We will do our best to make Bridge III a Roon end point if possible. Its main function will be to use Octave and we don’t want to sacrifice Octave performance to accommodate other systems. If we can manage to do both—which is what we’d like to do—then sure.
It makes the Bridge that much more valuable to our customers which is the whole point.
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Thanks Paul for your company’s extreme customer focus! My Bridge III wish list in order of importance would be:
- sounds same or better than Matrix xspdif 2
- optimized for Octave
- compatible with Roon
- works with Spotify
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Thanks again @Paul - as I said earlier I firmly believe in PSA’s ability to deliver but after 20+ years experience delivering large software projects I know it’s extremely difficult to release a v1.0 product that bests something as good a Roon.
Don’t get me wrong about Roon either, it is far from perfect and has many areas for improvement (searching is one, algorithms for new music suggestions is another), but they have had years of development and user feedback to get it to the place it’s at now.
I couldn’t agree more.
If Bridge III will improve sound quality with Roon, I will buy it. If not, won’t.
It likely will help but remember that one of our chief complaints about Roon is sound quality. That is controlled through a combination of the server (which we cannot control) and the renderer (which we can control). I stopped using Roon some time ago because
of its sound quality. I love their interface, but repeated requests for them to address their server’s issues with SQ have fallen on deaf ears.
Since SQ means more to me than the interface, I went to Audirvana instead. Not as slick and fun but it hasn’t the SQ problems of Roon.
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I have no skin in this game, but as a Roon user (like @nycenglish still on an annual license), I’d love to know what the SQ issues are with Roon. I am using a Roon-focused server (Innuos) direct into a Roon Ready audio system and it sounds as good as I would want, and I moved from Auralic which is also Roon Ready and excellent. I bought the Innuos because my QNAP did not do the Roon job properly (it was not intended for audio use).
The point about a server is that it is meant to supply multiple endpoints - 3 or 4 in my house - which is what Roon does so well. If it can’t do that it is not a server - it’s a streamer with storage.
For those long-time Auralic users, they will remember that the Aries steamers only had the Lightning networking software added after a few years, making an attached usb or internal drive become visible as a network drive, after which the products became hugely popular. Before that their amplifiers and DACs were their more popular products.
I also agree with @nycenglish that Roon’s weakness is its search engine, mainly on classical. Fortunately I add something and play it through for an hour or more, but sometime first look for it in the Qobuz app.
Personally, now I will only use Roon Ready devices.
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I am not sure technically what’s the problem with Roon’s server but I can share with you what we hear. Using Roon there’s a constraint to the musicality I can best describe as squeezed or strained. There’s an added edge to the music that isn’t there when using
other servers. It’s constant whether listening to Qobuz or a track from my hard drive. Switch to Audirvana (or iTunes and Bit Perfect) and the strain is gone.
I have not tried the Roon Nuc computer so maybe that’s better.
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Thanks. I must be one of the few people who has never streamed from a computer. My first streamer was a Linn Akurate DS/1 purchased in 2010, the second generation and a significant improvement on the original DS issued in 2007.
I do wonder whether the issue is more to do with computer hardware rather than Roon, which is purely the software. That is why Roon brought out the Nucleus, so non-technical people like me didn’t have to mess around trying to optimise computers. Roon has been widely adopted in the hifi industry, from DcS to TEAC and Bluesound and all points in-between.
One of the dealers I use has been sourcing from a Nucleus+ since it came out, and he is selling lots of hi-end, DcS, Wilson etc.
Roon software requires a computer, so I am. confused. You need something to run Roon. End points, like our own Bridge, are mere renderers to the Roon server which is running on some computer somewhere in the system.
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It can be on the mucleus or nucleus +
Roon requires a processor, the Nucleus has an i3 chip and the Nucleus+ an i7 chip.
Roon Rock is the operating system, described as a lightweight version of Linux.
https://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_Optimized_Core_Kit
Innuos use an Intel Quad Core N4200 chip, even in the $14,000 Statement unit. You wouldn’t want this chip in your laptop. Low noise, low power, efficient, fine for 95% of Roon users.
Innuos told me that that if you are running multiple endpoints with DSP etc, get a Nucleus+ as you will need the i7 processing power. As most people don’t the Innuos devices are designed to run Roon Rock with normal usage.
Nucleus and Innuos both keep the O/S and data processing separate on the RAM. In that regard they are very similar.
Next you have the multiple internal linear power supplies in Innuos, only a single external linear power supply for Nucleus and the Innuos Zen Mini.
Nucleus can only run Rock, but Innuos can run uPnP apps.
Innuos has a direct ethernet output as well as usb, Nucleus only usb. The Innuos usb output has its own power supply.
Innuos have also optimised hard drive formatting, so it has to be factory fitted and formatted, unlike Nucleus. Innuos has a CD ripper, more for legacy reasons than anything else.
The Innuos can only be accessed by its IP address and the graphics are absolutely basic. Again, this is all about reducing things to the absolute minimum. There are no wireless or bluetooth modules or anything like that. You can’t plug in a keyboard or mouse or screen and minimum required connections: ethernet input, ethernet and usb output and a usb hard drive input. Nucleus has an HDMI output but no ethernet output.
So you could call these computers, in reality they are devices designed to run Roon Rock as efficiently as possible, with minimal power consumption and noise, and optimised in many ways alien to a normal computer with their heavy switch mode power.
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My first attempt at Roon was to run it on a networked QNAP TS451 with 16tb SATA with the Roon Core on an external SSD usb hard drive. The QNAP Celeron processor and the the set-up generally gave a poor quality feed. Apparently you can get good results with the cheaper QAP servers if fitted with SSD drives, and mine is about 6 or 7 years old and the newer ones may have better processors. My QNAP is fitted with Western Digital Red 4tb drives, slow but ultra-reliable.
Right, which are just small Windows computers.
They are computers, but not Windows.
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That may have been the case 10 years ago, when I bought an audio server that was a PC card of some sort with a slimmed down Windows operating system running Windows Media Server, with a hard drive and CD drive. It was rubbish and I got rid of it after a few months.
Vortexbox/Innuos had just started at that time. It was very early days of streaming because there were virtually no online sources, so the device was basically for playing ripped CDs and purchased downloads.
I then bought a device that was a clone of the Naim UnitiServe, released in 2010, that had bespoke ripping and streaming software running on a version of Linux. It was a massive improvement on the Windows device and I was using mine until last year when the software crashed and support had ended. It was replaced by the Naim UnitiCore, a very similar device with better software. More importantly, the new Naim software was developed in-house, whereas the UnitiServe software was developed by a third party.
The perspective may be different in the UK because our two main manufacturers, Linn and Naim, both went big into streaming in the early days, in 2007 and 2008, and stopped making new CD players. In those days it was a physical vs. stored debate.
There are now a bunch of manufacturers with 10 or more years of development behind them making seriously good audio servers, many optimised for Roon because it is such a good music management and distribution system.
The DSD DAC has the chip it needs for its job and these devices have the chip they need for their job. They are no more a computer than a DSD DAC. Like the DSD, these devices are often designed only to run its own operating system and no external applications.
I changed the Naim unit to Auralic because when online streaming at 16/44 started 6 or 7 years ago Naim went with Tidal and I went for Qobuz, which Auralic hosted. I went to Innuos when Roon linked up with Qobuz. So my server history over the last 10 years has been driven more by software services it can host rather than the hardware.
I doubt if enabling UPnP on BridgeIII to accommodate other systems would sacrifice Octave performance? This way one could manage to do both for a lot of us which certainly makes the Bridge much more desirable and valuable…
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We will see. It is an entirely extra layer and GUI not to mention support and making sure apps are compatible. It’s far more than it seems. What we offer we have to support.
Imagine just for a moment how that works. Let’s say we include Roon or UPnP in addition to Octave. Something doesn’t work with (say) JRiver, or whatever. Our service people have to help. Our engineers have to spend time figuring out the issues.
EWe’re blamed for anything that goes wrong with any system.
Our long term goal is to build and maintain one great system - and these are just a few of the reasons why. The more it does the greater chances of it not working and causing people (and us) grief.
What we’re hoping for is plug and play and an end to computer troubles. Streaming and playback should be an effortless joy. The only way to ensure that is a closed system of our own making.
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This is 100% true - nothing is as simple as it may seem when it comes to software.
Software is difficult and always more difficult that expected or planned.
When I used Linn it was a closed system. If you have a closed system, it must still be able to support Tidal and Qobuz (very few don’t) and possibly others.
The system must be able to access music on the network and, if the music is stored internally, it must be accessible to other devices on the network. No one these days is going to maintain more than one music library at the same time. So there must be support for things like MinimServer and Twonky Server.
So no system can be truly completely closed as it must access networked libraries or provide access, and source external streams.
I used uPnP for a couple of years before my system became fully Roon Ready. When I got the the upgraded streamer card it had uPnP, Airplay, Spotify and its own wireless protocol so you could send anything from a laptop. It then took the manufacturer about 18 months to add Roon.
In my system the truly great control comes from Roon. The system detects it and turns on, Roon does the music and controls volume and DSP if needed, so there is no need for a manufacturer app, which is good as there isn’t one. If the wife or kids use Spotify or Airplay, it will auto-detect those as well, switch on and play.
I don’t know how many systems operate this way, there seem to be all sorts of ways to do it.
I wonder how this device will play Amazon HD Music, I tried it using my Air wireless protocol and Bluesound in my office which is the only streamer so far with Amazon HD embedded. I think you can do it via Bubble uPnP. I think Tidal users are more worried than Qobuz users.