Roon and Sonicorbiter SE = The Spark Killer

[Hifi_swlon]

I ws browsing the Roon forums about the Sonicorbiter and came across this - https://community.roonlabs.com/t/connect...antom/6215

Turns out the Sonicorbiter does not support bit rates other than 44.1, 48, 96, 192

So if you play DSD files or any files other than those with the above bit rates, they will be passed at 44.1 to the Phantom/Dialog optical ports. This is in the RoonReady Mode

In Squeezeplay mode, it'll upsample to whatever is closest. The upsampling is done by the Sonicorbiter (which is a Cubox-i with special software, not some bespoke hardware)

All this adds more processing and cannot be good for sound quality

The Raspberry Pi 2 solution in the other thread here thet McChicken referenced above, is probably a better bet for a Roon/Phantom solution as it passes along the audio as it is received, upto 192 (which is all the Phantom/Dialogue supports).  Any processing is done by Roon before sending it.

This is the way it should be.

And then there is the price : € 270 + shipping + VAT + Duty OR € 60  No brainer really - I've just ordered the Pi solution from Hifiberry.

There is also the point to be considered that Roon will release software for the Raspberry Pi 2 to make it RoonReady in the near future.

Just to clarify (as a regular Roon forum member and having participated on that particular topic)

SonicOrbiter is only limited on its optical output - due to a hardware limitation on the device (its the built-in optical).  USB can do all rates of DSD on supported devices.

Also, if you read Brian's post (Roon CTO) further down - here - he explains the quirks of why this happens in this very rare situation.  You could run it in squeezelite mode, but as he says that is actually up-sampling to 192 (without telling you), since we know the Sonore hardware cannot output 176.4K it display.  It seems Roon also plan to update their sampling pathways at some point to get round these situations and provide more flexible sampling.

Cost-wise, its hard to ignore the Pi combo, but it does require some DIY and not everyone wants that- the Sonore is plug and play with their custom OS and web interface, and support, so I guess thats also what you're also paying for.

I have a Pi but don't use it due to the hassle of getting the various players to run, and the pops and crackles that often plague it due to having shared bus for USB/NIC, but then I was using USB connection to DAC.  With the digi+ optical the latter wouldn't be an issue….

I plan to try it again with my D200 when RoonSpeakers comes out, but if there's a hint of pop and crackle, I'll be getting a cubox/SoinicOrbiter/microrendu.

RoonReady is the terminology they reserve for certified hardware - the Pi will run their forthcoming RoonSpeakers software (which we think will be called 'RoonBridge' when released). Same thing, but different.