hi im liking what roon have been doing and would really like to use the roon software.
my system consists of a pioneer lx87 av reciever ethernet wired which i use to play my music from my hp microserver,the microserver will be replaced in the near future by a windows 8.1 based server.
would this system be ok for incorparating roon?
thank you
gary
Hey Gary, thanks for the question!
I looked up the Pioneer and it seems like it has Airplay, which should work with Roon in either of the configurations you mentioned.
You might also be able to use the receiver’s USB input for bit-perfect playback, but obviously that wouldn’t be a network based endpoint.
My recommendation would be to do the free trial and see what works best for you. Let us know if you have any other questions Gary!
hi thank you for your reply im getting a bit confused,would roon not work over the wired ethernet network as i use it at the moment,using airplay would be a wireless soloution?
how would the usb work would i have to conect the server via usb on the pioneer?
regards
gary
I’m not sure how you use the Pioneer now, but Airplay will work over wired or wireless connections. If you’re using the Pioneer’s DLNA support, note that right now DLNA is not supported in Roon.
Correct – this would be using the Pioneer like a USB DAC, and then you could pick music running Roon as a remote. This could be our Android app, our forthcoming iOS app, or another Mac or PC.
Let me know if that clears things up for you @gary!
hi mike
i will be building a server running windows 8.1 or windows 10 which will have roon software installed,server will be conected to the pioneer usb dac and using a android tablet as remote/display does this right?
do i need a usb dac card in the server or would the motherboard onboard sound suffice for quality sound?
sorry for the newbie questions im new to all this.
regards gary
Hi Gary,
The LX-87 is advertised as having “a port for the asynchronous USB-DAC, which lets you directly connect a PC or Mac and play high-resolution music up to 192kHz/32-bit”.
If Windows identifies the LX-87 DAC as an audio device then it should appear as a zone option in Roon. if you connect your server to the LX-87 via USB then you won’t need a usb dac card in the server because you will be using the DAC in the receiver. You will also be bypassing the motherboard onboard sound and hearing sound (hopefully !) through the speakers connected to the LX-87.
It may be that you were asking if sound quality would be improved by using either a port on a USB card in the server or a USB port connected to the motherboard. There are also some motherboards that claim to have better ports for USB DACs:
I don’t know which of those would have better quality, but would suggest you check out the Uptone USB Regen before investing in either a specialised card or motherboard for your server. This device has had glowing reviews from a lot of users on Computer Audiophile and may trump the SQ improvement from a specialised card or motherboard.
http://uptoneaudio.com/products/usb-regen
Mine is yet to arrive, so I can’t tell you anything from personal experience.
hi andybob
thank you for your detailed reply,glad to know i dont have to buy a pc usb dac card,ive done some more reading on my lx87 were it says on the manual rom disc is a driver for windows pc to allow high res audio through the lx87 usb dac.
on another note would it be ok to put the roon core on the server were the music is sored?
regards
gary
Hi Gary,
Excellent, I was hoping you’d have some drivers for the LX-87 DAC. If you check the website they may have some more recent drivers.
Provided it meets the hardware requirements the Roon core should happily run on the server where the music is stored. It did on mine anyway !
hi andybob sounds good,in the pioneer lx87 guide it states the motherboard usb 2.0 has to be hs[high speed] i cant seem to see this mentioned on the motherboards ive looked at,any ideas at which motherboards i should be looking at? on a side note the motherboard im looking for must be able to have 2 of these hd controler cards to control 16 harddrives http://www.xcase.co.uk/raid-h-b-a-cards/supermicro-8-port-sas-sata-card-aoc-sas2lp-mv8-79-00-supermicro.html
sorry for the newbie questions this will be my first server build[using a hp n40l micro server at the moment]
all the best
gary
High Speed sounds like USB Audio Class 2 which is implemented on a USB 2.0 bus. This page describes the distinction. The hardware manufacturer will make a USB 2.0 bus port (most are USB 3.0 these days, which is backwards compatible) and the software will access drivers for USB Audio Class 2.
Windows does not have native drivers for USB Audio Class 2. It is likely that the lx87 drivers on your disc will include a USB Audio Class 2 windows driver. If not, I have used the Thesycon driver and found it quite good.
Sixteen drives ! That’s quite a server. I have just two HDD and an SSD in my PC (with a network SSD on the router), so I’m afraid you’re outside my experience there.
Cheers !
hi andybob
thank you for the links very helpful,ill picking parts for the build.
yea 16 drives is a lot everything is mirroed for drive failure and ill use my old server as a backup.
thanks again
gary
I have a specialized gigabyte mono . Beats the regen handily in my opinion.
hi
thank you will check it out.any links to it?