Roon supports Devialet AIR

[Chris Marshall]

A couple of questions.

I'd love to run Roon, but I don't want my Mac, which is upstairs, to be running. So what is the most effective and cheapest way of running Roon on my system?

If I did have to use the Mac, and install Roon core on it, could I still have the QNAP NAS running into my Mutec, or does  the audio have to be rooted through the Mac? Please bear in mind that everything on my LAN is connected by Ethernet cable.

Hi Axel

There are a few options with Roon which makes it very flexible.

The core is the main Roon component and does all the heavy processing so needs a reasonable pc though it will work ok on even older celeron boxes, windows Mac or Linux are supported so you could put it on the Mac for a trial.

You can then control it from the Mac itself or a suitable tablet, phone or laptop with the remote app.

You have a number of options for connecting devices:

They can connect directly to the core vie USB or whatever outputs the pc has
There is a software called Roon bridge that runs on various platforms that allow you to connect to devices on the network, the Linux version may run on your qnap but I can't be sure about that
There are a number of Roon ready devices that connect to the network and will play out to USB, e.g. Microrendu.
Finally, there is AIR which needs nothing other than a network cable and sounds great

If you do like Roon, there is a dedicated Linux solution called ROCK which runs on specified Intel nuc mini pc's and would remove the need to use the Mac 

There is loads of information over on Roon's site, the knowledge base will help out 

https://roonlabs.com/support.html

Cheers 

Chris