DEVIALET now Roon Ready.

[cpeptide2002]

Just now received an email from Devialet that Firmware 13.1.3 w/ DOS 2.1.4 is now available as a download. When I opened the changelog, it says as follows:

New features 

• Roon Ready Certification 

• Support for RAAT protocol (Roon Advanced Audio Transport) 

• Chaining : Extension to 16 units (instead of 8) for extreme configurations 

• Lower power consumption in sleep mode (around 1W) 

Fixed 

• IP address error when several Expert use DHCP on the same network 

• Compatibility with some SD card models during software update 

(similar to 2.2.3)

Still being worked on 

• Devialet AIR: Windows instability 

• Devialet Remote App : Volume control is inactive before streaming starts


I use my Roon Nucleus fed directly to my 440-Pro-CI using Ethernet. What does Support for RAAT mean for me ?

Good afternoon, i just bought one Phantom Premier last week, do you think it could have pre-installed the new update already, i don't see any notification in the Spark app.
Thanks for reply

[whatmore]

This may be a silly question but here goes anyway: my expert 120 has always been recognised by Roon, I’ve always been able to connect via Ethernet and control it via Roon.
So, what does “Roon Ready” provide that wasn’t already there?

[David A]

This may be a silly question but here goes anyway: my expert 120 has always been recognised by Roon, I’ve always been able to connect via Ethernet and control it via Roon.
So, what does “Roon Ready” provide that wasn’t already there?

Good question.

I assume you're using Roon's implementation of AIR. AIR is basically a network protocol Devialet developed for streaming music over ethernet and wifi networks. Roon can use it's own network protocol, RAAT, to stream music over a network. If you upgrade your 120 to a 140 it will become Roon Ready and you will then have the choice of streaming music via AIR or RAAT.

Read the various Roon Ready threads here and you'll see some dispute over whether RAAT or AIR sounds better with some people on each side and some saying they can't hear a difference. I can't predict what you would hear or think about AIR vs RAAT. 

Roon allows you to link Roon Ready devices to a grouped zone so you can stream to 2 or more devices in different rooms at the same time. That's about the only extra feature I can think of which RAAT provides that AIR doesn't. Apart from the fact that you make a different zone selection in Roon's audio settings to select RAAT rather than AIR in order to stream to your Devialet, everything else seems to work in very much the same way and, since I'm only streaming to my 140, I haven't noticed any differences in operation with the change.

If you check Roon's sites for their comments on RAAT you'll see why they think it's a good protocol for streaming audio and it seems to do some things differently "under the hood". For example if you dig into the setup options for your 120, you'll see that with AIR you have an option for setting buffer size. With RAAT you don't and it's possible that there are some differences in the way the buffer is controlled. I don't know if that makes a difference.

In the end, I've got a 140 with the CI board so the latest firmware update gave me the choice. I was using Roon AIR before so I tried the Roon Ready connection with RAAT and did some comparisons. I think they sound very similar but I do hear some differences and I have a preference for RAAT so I'm getting what I think is slightly better sound but no other advantages that I can see unless I want to hook up a second Roon Ready device to another system and stream to both it and my 140 at the same time.

YMMV.

[G51]

This may be a silly question but here goes anyway: my expert 120 has always been recognised by Roon, I’ve always been able to connect via Ethernet and control it via Roon.
So, what does “Roon Ready” provide that wasn’t already there?

Good question.

I assume you're using Roon's implementation of AIR. AIR is basically a network protocol Devialet developed for streaming music over ethernet and wifi networks. Roon can use it's own network protocol, RAAT, to stream music over a network. If you upgrade your 120 to a 140 it will become Roon Ready and you will then have the choice of streaming music via AIR or RAAT.

Read the various Roon Ready threads here and you'll see some dispute over whether RAAT or AIR sounds better with some people on each side and some saying they can't hear a difference. I can't predict what you would hear or think about AIR vs RAAT. 

Roon allows you to link Roon Ready devices to a grouped zone so you can stream to 2 or more devices in different rooms at the same time. That's about the only extra feature I can think of which RAAT provides that AIR doesn't. Apart from the fact that you make a different zone selection in Roon's audio settings to select RAAT rather than AIR in order to stream to your Devialet, everything else seems to work in very much the same way and, since I'm only streaming to my 140, I haven't noticed any differences in operation with the change.

If you check Roon's sites for their comments on RAAT you'll see why they think it's a good protocol for streaming audio and it seems to do some things differently "under the hood". For example if you dig into the setup options for your 120, you'll see that with AIR you have an option for setting buffer size. With RAAT you don't and it's possible that there are some differences in the way the buffer is controlled. I don't know if that makes a difference.

In the end, I've got a 140 with the CI board so the latest firmware update gave me the choice. I was using Roon AIR before so I tried the Roon Ready connection with RAAT and did some comparisons. I think they sound very similar but I do hear some differences and I have a preference for RAAT so I'm getting what I think is slightly better sound but no other advantages that I can see unless I want to hook up a second Roon Ready device to another system and stream to both it and my 140 at the same time.

YMMV.

Thank you. It is a very clear explanation.

[Music or sound]

I had a 2 month trial subscription to Roon thanks to Innuos. I was using my Zenith as a core but 3 days before the trial period expired the search function in Roon refused to work as did the integration of Qobuz. I tried to get an answer from Roon but still waiting for a reply.
I wonder what would be the difference in using a Zenith as a core vs Devialet (Zenith as a player) both functionally and sound wise?

[Toca]

I had a 2 month trial subscription to Roon thanks to Innuos. I was using my Zenith as a core but 3 days before the trial period expired the search function in Roon refused to work as did the integration of Qobuz. I tried to get an answer from Roon but still waiting for a reply.
I wonder what would be the difference in using a Zenith as a core vs Devialet (Zenith as a player) both functionally and sound wise?

My experience so far, is that the sound from my Auralic Aries Streamer with Roon integration sounds some how sounds better in my ears -  more musically and opens up a bigger soundstage than feeding Roon directly to Devialet Roon input. I had really hoped that it should have been the opposite, but unfortunately it don't experience that in my system. 

I opened a separate tread regarding other Devialet owners experience regarding this matter. https://devialetchat.com/Thread-Sound-co...-with-Roon

[David A]

I had a 2 month trial subscription to Roon thanks to Innuos. I was using my Zenith as a core but 3 days before the trial period expired the search function in Roon refused to work as did the integration of Qobuz. I tried to get an answer from Roon but still waiting for a reply.
I wonder what would be the difference in using a Zenith as a core vs Devialet (Zenith as a player) both functionally and sound wise?

You can't use the Devialet as a core. The Devialet is a Roon Ready end point which means it can communicate with a core in various ways. The core has to run on a separate machine like the Innuos or my Antipodes or a computer of some kind.

[ogs]

I wonder what would be the difference in using a Zenith as a core vs Devialet (Zenith as a player) both functionally and sound wise?

@David A was quicker than me!

Your Zenith should work well as Roon Core as long as you avoid heavy Roon DSP use (upconverting PCM to DSD for example). EQ and/or convolution will probably work fine too. Did you test any of this during the Roon trial?
The Devialet amp can not run Roon Core. It is either a RAAT endpoint (if the CI board is installed) or an AIR endpoint over ethernet - or it is a USB device. The Zenith can also be a Roon Bridge, but then you must run Roon Core somewhere else and connect the Zenith and Devialet with USB. The fact that the Devialet is a Roon endpoint in it self sort of defeats the Zenith Roon Bridge in your setting, unless you prefer the sound of the USB connection of course.

[Music or sound]

I wonder what would be the difference in using a Zenith as a core vs Devialet (Zenith as a player) both functionally and sound wise?

@David A was quicker than me!

Your Zenith should work well as Roon Core as long as you avoid heavy Roon DSP use (upconverting PCM to DSD for example). EQ and/or convolution will probably work fine too. Did you test any of this during the Roon trial?
The Devialet amp can not run Roon Core. It is either a RAAT endpoint (if the CI board is installed) or an AIR endpoint over ethernet - or it is a USB device. The Zenith can also be a Roon Bridge, but then you must run Roon Core somewhere else and connect the Zenith and Devialet with USB. The fact that the Devialet is a Roon endpoint in it self sort of defeats the Zenith Roon Bridge in your setting, unless you prefer the sound of the USB connection of course.

Thanks finally Roon replied but your explanation is clearer. I found that AIR ethernet sounded the best and USB the least of the 3 options. I tried some EQ for my speakers. Roon has a quite well designed EQ with different filter types and slopes and an excellent UI. It required upsampling, DSP and downsampling but without EQ the path is much simpler. I needed only slight notch filter and a 3dB boost in highs. Without EQ is sounded clearly better. I wonder if that would be also true for music servers with larger computing power?
Would be nice if Devialet would implement an EQ function of similar versatility in their configurator  (or even better in their promised App) without the need of of back-conversion (just before the DAC)

[midi]

I had a 2 month trial subscription to Roon thanks to Innuos. I was using my Zenith as a core but 3 days before the trial period expired the search function in Roon refused to work as did the integration of Qobuz. I tried to get an answer from Roon but still waiting for a reply.
I wonder what would be the difference in using a Zenith as a core vs Devialet (Zenith as a player) both functionally and sound wise?

I have tried the Innuos as a core and player connected to an Expert CI with USB vs. Roon Air and the Innuos only as core vs. the Innuos as a squeezelite player connected with USB. Then I switched back with ROON 1.6 to my MacMini and tried this with ROON RAAT. Finally I have sold the Innuos, because I first decided to go with ROON and I had problems with 1.6 and the Innuos as a core. To use the Innuos only as a player is an expensive solution. I have bought a NUC 8i3 and installed Roon Rock - as a core it is much better than the INNUOS - very fast, less problems. Yes, there a little sound differences between Innuos Roon USB - Innuos SL USB - ROON AIR - ROON RAAT, but in my opinion, they are not very big and for some people it might be not a question of SQ, but a question of taste. And in comparison it’s a lot of money for relative less difference and a lack of ROON functionality . So the question is - is it more useful to spend the money in speakers or a second Expert, or even a dedicated Roon player ? Separated devices have the advantage, that it is possible to replace each device separately. But I would go with the Innuos, if I wouldn’t go with ROON, because the Devialet Air problems, I would use the Innuos as a SL player with USB connection. But this would be only a single device solution. I need a network solution, with many endpoints...