Hello, LanRover arrived yesterday. First attempt was a direct connection to dell/laptop using JRiver21/DSD2, but no success, even JR stopped working when disconnected LR, trial and error/process of elimination didn’t work either with JR. Second attempt was installing the LR on the wired network to iMAC/Roon in the office, using two switches (main room/office), and immediately Roon found what made sense without bribing or heart aching and music played. I had played Amber Rubarth’s “Hold On”, DSD128, on dell laptop/Jriver without the LR to my wife, it sounded good, but when I switched to the LR on the iMAC/Roon, she said it sounds as if they are playing in front of us. It sounded unveiled, unsmeared, effortless and painless, I even understood what Paul meant by being able to tell when the LR is removed from the system. The sound stage has been pretty open as I played Blue Coast Records DSD128 collections, Ayreheart’s “Fortune My Foe” this track scared my wife as she walked by and thought the singer was in the room.
All cables used are non-audiophile grade, cat5e in network from original house construction/ cat6 cable matters from amazon, Costco USB 2.0, and PS Audio supplied USB 2.0 cable to DAC, Dlink switches. The focus was more on the delta and it is remarkable. I would like to get JRiver 22 to work on iMAC, but no time yet, the music is intoxicating.
Paul McGowan said
Not a problem guys and we hope you do experiment with different power supplies to see. It definitely won't void your warranty unless you blow it up - which won't happen as long as you use correct voltage. Plug 50 volts into the poor thing and you release the magic blue smoke. That would void the warranty.
So it’s +5V DC at anything GREATER than an amp? e.g., it will use only what it needs?
Exactly. +5V at least an amp, more is better. It will only take what it needs. Can’t have too many available amps.
thorgal said
Hello, LanRover arrived yesterday. First attempt was a direct connection to dell/laptop using JRiver21/DSD2, but no success, even JR stopped working when disconnected LR, trial and error/process of elimination didn't work either with JR. Second attempt was installing the LR on the wired network to iMAC/Roon in the office, using two switches (main room/office), and immediately Roon found what made sense without bribing or heart aching and music played. I had played Amber Rubarth's "Hold On", DSD128, on dell laptop/Jriver without the LR to my wife, it sounded good, but when I switched to the LR on the iMAC/Roon, she said it sounds as if they are playing in front of us. It sounded unveiled, unsmeared, effortless and painless, I even understood what Paul meant by being able to tell when the LR is removed from the system. The sound stage has been pretty open as I played Blue Coast Records DSD128 collections, Ayreheart's "Fortune My Foe" this track scared my wife as she walked by and thought the singer was in the room.
All cables used are non-audiophile grade, cat5e in network from original house construction/ cat6 cable matters from amazon, Costco USB 2.0, and PS Audio supplied USB 2.0 cable to DAC, Dlink switches. The focus was more on the delta and it is remarkable. I would like to get JRiver 22 to work on iMAC, but no time yet, the music is intoxicating.
Nice!! You’re hearing what I am hearing and your wife too. Kudos!
SO - I’m the guy who has been having connectivity issues via Roon (and nothing else, BTW). I have since been sorting out multiple Roon accounts created from the trial version, etc. so I could deauthorize the main server computer. I’ve now moved the Roon Core to my laptop, hooked up via Rover.
BINGO! WORKS! YAY!
Now I’ll just have to figure out why it didn’t work on the Mini. Maybe the deauth. and a reauth. will fix it (crosses fingers).
Best the 'ol Laptop has ever sounded, that’s for sure!
So…I’m now into the “fun” exercise of cable related changes. I saved this until Saturday morning, because early mornings seem to be when my hearing is most sensitive. Saturday is when I have ample hours to listen in the morning.
I swapped out the provided, very short, ribbon type Ethernet cable with an everyday grade 10’ Cat6 round Ethernet cable. It’s an easy change to make. You can leave both Rover units attach, unplug the Ethernet cable and plug in the new ones. You don’t have to disconnect or power down the Rover units, the two units automatically sync up when you attach the new Ethernet cable and everything still works…thank God. After the switch, I notice a little more “matter of fact” feel to the music. The air around the piano strikes was diminished, as was cymbal hits. The soundstage also felt slightly narrowed. It’s not startling, but my system is pretty revealing, and I’m very sensitive any changes. To me the difference is night and day, in favor of the supplied short Ethernet cable, but someone new to my system may not be able to tell as big a difference. I’m ordering a couple longer length Ethernet cables from Blue Jeans to get a better cable. I use this cable to connect my computer and NAS drive to the network hub. The Blue Jeans cable is twice the diameter of the cheap Ethernet cable I tried, and very stiff by comparison.
Additionally, I have an Aqvox USB power supply in my grave yard of USB power replacement/improvement devices. It had a positive effect, prior to me using the Regen. I like it because it doesn’t need another USB cable. It replaces the USB power via a small male/female single piece adapter. Since the Rover sender unit is powered by the computer, I thought I would see if there was any impact. Well, there was, but the impact was negative. The soundstage flattened and the music lost its transient attack. Overall just worse.
For USB, the differences are noticeable, but consistent with what I found with the Regen. My favorite combo is Kimber Silver USB -> Rover pair -> Curious cable USB. I tried swapping the position of the Kimber and Curious USB cables, but did not like it as much. This is consistent with what I found performing the same experiment with the Regen.
I think I am sold on the LR. Even Youtube videos sound better now. But I can’t answer if it’s worth 10 times the cost of the Jitterbug. I swapped out the LAN cable last night with a short CAT5E cable made by Black Box and the high sounded smoother. Will try out different USB cables connect from my mac mini to the LR this weekend. Stay tuned.
a25105 said
I think I am sold on the LR. Even Youtube videos sound better now. But I can't answer if it's worth 10 times the cost of the Jitterbug. I swapped out the LAN cable last night with a short CAT5E cable made by Black Box and the high sounded smoother. Will try out different USB cables connect from my mac mini to the LR this weekend. Stay tuned.
I was interested to hear someone else test the Ethernet cable. I found it made a difference as well. For me in was worse, as the Ethernet I compared was a very cheap, flimsy cable.
Restarted my system this morning without the LANRover to establish the baseline. All was well.
Connected the 1.0 Meter WW Platinum Statlight USB cable from my PC into the LANRover Sender unit, Supplied Cat6 cable to the Receiver and then a 0.5 meter WW Platinum Starlight USB into the DAC of my Esoteric K03x.
The DAC would show a lock on a signal but no sound will play - JRMC is playing. Tried rebooting the PC, the JRMC and the Esoteric all in succession and each time no sound. The DAC does not always show a USB signal and often JRMC displays errors with the Esoteric ASIO drivers being unable to play 44.1 Hz.
Tried different cables both USB and Cat6. Nothing.
power is from a PPP.
For now, I am dead in the water with this unit and have returned to having my W4S Recovery inline and the LANRover in its box.
(It only played when I first took it out of the box and after about 20 minutes, it started generating the ASIO errors). Hasn’t worked since.
crwilli said
Restarted my system this morning without the LANRover to establish the baseline. All was well.
Connected the 1.0 Meter WW Platinum Statlight USB cable from my PC into the LANRover Sender unit, Supplied Cat6 cable to the Receiver and then a 0.5 meter WW Platinum Starlight USB into the DAC of my Esoteric K03x.
The DAC would show a lock on a signal but no sound will play - JRMC is playing. Tried rebooting the PC, the JRMC and the Esoteric all in succession and each time no sound. The DAC does not always show a USB signal and often JRMC displays errors with the Esoteric ASIO drivers being unable to play 44.1 Hz.
Tried different cables both USB and Cat6. Nothing.
power is from a PPP.
For now, I am dead in the water with this unit and have returned to having my W4S Recovery inline and the LANRover in its box.
(It only played when I first took it out of the box and after about 20 minutes, it started generating the ASIO errors). Hasn’t worked since.
Have you tried taking JRMC out of the equation? I tried JRMC 22 on my MacBook Pro. Everything looked like it would work. JRMC saw the DAC, my DAC saw the signal, but I just couldn't get music to play.
Playing music with something like iTunes vs. JRMC will at least tell you if it’s a hardware connectivity issue, or something unique to JRMC (which is the case for me).
Also…my MacBook Pro was messed up, even after a reboot, until I unplugged the Rover from the USB sender unit and plugged it back it. It’s almost as if some JRiver process was still retaining the connection. It s was odd.
crwilli said
Restarted my system this morning without the LANRover to establish the baseline. All was well.
Connected the 1.0 Meter WW Platinum Statlight USB cable from my PC into the LANRover Sender unit, Supplied Cat6 cable to the Receiver and then a 0.5 meter WW Platinum Starlight USB into the DAC of my Esoteric K03x.
The DAC would show a lock on a signal but no sound will play - JRMC is playing. Tried rebooting the PC, the JRMC and the Esoteric all in succession and each time no sound. The DAC does not always show a USB signal and often JRMC displays errors with the Esoteric ASIO drivers being unable to play 44.1 Hz.
Tried different cables both USB and Cat6. Nothing.
power is from a PPP.
For now, I am dead in the water with this unit and have returned to having my W4S Recovery inline and the LANRover in its box.
(It only played when I first took it out of the box and after about 20 minutes, it started generating the ASIO errors). Hasn’t worked since.
Have you tried taking JRMC out of the equation? I tried JRMC 22 on my MacBook Pro. Everything looked like it would work. JRMC saw the DAC, my DAC saw the signal, but I just couldn’t get music to play.
Playing music with something like iTunes vs. JRMC will at least tell you if it’s a hardware connectivity issue, or something unique to JRMC (which is the case for me).
Also…my MacBook Pro was messed up, even after a reboot, until I unplugged the computer from the Rover USB sender unit and plugged it back it. It’s almost as if some JRiver process was still retaining the connection. It s was odd.
crwilli said
Restarted my system this morning without the LANRover to establish the baseline. All was well.
Connected the 1.0 Meter WW Platinum Statlight USB cable from my PC into the LANRover Sender unit, Supplied Cat6 cable to the Receiver and then a 0.5 meter WW Platinum Starlight USB into the DAC of my Esoteric K03x.
The DAC would show a lock on a signal but no sound will play - JRMC is playing. Tried rebooting the PC, the JRMC and the Esoteric all in succession and each time no sound. The DAC does not always show a USB signal and often JRMC displays errors with the Esoteric ASIO drivers being unable to play 44.1 Hz.
Tried different cables both USB and Cat6. Nothing.
power is from a PPP.
For now, I am dead in the water with this unit and have returned to having my W4S Recovery inline and the LANRover in its box.
(It only played when I first took it out of the box and after about 20 minutes, it started generating the ASIO errors). Hasn’t worked since.
Just sent my phone number via private message if you want to talk about the problems with JRMC I was having.
crwilli said
Restarted my system this morning without the LANRover to establish the baseline. All was well.
Connected the 1.0 Meter WW Platinum Statlight USB cable from my PC into the LANRover Sender unit, Supplied Cat6 cable to the Receiver and then a 0.5 meter WW Platinum Starlight USB into the DAC of my Esoteric K03x.
The DAC would show a lock on a signal but no sound will play - JRMC is playing. Tried rebooting the PC, the JRMC and the Esoteric all in succession and each time no sound. The DAC does not always show a USB signal and often JRMC displays errors with the Esoteric ASIO drivers being unable to play 44.1 Hz.
Tried different cables both USB and Cat6. Nothing.
power is from a PPP.
For now, I am dead in the water with this unit and have returned to having my W4S Recovery inline and the LANRover in its box.
(It only played when I first took it out of the box and after about 20 minutes, it started generating the ASIO errors). Hasn’t worked since.
Have you tried taking JRMC out of the equation? I tried JRMC 22 on my MacBook Pro. Everything looked like it would work. JRMC saw the DAC, my DAC saw the signal, but I just couldn’t get music to play.
Playing music with something like iTunes vs. JRMC will at least tell you if it’s a hardware connectivity issue, or something unique to JRMC (which is the case for me).
Also…my MacBook Pro was messed up, even after a reboot, until I unplugged the Rover from the USB sender unit and plugged it back it. It’s almost as if some JRiver process was still retaining the connection. It s was odd.
I really do not want to put iTunes and all its baggage onto my pristine Win7 based PC. Any idea what settings in JRMC are causing the issue? It did work out of the box…
Without rereading every post, it seems like the most problems, and when working the most gains are coming from Mac Minis.
I’m using a laptop running Windows 10, with JRiver 21. Other than having to reboot the PC when I first installed it, no problems. Well I swapped it out yesterday and when I reinstalled it, I had no power to first unit. Well duh, I had plugged the external disc drive in. Changed to the correct usb, and running again. Of course the time it took ruined any quick comparisons. I am going to try that again later today.
The first night I had it, I listened to some ripped jazz that I usually prefer from the CD. Johnny Hartman singing was maybe the best I have ever heard from that CD. Know that I think about it, I often thought it sounced like they had done something to the vocals, reverb or??? But it did sound like he was standing there. Hmm?
I am still on the fence, as it has not been night and day, as a few have experienced. And the big question is whether it is worth the $500, or even more at $600. Especially when you consider needing a second quality usb, and that a power supply upgrade will be needed to get the best out of it. The quality of the little boxes is very good. As to the bright lights, I thought they might be a distraction, but they’re not. A suggestion for those that were worried about the lights, just turn them around. Either way you have cables in the front and the lights are only needed for setup and troubleshooting. If you need to check them, use a mirror. I have gotten pretty good using mirrors for cable swaps.
I really wanted to be gobsmacked, but have only had moments of subtle improvement. I am going to take it over to friends next week, he has the ears. I am beginning to wonder if at 61 my hearing is as good as I think it is.
crwilli said
Restarted my system this morning without the LANRover to establish the baseline. All was well.
Connected the 1.0 Meter WW Platinum Statlight USB cable from my PC into the LANRover Sender unit, Supplied Cat6 cable to the Receiver and then a 0.5 meter WW Platinum Starlight USB into the DAC of my Esoteric K03x.
The DAC would show a lock on a signal but no sound will play - JRMC is playing. Tried rebooting the PC, the JRMC and the Esoteric all in succession and each time no sound. The DAC does not always show a USB signal and often JRMC displays errors with the Esoteric ASIO drivers being unable to play 44.1 Hz.
Tried different cables both USB and Cat6. Nothing.
power is from a PPP.
For now, I am dead in the water with this unit and have returned to having my W4S Recovery inline and the LANRover in its box.
(It only played when I first took it out of the box and after about 20 minutes, it started generating the ASIO errors). Hasn’t worked since.
I could have written this exact same post. Too bad we appear to be in the minority that can’t take advantage of this device.
Settings, DSP Studio, output encoding 2xDSD in DoP format
Bitstreaming, None (recommended)
Compared JR to Roon:
Roon USB 2 LanRover, in DSD128, out on DAC screen PCM 352.8k 24 bits
JRiver 22 USB 2 LanRover, in DSD128, out on DAC screen DOP DSD128 1 bit,
much less gain/volume than Roon
Can switch from Roon to JR but not the other way. Roon would grey out play, scan songs in album without playing any, closing JR on iMac, then Roon played album, music richer, larger image, much more volume
The music wouldn’t play through the Rover pair. Then, the computer wouldn’t even find my DAC after the attempt. My computer, similar to the JRiver attempt, would not reboot afterwards if the Rover pair was connected. However, worse than the JRiver attempt, my computer failed to find the DAC, even if it was connected straight to my computer. Reboot after reboot & plugging and unplugging my DAC and the LANRover pair over and over again failed to solve the problem.
I then tried a “safe reboot” of my Mac, which boots tthe Mac with only core processes at startup. Once the MacBook safely rebooted, With the Rover pair connected, my DAC didn’t show up. I unplugged the power to my DAC and plugged it back in. Now everything seems to be ok. I have rebooted half a dozen times after that to make sure all remained ok, and it has.
My system: Custom PC running windows 10 - SOtM tX-USBexp card - supplied USB cord - LANRover with supplied CAT wire - Curious USB cable - Grace m903 - Sennheiser HD800
Received unit yesterday, easy install but DAC not recognized, has occasionally happened in past, usually solved by disconnecting the USB cable for several seconds but did not work with LANRover in place. Tried shutting down DAC, reloading drivers, did not help. Finally tried rebooting the computer and DAC now recognized, music playing normally.
After listening with the LANRover in place for several hours, can confidently say things have improved significantly. Ever since I did the SuperDupont Resonator modification to the HD800, I had been very happy with my system; however, with the addition of the LANRover, I am hearing details that I have not noticed before. In certain songs, sounds that I thought were produced by one instrument, now I can clearly hear that they were actually created by multiple instruments. I am able to more easily follow different parts of the orchestra or band. Vocals really stand out with more perceived space around the singer. Finally, I’ve noticed less fatigue after listening for over an hour. Overall, very happy with the changes.
One of the things I noticed 2.5 months ago (looked it up) when I started down this galvanically-isolated USB road (hereinafter referred to as GIUSB) with respect to setting it up in Roon, at least, is that Roon sees it as a different configuration from a single cable. Or doesn’t see it, as the case may be, requiring one to create a new Zone config for it. Then, after that, Roon would instantly recognize the different USB configurations when I swapped them in and out.
This may help explain (to those questioning it) my earlier deal with creating/naming the Roon “Rover” zone uniquely, rather than it just acting like/appearing as does a single cable. This may have contributed to my initial difficulties, as I started out assuming it needed it’s own “Zone” when the Rover didn’t just cause any of my existing output options to appear (in the Roon Audio Setup menu). However, when I moved the Core to another computer, Roon saw it as a typical USB connection/did not require a unique Zone configuration.
I mention this, as it may end up having some bearing on the connection issues folks are having with other software as well. I have no idea what it means - just thought it worth mentioning. When I take my current GIUSB rig out, that Roon Zone disappears from the list, and when I hook it back up, it’s there and connects without incident.
On this one specific computer (which is VERY minimal OS) Roon seems to have issues “seeing” the Rover, either as plain 'ol USB or as a custom config. Sent a note to Bill Ernst to see if he has any ideas.
Paul, et al at PS Audio, I assume you haven’t had any issues with any Ernst-running-Roon-with-Rover computers you guys may have?
Since last post: Re-authorized Roon Core on the “problematic” computer, trashed Roon prefs, and issues still there, now including Audio Midi crashes (requiring Force Quit). Sigh.
I’m on day three with the Rovers, and I decided to try out my iMac with a 25 foot CAT 6 cable, which has worked out well, and as far as I can tell, there is no noticeable change in sound quality. I’ve got JRiver MC 21 on this iMac, and it’s been pretty well locked up. I’ve been fumbling around trying to get it to work, but no success just yet, with every selection earning a pop up that tells me that I need to open DSP Studio to make changes to its settings. No luck with that either. In the meantime, I’ve been playing hi-res files through iTunes and Bitperfect, which has worked well and sounds really good. I’d bought the new reissued Peter Gabriel albums on vinyl, which include 24/96 downloads, and was anxious to give them a listen. I’ve downloaded two so far, both of which have been excellent. “Mercy Street”, off of So, has a great yet subtle rumbling, pulsing bass at it’s core. My old CD rip of this song didn’t even come close. I’ve also listened to several mp3’s which have sounded surprisingly good, with good bass and clean mids.
Just tried Roon on my MacBook Pro straight to the DAC (not using HQPlayer). Does not work. Works without the Rover pair in line, but not with it in the path.
Additionally, I can’t play anything to the DAC until I reboot.