Ha ha.
Trap door/secret cache, maybe…?
Those are already filled with boxes for extra hi-fi equipment smuggled into the house. No such thing as too many subwoofers in a cinema room.
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I suggest you build a “She-Shed” in the back yard with a false wall and secret sub-basement.
The combination of the loving gesture and surreptitious construction methods should buy you some favor and time. 
[For the record, I don’t advocate deception and marriage. Not a loving or wise practice…]
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To segue back on subject… A wish of mine for the AirLens is that its box fits inside the DS MKII box for storage… which is through the passage way under the stairs to the second basement that only I remember is there.
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Is this thread about the Air Lens and its capabilities? I asked a couple times if it will be able to control digital volume on a DLNA endpoint and I have received no response. My Ultrarendu lets me control volume on a Wyred4Sound 10th Anniversary DAC, so I would hope the Air Lens will allow the same feature.
Hi - what s/w are you using to control the volume?
I use a couple different client programs. LMS Squeezelite (native or with DLNA plug in), JRiver, or Foobar2K. I set my volume to max on the W4S DAC and then use the volume slider in the client software to adjust between tracks.
The Air Lens itself has no controls so all volume levels before it will be controlled by the software feeding it. After it volume will be controlled by a preamp or integrated if you are using one. It is just another form of Rendu.
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Thanks, that makes sense and answers my question.
I have never used Roon, but it is supposed to have digital volume control and in some cases can even control the hardware volume of a Roon endpoint.
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Indeed, Roon Ready gives Roon control over your player’s volume and playback control. It is one of the reasons for it being quite difficult to implement, but worthwhile.
It also means that, as I sometimes do, if you are playing the same music to several zones at the same time, you can control the volume in each zone separately, all via the Roon app.
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Roon volume control can get very complicated actually
There is Roon’s own digital volume control which works with every endpoint. Then there is “Roon Ready” which is a certification program for network attached “DACs”. If that endpoint supports its own volume control then Roon can control that (for example, Lumin Leedh). Then, if the endpoint is running Linux there is ALSA (audio drivers for Linux) volume control. ALSA will either use its own software mixer for volume or, in the situation you’re using a HAT with hardware volume control like HifiBerry, then ALSA will control that volume. All of this looks the same in Roon.
Volume control can be its own deep rabbit hole. Personally, I avoid it all and prefer to do it on the analog side of my set-up. And I don’t care if that’s right or wrong.
To bring this back to AirLens… usually a Digital to Digital convertor / digital transport would not include volume control. However, in saying that, a Digital to Digital convertor / digital transport which presents itself as a DLNA / UPnP renderer is supposed to support volume control within that environment. Also, being a Roon Ready device (assume it’s Roon Ready) and having a way to take commands from Roon for volume and pushing these to a DS DAC… that gets interesting and would be a nice feature to expose (but I’ve seen no talk of this).
One of my favorite features. You can set each zone in reference to each other and then adjust a single slider to turn all the zones up / down and they keep the same relative volume. Very neat.
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Aye - I’ve tried it both ways several times, and of course it is all very set up and situation dependent.
There is, however something satisfying about running the DAC at full level and using analogue volume.
It makes me gain-structure spidey-senses tingle a little less 
…but then I’ve never been happy controlling everything from an app, and that goes ten times more for volume / mute.
If you need silence suddenly there is no better way than a big button or a big knob* in the real world.
.
.
.
.
.
* Quiet in the cheap seats!!!
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Thanks for the explanation about Roon Ready and how that differentiates from Roon’s digital volume control.
With all the DLNA client software I have run, the volume control works as long as the DAC is setup for variable volume control and not set to fixed . I found the range of gain control in DLNA client programs is dependent on the DAC’s gain setup. For example, a CXN V2 has a range of 1 to 30 DB of which only 25 to 30 is audible. That 5 DB range is all that is made available in the client program so it is not enough. The CXN V2 works great in fixed mode where I use the volume control on my preamp.
With my Wyred4Sound DAC, the range is 1 to 65 DB so it has a much better level of fine adjustments in the client software.
In most setups I think it is preferable to run the DAC fixed and use the preamp’s volume control. Unfortunately my stereo is in the other room, so I need to go there and use the preamp’'s remote. I have been researching IR repeaters as an option.
Roon is expensive for the lifetime subscription. I hesitated when it was $499, and now it is $699. I do not want to sign up for a monthly subscription. I get excellent sound from LMS. The search and metadata features in Roon are not something that I think I would care about. I mostly play music from a folder structure on my NAS.
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Any new updates on Beta and formal release dates?
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If you have the time and a computer you can run it on, I highly recommend you try the trial. The metadata is addicting. If you have Tidal or Qobuz, it’s simply amazing.
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So far I do not have a streaming subscription, but Qobuz has caught my interest (with its high res catalog). For now I just use the YouTube plugin in LMS for the times I occasionally stream something not in my library. Obviously the sound quality is nowhere near what I would get compared to high res files from Qoboz.
I have been looking at different options for streaming music to my DAC. One thing I considered is a SGC SonicTransporter with a Roon 60 day trial. If I am not happy with Roon, I can always run LMS on the SonicTransporter. I currently run LMS on my NAS and it works, but the NAS is not very powerful compared to a dedicated server.
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I started out with a trial and then for a few short months with a subscription. Then I went lifetime. It didn’t take long to realize how awesome it is for finding new music. Music that I didn’t know existed. One of my favorite artists now is Anouar Brahem. I don’t think I would have ever heard his music if it wasn’t for Roon. Jazz on an Oud? Fantastic!
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I could not agree more.
Someone posts something on one of the “what are you spinning now” variant threads here and about 97 times out of a 100 I can pull it up via my Roon/Qobuz & Tidal subscriptions in a matter of moments and “see” what all the fuss is about.
Roon is also a great way to cross check meta-data and access one’s library of ripped and downloaded music.
The only downside is the investments in Roon, Qobuz and Tidal are costing me even more money as my “music I want to buy” list keeps growing.
All I can say is, comparatively speaking (given the costs of other things I have bought over the years to “get better sound”), the investment in the lifetime Roon subscription was totally worth it and reasonable - to me.
Edit: Case in point – I just looked up Anouar Brahem on Roon and I am currently listening to:
– a FLAC MQA file via my desktop headphone system as I write this.
Great stuff, by the way.
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Music suggestions is a cool feature for Roon. Especially when you find something you really like.
I have never heard of Anouar Brahem, so I will check out some You Tube clips.
I have a large vinyl collection (2000+ records) that I have been digitizing into my NAS with 24/96 rips. I hope to have most of my albums digitized by the time I retire.
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I have a Roon tag “Purchase”. It’s handy when I want to purchase. It’s not handy when the CC statement shows up and I get asked about the $XXX purchases in August.
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