The Matrix can be a Roon endpoint. My Matrix is connected to a Nucleus+ and will also play Tidal and Qobuz streams. The N+ will need an internet connection to play Tidal and Qobuz.
I meant the Matrix cannot function as an Ethernet Roon endpoint. You would have to connect it via usb, as you are doing with you nucleus. You are right. Sorry for the mix up.
No, it cannot. It is acting as a DDC. That’s all it can do.
Its not worth arguing about. The Matrix shows up on my system as the endpoint I send all my music to.
No, it doesn’t. You are direct connecting from the Roon Core to the Matrix. The Roon Core is acting as the Roon Endpoint in your case. If you took the Matrix out of the chain the DAC would show up instead and it would not be the Roon Endpoint either.
This is not just semantics nor is it a pedantic distinction. A Roon Endpoint is very different than what the Matrix is. It is just a DDC. It provides none of the functions of a Roon Endpoint.
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For the primary purpose of the question, suffice to say that the matrix is not an Ethernet endpoint. For Roon to see it, it must be attached via USB to an Ethernet endpoint (such as an Ultrarendu) or to a PC.
The Matrix doesn’t do anything that a Roon Endpoint would do. So it is not a Roon Endpoint of any kind. This is not an insignificant distinction. The Matrix just converts USB to some other digital signal.
…and it reclocks the signal
It doesn’t reclock the signal so much as it has to clock the signal it converts to and puts out. It doesn’t matter much in this case as the DirectStream ignores the clock signal anyway.
This is what it is…
As I am sure @tedsmith will admit, the Matrix is not a “reclocker”. It does not take in USB and reclock USB going out. It is a DDC and in the process of converting the signal from one digital signal, USB, to another digital signal, it has to apply a clock to it. Is that a reclocker? No. Otherwise, all DDCs are reclockers and that is just not the case.
As to the term “reclocker”
Ignoring USB for the moment, reclockers typically take a data stream that has an explicit clock or implicit clock (the clock is integrated into the data stream) and separates the clock and data, then it generates a better, cleaner, lower jitter, etc. clock and sends out the new clock and data in a bit perfect manner. Depending on the protocol these may go out on separate lines (e.g. I2S) or combined (S/PDIF, AES3, etc.)
When you add USB into the mix things are weirder: with USB there is no explicit audio clock, the data is bucketed, the buckets come at 8KHz and any USB audio receiver has to generate a clock whose average speed just matches the average number of samples coming in in the buckets. To complicate matters further USB can either just get data crammed down it’s throat and have to figure out the output clock rate by explicitly doing that rate averaging, or it can generate it’s own clock and send information upstream to the USB host so that the host sends data at exactly the right number of samples per second to match the USB’s clock.
There are also asynchronous sample rate converters which take in the data with one clock, generate their own local (hopefully cleaner) clock and then resample the incoming data to the new clock rate. In this case note that although the output has a clean clock, the data has been modified to give the same wave shape that came in based on the dirty clock. I.e. the incoming jitter has been encoded in the data and hence, ASRC isn’t a bit perfect process.
Anyway at best reclocker is ambiguous when talking about USB digital to digital devices and at worst it’s obfuscating the function that’s really happening.
The Matrix does the best technical version of the above, it generates a great clock, asks the host to send data down at that rate and then formats that clock and data into I2S, S/PDIF and AES3. Technically this is all redundant with the function in the DS, but in practice differences in grounding, noise transmission, etc. can make for better sound quality.
There are other USB to I2S, etc. devices that have all of the same specs and function as the Matrix but almost uniformly lower the sound quality when used with the DS.
But I think that @tonydennison was asking if the Matrix could work better for him than the (popping) Bridge when used with Roon. The answer is that the Matrix doesn’t replace the Bridge function of the DS. Still it’s a nice device to have on hand and, for most of us, enhances sound quality of our systems.
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An importantly, there are no pops with the Matrix. Also can do DSD128 vs just DSD64 via the Bridge.
Yes, but the DS doesn’t have those pops either if you don’t use the Bridge. I.e. the Matrix doesn’t help get rid of Bridge pops - not using the Bridge gets rid of Bridge pops (or a new software update). But the Matrix can still be a nice thing to have.
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I think you are confusing the situation here even more. Just because a device, in this case a DDC, has to clock digital output does not mean it is a “reclocker”. No where is the Matrix X-SPDIF 2 documentation does it call itself a reclocker. The Matrix takes USB input and applies the correct clock for the data as it goes one of the digital ports. Or, are you going to call any device that has to apply a clock to its output a “reclocker”. My point is that just because something changes the clock does not mean it is a “reclocker” as the term connotes.
Yes, of course. I was more referring to the original poster’s inquiry from another thread where he was distressed about using Roon with the Bridge because of pops, and the Matrix does bypass that situation and elevate the SQ…
I think we are violently agreeing.
I was trying to say that the Maxtrix is the clock master, it’s the only clock source in the system. It’s hard to call that a reclocker. I was trying to say that using the term reclocker with USB devices is ambiguous at best.
Reclockers in general buffer the digital data. They put the data in the buffer with the source clock (which may be a little dirty) and take it out with a newly generated, probably cleaner clock. That’s the reclocking. This isn’t what the Matrix is doing at all.
But more so, I was trying to convey to tonydennison that the Matrix isn’t a Bridge replacement. If he wants a Roon end point he needs to wait for better software for the Bridge or get some other Roon end point. If he doesn’t need a Roon endpoint the Matrix is fine, but the DS works just as fine in function without the Matrix. I.e. I interpret his original question as whether the Matrix could provide the Roon function that the Bridge does, but without the pops. The answer to that question is no.
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Yes that is what I was asking.
Thank you
TD
To replace the overall functionality of the Bridge, you’d need something like the MircoRendu. The MicroRendu, and other similar devices, do work with the Matrix. You don’t have to have the Matrix, but it does sound really good to many, just depends on how much you need to network type connection between your Mac and the DS.
Networking and streaming are my biggest concern.
As far as SQ i am content…except for the pops