much prefer that my heart surgeon be a master of his field and not know a DIMM from a hard drive than the other way around So you want to run ROCK and you’re confused as to what hardware …

[JWC (Jim)]

Here is a second link direct from the Roon team.

http://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_Optimized_Core_Kit

From other posts by @danny, the 7th generation (Kaby Lake) NUCs are under testing In addition to the units mentioned in the KB article.

[JWC (Jim)]

RAAT still has the ability to detect the DAC at the end of the chain. For example, the Roon Signal Path sees my IQaudIO DAC+ even though the RPi endpoint uses Linux ALSA. It would be trivial for ROCK to limit software MQA decoding to the first unfold if a Roon Tested DAC is not detected at the end of the path. (Surely the cute line are isn’t purely for show.) That is a key difference with trying to implement a similar MQA certification with software using OpenHome/DLNA/etc protocols.

In hindsight, it should have been obvious that this argument about RoonBridge endpoint not needing ROCK to hide software-decoded bits from the end user due to the closed nature of RAAT would equally apply to the Roon Core on a non-ROCK system.