Have a great birthday too!
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Have been using the TP-link routers and mesh networks for a number of years; quite happy.
I didn’t want to use any hardware from the all-knowing and ever-tracking Google, Amazon etc
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Hang in there, it will happen.
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Little help please:
We are currently using a MacBook Pro / Qobuz / Roon / HQPlayer / UpTone USB Regen - Ultra Cap LPS 1.2 / iFi ZenStream (USB) / PS Audio MKII DAC… system.
We will be adding the AirLens ASAP.
The question: Is it a good idea to keep the roon core on the MacBook Pro or is there a sonic difference to have a stand along storage device?
We have an good I2S cable so we’ll be selling all the usb related stuff and go directly from the AirLens to PS Audio MKII DAC.
Thank You,
Steve
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Happy Cake Day @Steve08226!
IMHO I don’t think you will hear a difference going with a server. The MKII has quiet inputs and the AirLens is only going to help with that further.
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Didn’t understand the question. Are you planning to move the core from the Mac to a server like a NAS like a Synology or QNAP?
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AirLens does not support HQPlayer. We probably should focus on this part of your playback chain before we move on to discussing details of the Core itself. But, I’ll move forward and answer the Core questions as if you are not using HQP.
In my opinion, once you move the bitstream across the network then the Core makes no difference on sound quality. It can make a difference if you plug your Core directly into a DAC (like with USB) but, once those bits are encapsulated in IP and shipped over the network wires, then the influence of the Core goes away. Now your focus shifts to the quality of the digital transport / streamer which is physically connected to the DAC. Further isolation can be obtained with optical network cables, some of the network isolators out there, different ethernet cabling, etc. I’m not entirely convinced those things make much of a difference; put me in the slim maybe camp. Certainly though, once you’ve dived into network isolation the Core makes no difference on sound quality.
The goal of the Core is to keep serving packets to the transport. As long as you don’t run out of resources (RAM, CPU, etc.) to do that then run the Core on anything convenient. If it is more convenient to stand-up a dedicated Core then do it. If you’re happy with the laptop leave it.
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Hopefully not if we don’t have to.
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Not doubting your comment… are we sure the AirLens through roon won’t support HQPlayer?
I agree with @ipeverywhere that once the bits are transmitted as packets over a (hopefully) Ethernet Network, it doesn’t matter where your core is.
With the AirLens, your signal Path will be Roon core — HQPlayer — (network) —- AirLens— DSDAC.
So you’re really asking where the Roon core & HQ player conbination should be. Both can stay on your Mac as far as I can tell.
(You could move the core to a NUC running Roon ROCK if you wanted a more reliable and maintenance-free system, but I don’t know how HQ Player would work on it. There are various threads on the roon forums about it; you can look at those if interested.)
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Thank you!
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100%
Roon uses a protocol called Roon Advanced Audio Transport (RAAT). This is what’s needed for Roon Ready.
HQP uses a network protocol called Network Audio Adapter (NAA). At no point have I seen AirLens support for NAA. It would be nice if AirLens supported NAA but until that happens you can’t send a HQP stream to AirLens over the network.
With HQP and transports / streamers its:
|HQP| – NAA → |Transport| → |DAC|
With Roon + HQP + transport it’s:
|Roon Core| --RAAT? / HQP API → |HQP| --NAA–> |Transport| → |DAC|
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@Paul If you want to support NAA you just need to get a hold of Jussi Laako (developer) and introduce yourself and tell him what you’re doing. My understanding is that the “licensing” is as easy as that. But I’ve never licensed NAA before 
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I’am going to do that, and I’ll report back… Thank You!
That was for Paul. PS Audio would have to include in NAA in AirLens software. An end-user cannot do it. (unless, AirLens supports something that allows the user to side load new software).
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There is no mention of the NAA protocol being supported in the Airlens spec page, so HQPlayer will not work with the Airlens in the chain.
However, there is the bigger question or whether it even makes sense to use HQPlayer with the DS MKII as the DS is not a NOS DAC, and it will do its own upsampling and conversion to DSD before the analog conversion.
Maybe @tedsmith can share his opinion on this.
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Can I ask a silly question on this current topic here? What value does HQPlayer add to a roon signal path?
@Steve08226
This is 100% on point. By using HQP with a DS DAC you’re sort of kind of in a weird way undoing all the work you paid Ted to do. But, also, you’ll still hear a difference and maybe that’s preferred.
I have a very non-NOS DAC that has a very very nice and well reviewed filter without any way to bypass it. Before getting a NOS (or really a DSD direct) DAC I did point HQP at this DAC. The results, for some material, was very positive. For other material I preferred sending the bit-perfect stream. So, does it make sense? I mean, you will hear a difference and if you like what you hear then listen to what you like. But, the results you’re hearing may not actually align to the descriptions in the HQP docs because of the double filter / modulation happening.
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In our setup listening through HQPlayer sounds better, we’ve been using it for years.
We A/B-ed it again when we got the MKII and it sounds even better (through iFi Zen Stream).
We don’t have a AirLens (yet) so we can’t comment about that.
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It’s purely personal preference. With HQ player you may want to upsample any PCM rate to 705.6k PCM or to DSD256 if you are using USB or I2S to the DAC. Or 352.8k or DSD128 if your connection can’t handle the higher rates.
There’s no perfect upsampler and HQPlayer has many options which might have something you like better than the DS’s. The Mk II upsampling is better than the Mk I so if you have a Mk I and use HQPlayer you might find you like the Mk II’s upsampling better (or not.)
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