roon basic setup recommendation.

[eladeb]

Hi ,
im new to roon and wanted to knew whats the best way to connect it to my stereo golds dos2 ?
1. id like to buy a hardware to install roon (not an expensive one maybe a passive mini pc or similar and spdif to one of the golds).
2. is there ant android remote to the roon ? basic function etc...?

what r your recommendation?

10x
Elad

[nbkaye]

Hi ,
im new to roon and wanted to knew whats the best way to connect it to my stereo golds dos2 ?
1. id like to buy a hardware to install roon (not an expensive one maybe a passive mini pc or similar and spdif to one of the golds).
2. is there ant android remote to the roon ? basic function etc...?

what r your recommendation?

10x
Elad

I have been running roon for about a year. It servers music to my Pro 140 so im not sure my setup is pertinent to your with phantoms. With that said Roon has been fantastic. My setup is as follows;
1. Roon ROCK running on a NUC 8i3 with 8GB of ram. The Rock software itself sits on 128 GB RAM card. I also have 500 GB SSD in the second slot for music. My music however sits on a seprate NAS but you can just as easy use the second slot in the NUC for music. Total cost is +-$500
2. Music is spooled over my home wireless network. Pro is hard wired to a wifi spot although i dont think this is necessary
3. Control is through dedicated iPad running roon remote. I mostly listen to Tidal HiRez but have around 10K FLAC music files on the NAC.
If you are interested in this setup i can provide you with more specifics

[struts]

Hi ,
im new to roon and wanted to knew whats the best way to connect it to my stereo golds dos2 ?
1. id like to buy a hardware to install roon (not an expensive one maybe a passive mini pc or similar and spdif to one of the golds).
2. is there ant android remote to the roon ? basic function etc...?

what r your recommendation?

10x
Elad

Hi @eladeb

In the subject you say "basic" setup recommendation but then you say "best" way to connect.  Can you elaborate on your use case and priorities a bit more??
- Any idea of budget?
- Easy-to-use commercial products only or not too scared of putting something together yourself?
- Which streaming service(s) are you intending to use at which resolution(s)?
- Is hi res important to you?
- Do you have any music on a hard disk or NAS you would want to include?

I may be able to offer some recommendations but they may be completely irrelevant so it would be helpful with a bit more info!

That said @nbkaye's solution above looks like a great suggestion, especially for value.  But I don't know how difficult it is to determine the right configuration of NUC, install ROCK etc. It may require a bit more IT knowledge than you're up for (@nbkaye, can you comment?)

I have a sonicTransporter i5 which is roughly the commercial equivalent.  $895 list, but super-easy to set up and has been running completely problem free for over 3 years (although it was a bit more keenly priced back then - $595!).  

Bear in mind that connecting over Wifi/ethernet will confine you to AirPlay i.e. CD resolution until Devialet implement RAAT on the Phantoms (hoping, hoping!).  Several of us have tried various bridged solutions connecting over UPnP, so far without success.  In the meantime I stream from Audirvana on a Mac for hi res programme, but that is just because I happen to have all the necessary hardware/software already (I'm a bit of a tinkerer and have "one of most things").

[nbkaye]

The Roon OCK setup does require a little bit of IT knowledge... eg know what an IP address is. The setup of the NUC is very straight forward. Hardware installation take 15 minutes; you need to install 1 SSD and 2 RAM cards.
The description of the work required on this website is excellent. I followed it along with info on the Roon website. It took a morning and apart from migrating my older Roon database, it went flawlessly.Take a read through it and if it sounds reasonable to you then this may be a good path;

https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/ca-academ...rock-r652/

Otherwise eladeb write, the sonic transponder sounds excellent.
One thing to try is to run Roon on a laptop for a few days and see if you like the interface, If you do then you can consider installing a standalone ROCK

[eladeb]

Hi all,
10x for the recommendation above.
Basically i own roon 1.6
For now i use it with my own ltop dell xps 15 touch.
My main streaming is Tidal deezer and started to purchase some local hires flac music.
i have a stable wireless connection to golds will i earned better quality via spdif? guess il try both (: but on your own knowledge.

10x ,
Elad

[struts]

Hi all,
10x for the recommendation above.
Basically i own roon 1.6
For now i use it with my own ltop dell xps 15 touch.
My main streaming is Tidal deezer and started to purchase some local hires flac music.
i have a stable wireless connection to golds will i earned better quality via spdif? guess il try both (: but on your own knowledge.

10x ,
Elad

I run wifi to my Phantoms and am perfectly happy with that.  Per my earlier comment the only drawback is that the combination of wireless and Roon currently restricts you to CD resolution as there is no hi res support in AirPlay and the Phantoms don't yet support RAAT (which many users here are waiting for).  

If you're OK with that compromise for a while I'd recommend you have a look at the ROCK instructions @nbkaye linked above and decide if you're up for assembling a Roon core yourself based on a NUC.  That is without doubt the best value approach.  If not look for a sonicTransporter, new or used according to budget.  

If you want to play hi res material then as far as I know you have two choices:

• Audirvana or a similar PC-based player that supports UPnP (i.e. instead of Roon).
  
• A PC with an optical output running the Roon Core  and directly connected to one of your Phantoms via Toslink is your other alternative, but you need to decide whether that is worth the aesthetic compromise and I certainly wouldn't buy a PC just for this purpose given that hopefully RAAT support will be available within the next few months.  But if you have one this is certainly an alternative.
  

I may have missed an option here but if so I am sure others will chime in.

[struts]

Hi all,
10x for the recommendation above.
Basically i own roon 1.6
For now i use it with my own ltop dell xps 15 touch.
My main streaming is Tidal deezer and started to purchase some local hires flac music.
i have a stable wireless connection to golds will i earned better quality via spdif? guess il try both (: but on your own knowledge.

10x ,
Elad

I run wifi to my Phantoms and am perfectly happy with that.  Per my earlier comment the only drawback is that the combination of wireless and Roon currently restricts you to CD resolution as there is no hi res support in AirPlay and the Phantoms don't yet support RAAT (which many users here are waiting for).  

If you're OK with that compromise for a while I'd recommend you have a look at the ROCK instructions @nbkaye linked above and decide if you're up for assembling a Roon core yourself based on a NUC.  That is without doubt the best value approach.  If not look for a sonicTransporter, new or used according to budget.  

If you want to play hi res material then as far as I know you have two choices:

• Audirvana or a similar PC-based player that supports UPnP (i.e. instead of Roon).
  
• A PC with an optical output running the Roon Core  and directly connected to one of your Phantoms via Toslink is your other alternative, but you need to decide whether that is worth the aesthetic compromise and I certainly wouldn't buy a PC just for this purpose given that hopefully RAAT support will be available within the next few months.  But if you have one this is certainly an alternative.
  

I may have missed an option here but if so I am sure others will chime in.

Thinking about it there may be another option.  The Cubox looks like it has an optical out and iiuc can run Roon Bridges like Ropiee (can any RPi/Debian Ninjas confirm?).  So it looks like  this means one could stream hi res via Roon over RAAT to the Cubox which would in turn be connected optically to the Phantom.  Correct?  I'm guessing a bit here because my only experience is with an Allo DigiOne which only supports Coax/BNC but looks like it should work in theory.  

I'm further assuming that there is no solution based on a NUC with a Toslink output because I've never seen one.  Can anyone confirm?

[midi]

I'm further assuming that there is no solution based on a NUC with a Toslink output because I've never seen one.  Can anyone confirm?
[/quote]

I am using a RPI with a Digi+ card with optical output with Roopiee. Works without problems.

[struts]

I'm further assuming that there is no solution based on a NUC with a Toslink output because I've never seen one.  Can anyone confirm?

I am using a RPI with a Digi+ card with optical output with Roopiee. Works without problems.
[/quote]

Thanks @midi.  Knew it had to be possible somehow.

[eladeb]

Guys your really great (:
Too many thing/comments to procces .
Im not new to cli and linux so ROCK is doable .
So basically as i read from the thread is that the only way to stream the highest quality available for now(until RAAT) support is via ROCK or similar with toslink.