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Supporting Roon by PS Audio (was Merging's OEM ZMan board)

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#41
Holzohr said Elk is giving the oracle here. surprised-011_gif
There is nothing wrong with liking Roon and being loyal to it if this is your preference. As I already explained multiple times, the best solution for those enamored with Roon with be continue to work directly with Roon. I indicated my expectation the Bridge will continue to support Roon as an endpoint, as well as support MQA. Paul confirmed this. Thus, Roon adherents may continue using their preferred product with PS Audio DACs.

A perfect solution, yes?

I expect Octave to beat Roon both in UI and sound. This is PS Audio’s stated goal and my bet is they will succeed, just as they did with the DirectStream.

You are free to bet against PS Audio if you like. But their track record is spectacular

And if Octave sounds better, are you going to stick with Roon?

#42
Mi2016 said I was worried that Roon support for the Bridge II may end with the Bridge III release. We can all guess that support would continue and guess about anything really . . .
As this is directed at me, I will note that my expectation was based on more than a "guess." And to be equally childish as your ad hominem here (and above) I will merely state:

Told you so. kiss

. . . of course we are all very open to even better sound later with Octave . . .
If this proves to be the case, will you abandon Roon and switch?
#43
Elk said

I expect Octave to beat Roon both in UI and sound. This is PS Audio’s stated goal and my bet is they will succeed, just as they did with the DirectStream.

You are free to bet against PS Audio if you like. But their track record is spectacular

Bets are not so my thing. At the moment, I feel no need to change or upgrade my streaming after purchasing the Bridge II for Roon. So I am very relaxed concerning Octave.

And if Octave sounds better, are you going to stick with Roon?

Probably, with a lifetime subscription. But hey, I still use the Squeezebox plattform, too.
#44

PS Audio has always been extremely good about continuing to support older products. Paul has even tried to help owners of PS products that were built during the period he was not involved with the company. But people should bear in mind that these things are not entirely within PSA’s control. It’s in Roon’s interest to make sure that any future changes it makes will be compatible with Bridge II and I expect PSA will assist with those efforts but, if Roon made changes that were beyond the capabilities of the B II hardware, there wouldn’t be much PSA could do about it. The Roon folks seem to be both capable and well intentioned but nothing lasts forever (notwithstanding “lifetime subscriptions”).

#45
Holzohr said Bets are not so my thing.
Very fair, and not mine either. I make only virtual bets. :)
And if Octave sounds better, are you going to stick with Roon?
Probably, with a lifetime subscription. But hey, I still use the Squeezebox plattform, too.
This makes perfect sense. It is not as if Roon sounds bad in any way. :)

I also know a number of people who also still use the Squeezebox and Transporter, along with their software. It is a nice system and was brilliant at the time it was introduced.

#46
stevem2 said . . . but, if Roon made changes that were beyond the capabilities of the B II hardware, there wouldn't be much PSA could do about it.
This is a fair point. Roon will certainly continue to move forward, and software and hardware demands keep increasing.
#47

For some reason the " quote is not working for me, so I am quoting it manually

“if Roon made changes that were beyond the capabilities of the B II hardware, there wouldn’t be much PSA could do about it”

From various conversations in Roon forum, I gather that the basic premise of Roon is to run on low powered hardware. That is their basic fundamental design that they would try very hard not to break it. Hence from BII’s h/w perspective, that’s unlikely to happen. But there is a possibility where B-II might need a s/w fix from Roon’s side. So far the guys (Danny Dulai) at Roon has been very proactive in fixing critical issues (they fixed ROCK on my request and that too on unsupported h/w) and I hope they continue to show their enthusiasm.

#48

Even when Bridge III comes out we will continue to support Bridge II if changes are needed that we can implement. We don’t just abandon our products once built. In the case of bridge I we hadn’t any choice once we’d exceeded the capabilities of the hardware.

#49

I can’t imagine Roon doing anything to make the average end point obsolete.

It’s not like PSA’s Bridge II is the only DAC that has a Roon end point. And unlike PSA and a few other companies, I don’t believe all of them are firmware upgradable. So they have to take that into consideration.

To be honest I don’t really understand what an end point is. If I download the free trial I have, will it play to my DAC through the USB output on my PC and the input on my DAC?

And another question, can’t you just use the version that works? If Roon updates their player, do you have to do the update. I’m running JRiver 21, 22 is now available, and I have seen people listing version 19[for example] as their player. I know with the Directstreams the earlier versions are still available.

When the Bridge adds MQA will you be able to play it through Roon? If I understand correctly, you can use Roon to play Tidal, but not do the first unfold, why is that?

I’m years behind on playing files and streaming. I haven’t considered Roon because of the cost. I wish Tidal would have agreed to work with JRiver, as I find the Tidal player to be a pain to navigate, and it’s queue is screwy, but having access to all that music makes it tolerable.

So, can someone explain to me what a Roon end point is? And why you need one?

Thanks in advance!

#50
Paul McGowan said

Even when Bridge III comes out we will continue to support Bridge II if changes are needed that we can implement. We don’t just abandon our products once built. In the case of bridge I we hadn’t any choice once we’d exceeded the capabilities of the hardware.


Much appreciated Paul. This is why you are, what we call, ‘a Legend’
#51

Jeff - it’s basically something that takes a Roon server output and translates it into music. Like if you’ve seen a Squeezebox Touch or Transporter - those are endpoints for a Squeezebox Server.

#52

A Roon server sends its output to the user’s audio system via a conventional network connection, just like a laptop sends a document to be printed to a networked printer (an endpoint). But instead of a printer, Roon sends its information to a device (endpoint) which translates the network data to music data the user’s system can understand. A Roon endpoint can be as simple as a Sonore Sonicorbiter SE which has an Ethernet input and USB output. It takes the Ethernet sent information from the Roon server and turns it into a USB output that a DAC understands.

Dev said I gather that the basic premise of Roon is to run on low powered hardware.
Thanks, Dev. This makes excellent sense, especially since Roon wants to be as compatible as possible.

It is interesting how this thread moved from suggesting incorporating off-the-shelf OEM boards into PS Audi’s products, to passionate concerns of protecting Roon. I suspect this is a combination of Roon offering a compelling UI, and the considerable time and money which must be invested to incorporate Roon into a user’s system.

#53

I expect Roon will continue to run on Bridge II for the foreseeable future. My point was just that nothing lasts forever and, as Elk points out, technology advances and “new and improved” software often increases the demands on hardware. Hopefully older versions of Roon will continue to run on existing hardware indefinitely even if newer versions demand more hardware power. I don’t think it’s something Roon users should be concerned about at present. Heck, my third system (mostly used by my wife) uses a Squeezexbox Touch (my wife loves the touch screen interface) with LMS running on a 2009 Mac Mini. It’s not that long ago that I had LMS running on a 2006 MacBook Pro (and I’m sure it would still work fine). But LMS is not under active development the way Roon is.

#54
jeffstarr said

When the Bridge adds MQA will you be able to play it through Roon? If I understand correctly, you can use Roon to play Tidal, but not do the first unfold, why is that?

snip

So, can someone explain to me what a Roon end point is? And why you need one?

Thanks in advance!


Roon itself needs a MQA update when I remember right. With a MQA-ready Bridge II unfolded streaming of Tidal Master albums should be possible via mconnect control or the mconnect player app(?). Not sure which of them.

You don’t need a special Roon endpoint device if you have the Roon computer next to your Lindemann (via USB) but the better approach seems to be the separation the server load from endpoints. Endpoints can be as ‘simple’ as the SonicOrbiter or a pi2/pi3 with a Roon Bridge image or less simple as the Bridge II, SOtM sMS-200 (or now the sMS-200 ultra) or µRendu. Your choice. cool

#55

I am not in worry about future lack of hardware power at all. The device/computer where the Roon Server/Core is installed needs some hardware power depends on your needs (DSP, room correction). All what Roon has to do for my Bridge II now and then additionally is converting the several DSD128 and 256 albums to DSD64.

About LMS… I love the Squeezebox plattform and at least this love will last forever… lol. The LMS in version 7.9 (beta) and Squeezelite and all these plugins! LMS is pretty much under active development. laugh

#56

I didn’t say that LMS wasn’t still evolving. It is, thanks to Logitech open sourcing it when it dropped development. I just suspect that level of activity is not as intense as for Roon, where continued development is necessary to bring in new paying customers and the people working on the software are being paid (although it’s possible some people working on LMS are being paid–I don’t know). I also suspect the people working on LMS are more restricted to current hardware capabilities, at least if they want it to work with legacy Logitec hardware. Maybe if Roon eventually closes shop they will also open source the software so enthusiasts can keep it alive indefinitely. (Again, I have no reason to think Roon is even considering any of that. Just playing devil’s advocate.)

And yes, we (or some of us) have wondered way off topic once again. So it goes.

#57

You’re safe. No one knows the topic of this thread.

#58
stevem2 said

I expect Roon will continue to run on Bridge II for the foreseeable future. My point was just that nothing lasts forever and, as Elk points out, technology advances and “new and improved” software often increases the demands on hardware. Hopefully older versions of Roon will continue to run on existing hardware indefinitely even if newer versions demand more hardware power.


Its true if we are talking about Roon server or core. Since B-II runs just a Roon endpoint, the possibilities are far less (but not impossible) than if it were running the server/core. Things can still break or it may not be performing optimally depending on the situation - recently they changed their control protocol to use tcp transport instead of udp which can be more taxing on the CPU. I can also see the endpoint utilizing more h/w resources in the future, for example processing DSD1024 traffic but its not a problem with DS. So I agree in theory things can still break but hopefully we don’t come to that point (fyi, I don’t own B-II :-))

As for running the older version of the endpoint on B-II, there are two possibilities - either the user doesn’t update the server/core side or update it to get more features/bug fixes/enhancements etc. For the later case, it depends on how brave Roon is with their backward compatibility scheme.

#59

The topic of the the thread is “Transitioning from ZMan to Roon” 21_gif

#60

About LMS and hardware… Sonore, SOtM, Antipodes have implemented Squeezelite in their devices and for USB-DACs (not only of course) there is the wonderful Daphile. It seems (to me) the Squeezebox community stays alive. I am very thankful for this.

Btw, a nice feature is that you can use Squeezeboxes as Roon endpoints.

Sorry to MI2016 for kidnapping his thread!