11-Aug-2015, 17:27
Wanted to take Roon for a spin to see what all the excitement is about. My current setup is completely trouble free;
• iMac running Logitech Media Server. This is situated one floor and three rooms away from my listening room.
• Audio distribution via the Squeezebox family of products – I’m heavily invested here, with seven receivers around the property in all.
• D200 fed with a Squeezebox receiver via digital input
• All control via iPhone or iPad, using the brilliant iPeng app
As I say, all works a treat. I have no way other than Ethernet to get from my media iMac to the D200, which is obviously fine via the squeezebox receiver. No need for wifi (other than the iphone/ipad control) as the house is flood-wired.
Dabbled with Air once or twice just to see if it worked, but never needed it in anger owing to the stability and ease of current distribution. Put off further by the various discussions on this forum.
Anyway, onto Roon. For me I have two listening modes.
• Lean-back. Just queue up some sounds, dim the lights, grab a beer and enjoy the music. In this mode something like Roon adds no value, and would actually be a distraction.
• Lean-forward. This is where I was interested in what Roon has to offer, where I want to listen, explore, discover, and generally surf my collection (potentially adding Tidal once I actually get enough broadband in the wilds of Gloucestershire!)
First impressions? It’s absolutely fantastic – best thing I’ve found for “lean-forward” mode bar none. Sure, there are a few quirks, “focus on similar” for Kate Bush threw up Alice in Chains for instance (girl’s names?) but overall for a V1.0 release it’s a cracking piece of software. I want it. However, I’m unlikely to take the leap just yet for two reasons.
The first and biggest is Air. Given my setup, and the geography of my technology Air is the only (current) way of getting the signal from iMac to D200. It’s just not stable, even over gigabit Ethernet. I can now see what all the angst is about. Pops, crackles (no white noise though to date) I fed it some HD and it melted. It’s even needed restarting when I’ve skipped to the next track on a couple of occasions. Every time it wobbles I have to trek halfway across the house to kick/restart Air on the iMac. Kind of ruins the moment!
Second is being worked on as we speak I’m sure, and that’s the iPad Roon client. There’s simply something I don’t like about having a MacBook in my listening room, too obtrusive. An iPad however would be perfect (in the same way as it is with iPeng currently) So long as it’s slick when it’s released we can tick that one off.
So, it’s Air that kills it for me at present. Two future solutions I’m pinning my hopes on;
• Roon supporting the Squeezebox ecosystem as endpoints. I’ve seen some very encouraging posts on the Roon forums saying this will be looked at. The Roon guys seem to be really happy to engage with the user community, which is great (and refreshing!)
• Wait until this baby is released as discussed elsewhere on this forum http://www.microrendu.sonore.us to create a reliable (hopefully) Ethernet fed endpoint to the proximity of the D200. The spec states it will act as a Roon endpoint, if so it’s job done, no need for Air
Appreciate any further thoughts – am I missing something obvious? I’d happily continue with Roon if there were a way to get the audio there reliably.
• iMac running Logitech Media Server. This is situated one floor and three rooms away from my listening room.
• Audio distribution via the Squeezebox family of products – I’m heavily invested here, with seven receivers around the property in all.
• D200 fed with a Squeezebox receiver via digital input
• All control via iPhone or iPad, using the brilliant iPeng app
As I say, all works a treat. I have no way other than Ethernet to get from my media iMac to the D200, which is obviously fine via the squeezebox receiver. No need for wifi (other than the iphone/ipad control) as the house is flood-wired.
Dabbled with Air once or twice just to see if it worked, but never needed it in anger owing to the stability and ease of current distribution. Put off further by the various discussions on this forum.
Anyway, onto Roon. For me I have two listening modes.
• Lean-back. Just queue up some sounds, dim the lights, grab a beer and enjoy the music. In this mode something like Roon adds no value, and would actually be a distraction.
• Lean-forward. This is where I was interested in what Roon has to offer, where I want to listen, explore, discover, and generally surf my collection (potentially adding Tidal once I actually get enough broadband in the wilds of Gloucestershire!)
First impressions? It’s absolutely fantastic – best thing I’ve found for “lean-forward” mode bar none. Sure, there are a few quirks, “focus on similar” for Kate Bush threw up Alice in Chains for instance (girl’s names?) but overall for a V1.0 release it’s a cracking piece of software. I want it. However, I’m unlikely to take the leap just yet for two reasons.
The first and biggest is Air. Given my setup, and the geography of my technology Air is the only (current) way of getting the signal from iMac to D200. It’s just not stable, even over gigabit Ethernet. I can now see what all the angst is about. Pops, crackles (no white noise though to date) I fed it some HD and it melted. It’s even needed restarting when I’ve skipped to the next track on a couple of occasions. Every time it wobbles I have to trek halfway across the house to kick/restart Air on the iMac. Kind of ruins the moment!
Second is being worked on as we speak I’m sure, and that’s the iPad Roon client. There’s simply something I don’t like about having a MacBook in my listening room, too obtrusive. An iPad however would be perfect (in the same way as it is with iPeng currently) So long as it’s slick when it’s released we can tick that one off.
So, it’s Air that kills it for me at present. Two future solutions I’m pinning my hopes on;
• Roon supporting the Squeezebox ecosystem as endpoints. I’ve seen some very encouraging posts on the Roon forums saying this will be looked at. The Roon guys seem to be really happy to engage with the user community, which is great (and refreshing!)
• Wait until this baby is released as discussed elsewhere on this forum http://www.microrendu.sonore.us to create a reliable (hopefully) Ethernet fed endpoint to the proximity of the D200. The spec states it will act as a Roon endpoint, if so it’s job done, no need for Air
Appreciate any further thoughts – am I missing something obvious? I’d happily continue with Roon if there were a way to get the audio there reliably.
Devialet 200, MacMini, Roon control via iPad, B&W CM10 S2 Speakers.