Author Topic: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?  (Read 10584 times)

djdube525

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Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« on: July 30, 2017, 09:07:14 AM »
After spraying a dozen louvered doors and replacing trim - It's time for a new toy.

I'm planning on picking up a RPI3 and an Allo DAC.

I know there are a few folks here using Roon... I do appreciate the Open Source nature of Volumio (I could always start here and then change if need be)... I was curious if anyone had a good summary of current pros/cons between the two. I keep running into a lot of threads where I ultimately find that Roon seems to be a little easier to aggregate multiple sources but costs a bit of $$$.

FWIW...

Allo Bos Discussion on Volumio's Forum and Roon's Forum.



Offline mdconnelly

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Re: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2017, 10:21:45 AM »
I'm not familiar with Volumio as a streamer, but am quite interested in the new Allo DigiOne + RPi3 as an end-point for my Roon setup.   So far, reviews I've seen are quite positive.

FWIW, I was a long-time LMS/Squeezebox user from the early days of SlimDevices (before Logitech bought it and ultimately trashed it).   Tried a lot of streaming solutions along the way but always came back to LMS.  That is, until Roon announced support for using Squeezeboxes as end-points for their Roon software.   That was about 20 months ago.    I downloaded the Roon trial and ended up buying the lifetime license.  Haven't looked back since.   

I think the software is excellent and I've really come to appreciate all the album and artist metadata provided.   It's not 100%, but far more robust than the flac tagging I did.  Takes me back to the days of listening to vinyl while perusing the album cover and any inserts provided (in a font I could read ;-).   Of course, within Roon, the links between artists, performers, labels, etc... is so far advanced.   It really immerses you in your music and makes it so easy to rediscover albums you've totally forgotten you own.    I also have come to really appreciate the investment Roon Labs has made to customer support and ongoing development.   They seem extremely responsive and invested.

I will say that I initially struggled with the Roon pricetag.  But I quickly realized that I have more invested in tweaks and cables sitting in my closet collecting dust than the price of Roon.  In hindsight, it should have been a no-brainer.  Definitely worth the cost of admission.

Good luck!

Offline richidoo

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Re: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2017, 10:53:18 AM »
You can try my RPI3 for a spin if you want, I'm not using it at the moment. It think it has latest Moode 3.7? on the SD card now, or use your own card to try whatever you want.

I gave up on RPI because I found the softwares (Volumio and Moode) to be too buggy for my extremely limited tolerance. There are others to try, but I prefer listening to music than dicking around with IT stuff. Mostly just to save money. I decided it wasn't worth it, ymmv.

I bought a SoTM sMS-200 to replace RPI and that came with discount offer for Roon. I probably wouldn't have tried Roon otherwise because of the price. Now I have a year to learn how to best use Roon before I need to pay full tilt. I'm gradually getting used to it, but I'll need to fix the tags on about half my collection so Roon will recognize the classical music better.

Another solution I am experimenting with is running HQPlayer on my music server with Muso on the remote client cataloging the music and sending playlists to HQPlayer for rendering through sMS-200. Roon has great sounding upsampling, and HQPlayer should be similar. Moode also had great sounding upsampling from SoX resampling algorithm, but it had a slight feeling of warm roundness similar to vinyl. I prefer the clean clear sound of Roon. Muso seems to handle the classical music better than Roon right out of the box, before fixing any tags.

Offline Nick B

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Re: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2017, 03:20:10 PM »
I love Roon. It's a great product from a progressive, innovative company. Although it's a bit pricey, in a way I consider it to be a bargain as a lifetime purchase. The upsampling feature is excellent and I've truly expanded my music by 50 fold. The feature that allows Roon to look for similar music and the ability to then go to a composer and search that way is extremely helpful. 
As to the tagging issue that Rich mentioned, mine have been screwed up for years and I'll either use Roon or another program to eventually..........fix them
Nick
PS this includes Tidal.....
« Last Edit: July 30, 2017, 07:49:47 PM by Nick B »
Orchard Starkrimson Ultra amp
Supratek Chardonnay preamp
JMR Voce Grande speakers
Border Patrol SEi dac
Holo Red streamer
Hapa Aero digital coax
WyWires Silver cables
TWL Digital American II p cord
Audio Envy p cords
Roon, Tidal, Qobuz
PI Audio UberBUSS

Offline shadowlight

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Re: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2017, 07:38:06 PM »
Dave,

Do you already have a tablet that has the ability to run Roon remote software on?  If not include that as cost for the Roon.  If I remember correctly you have lms setup already.  If yes, look at picore as the software to run on the rpi.  You can set it up as lms server also.  I am using to with allo piano and i find it more stable compared to Volumio or Moode.  Both of those are constantly being updated to add new features with potential for headache.

With h picore you have the ability to use tidal if you want


djdube525

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Re: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« Reply #5 on: July 31, 2017, 03:08:16 AM »
PS this includes Tidal.....

To be clear (for my sake), Roon can integrate Tidal into/with your collection... correct? I'm assuming there is no special "deal" that provides Tidal for free to users... even for a year.

Do you already have a tablet that has the ability to run Roon remote software on?  If not include that as cost for the Roon.  If I remember correctly you have lms setup already.  If yes, look at picore as the software to run on the rpi.  You can set it up as lms server also.  I am using to with allo piano and i find it more stable compared to Volumio or Moode.  Both of those are constantly being updated to add new features with potential for headache.

With h picore you have the ability to use tidal if you want

I have an old iPad 2 that is a dog (eventually will be replaced). I do have iPhone 6s+'s... I'm assuming that has enough horsepower, although the small real estate is likely not ideal. BTW... how do you like the Piano? Did you pick up the Kali as well?

I used to have lms when I had an SB3, but I had sold that off a while back. Closes thing to lms running on my computer is Plex which admittedly, I'm not taking advantage of (most of the channels I would like to use simply won't play for some reason that I cannot figure out why - another story).


I know "we" had this discussion earlier, but it didn't sink in until late last night.

Roon is "similar" to LMS or Plex where server SW runs on your PC, and then the Roon bridge is installed on your endpoints... Roon remote accesses he bridge controlling which SW to play on the endpoint.

Volumio, Moode, RuneAudio (I was getting confused between Rune and Roon for a while) are installed on the endpoint, in essence making it a headless DAP that would manage the collections locally on the endpoint which would seem to me not ideal.Maybe the RPI3 has enough horsepower, but I suspect that's why Roon appears more "peppy" than Volumio, Moode, etc as the collection management is done on the PC.

I don't have a separate NAS, so I would still need to have my PC (where my collection resides) running at all time regardless of the solution I choose.

Is my understanding "close enough" to being accurate? :)



FWIW, Volumio reportedly has integration with Spotify and Tidal now... as well as supports DSD, and will upsample as well.


You can try my RPI3 for a spin if you want, I'm not using it at the moment. It think it has latest Moode 3.7? on the SD card now, or use your own card to try whatever you want.

That's a generous offer Rich... I appreciate it. I'll still go ahead and grab one. I've been meaning to do so for some time to play around a bit.

I gave up on RPI because I found the softwares (Volumio and Moode) to be too buggy for my extremely limited tolerance. There are others to try, but I prefer listening to music than dicking around with IT stuff. Mostly just to save money. I decided it wasn't worth it, ymmv.

Your's and Deepak's comments have probably hit the nail on the head... one value of Roon over the others headless DAP options is code stability.

Offline Nick B

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Re: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« Reply #6 on: July 31, 2017, 07:53:33 AM »
Yes, Roon integrates Tidal and my collection very nicely. The only reason I ever tried Tidal was because I got a year's worth free when I purchased my Auralic Mini. Without that, I'd likely never have tried it. With its DSP capabilities, Roon gives me lots of flexibility. For me, it's also much more stable than SB ever was.
The Roon core...the operating guts, is on my Mac desktop in another room and I use my iPad, my wife's iPad and her MacBook Air as remotes. I do use my dac's analog volume control. Many kudos to the Roon guys for a great product
Nick
« Last Edit: July 31, 2017, 08:37:24 AM by Nick B »
Orchard Starkrimson Ultra amp
Supratek Chardonnay preamp
JMR Voce Grande speakers
Border Patrol SEi dac
Holo Red streamer
Hapa Aero digital coax
WyWires Silver cables
TWL Digital American II p cord
Audio Envy p cords
Roon, Tidal, Qobuz
PI Audio UberBUSS

Offline richidoo

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Re: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« Reply #7 on: July 31, 2017, 12:19:58 PM »
Yeah, Roon is rock solid, reliable, slick, everything people say. Don't let my previous bitching turn you off. I'm getting used to the issues of finding classical tracks, and most of the problems are caused by my editing of the tags when I ripped them, so now Roon can't match my tags to its known albums. When I get it all sorted, I'm sure I will love it.

Offline rollo

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Re: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« Reply #8 on: July 31, 2017, 01:18:03 PM »
  Go for it Dude you deserve it. How many doors ?


charles
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djdube525

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Re: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« Reply #9 on: July 31, 2017, 03:05:57 PM »
  Go for it Dude you deserve it. How many doors ?


charles

8 louvered doors and 4 flat faced doors + trim... spraying space (garage) was limited which included caulking and painting door frames... and spraying during the evenings in the middle of the work week was less than desirable. About 150' of new baseboard added as well.

Previously dark stained wood which in some respects I don't mind, but it left a couple hallways looking exceptionally dark. Trying to lighten things up a bit.

Offline Nick B

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Re: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« Reply #10 on: July 31, 2017, 08:40:02 PM »
  Go for it Dude you deserve it. How many doors ?


charles

8 louvered doors and 4 flat faced doors + trim... spraying space (garage) was limited which included caulking and painting door frames... and spraying during the evenings in the middle of the work week was less than desirable. About 150' of new baseboard added as well.

Previously dark stained wood which in some respects I don't mind, but it left a couple hallways looking exceptionally dark. Trying to lighten things up a bit.

Nice project, but seems like a lot of work. Like me trying to paint the inside of the house...
Nick
Orchard Starkrimson Ultra amp
Supratek Chardonnay preamp
JMR Voce Grande speakers
Border Patrol SEi dac
Holo Red streamer
Hapa Aero digital coax
WyWires Silver cables
TWL Digital American II p cord
Audio Envy p cords
Roon, Tidal, Qobuz
PI Audio UberBUSS

Offline mfsoa

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Re: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« Reply #11 on: August 02, 2017, 08:50:54 AM »
Even though I've been a big user of Raspberry Pis, for various reasons I wanted to have a Windows PC connected directly to my DAC via USB (ultimately I2S but that's another story...)

I found that full Win10 mini-PCs are available for ~ $100. I bought what's apparently one of the better ones, it was all of $180. Full Win10 64 bit, 4 USB ports, HDMI out. Fanless. The size of 2 decks of cards. Uses almost no power. Picked up cheap wireless keyboard for control. I keep a small PC monitor near the chair if I do need to interact though I assume this could be done remotely as well.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M24W77N/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This thing can easily satisfy the needs of many a current or future computer audiophile  (Like Evan...)  The PC is used in the following ways:

- HQPlayer NAA device, to send output from HQPlayer to my DAC. If I get around to it I should be able to send data updampled to DSD512 to the DAC via I2S  (This is somewhat of an el-tweako use - many will never use HQPlayer but it's nice to have the capability)

- Tidal. Run Tidal direct to PC for your streaming needs.

- JRiver, used for local storage. Just connect a USB stick or drive and you are done. I have upsampled to the 356K regions no problem.

- YouTube. Yes, it is actually fun to play Youtube to your main rig while watching the video on your local monitor!

- Web surfing. Even if you are not using the PC for audio it's there for the web. I didn't used to have web access from  my audio chair but now I do. This also means access to internet radio. Unlimited free tunes, not bad.

If need be you can add whatever kind of decrapfiers you want to the USB out. Or linear power supplies etc. The un-altered USB out sounded quite a bit better than that from a Pi, I was able to delude myself into thinking.

But this basic setup, running Tidal and Jriver, is just killer.


djdube525

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Re: Picking up a new toy - Roon or Volumio for streamer?
« Reply #12 on: August 04, 2017, 04:07:09 PM »
QQ for the Roon RPI users...

I'm assuming 8GB micro sd card is plenty big... correct?

FWIW, if you order from Allo direct, there is a bundle that includes power, case, RPI3, Boss DAC and 8GB microsd card... you can use "DIETPI" promo code for another 10% off... shipping to CO via FedEx comes in at $124 shipped. Seems thick a reasonable deal.