Thoughts on 3 music server implementations (aurender, sonare, ps audio), help please

[orgel]

I agree with Firedog. Monolithic, locked in solutions will be going the way of the dodo.

 

+1. For example, our fearless leader, Chris, just reported in another thread that Aurender has decided not to support Roon.

 

(The Aurenders do sound good. UI/UX-wise, though, Aurender vs Roon: Roon is miles ahead, IMO, so lack of futureprooficity is already apparent.)

 

--David

[orgel]

very interesting...people w/o serious aurender experience make hasty judgements re future perspectives of aurenders R&D plans

 

If by "w/o serious aurender experience" you mean I don't own one, that's correct, but I have spent a fair amount of time listening to a couple-few different systems using different Aurenders as a front end, and I thought they sounded good, as I said. Command Performance AV is an Aurender dealer and is within walking distance of my house. I think Aurender is a good choice for a lot of people, but I don't like to be locked in like that, and I really do enjoy the Roon UI and the ability it provides to explore connections within my library and Tidal's, as well as a way of discovering new music that works well for me.

 

I seriously doubt that Aurender can catch up to Roon in the UI/UX department (not to mention the whole distributed-computing/multi-zone thing) — because Aurender isn't primarily a software development enterprise — but if I'm shown to be wrong, I'll cheerfully apologize. Time will tell.

 

--David

[orgel]

David, We are neighbors. I live in Lake Barcroft. I demoed the aurender n100h and Command Performance AV.

 

Hey, we should get together. I'll PM you soon. (Sometimes I have to work.)

 

--David

[orgel]

Companies facing technical obsolescence have a number of options available to them…

 

I think the Roon guys are pretty genius-y generally, but one of the key manifestations of this is that they used to be the Sooloos guys, and they figured out that the best thing they could do was liberate themselves from the hardware aspect of things. This, IMO, is a win-win-win for Roon, their customers, and hardware guys who see how they can leverage Roon's tech to make their products more desirable.

 

--David

[orgel]

So I'm just curious, not having used Roon...but if your music library is accurate and has complete metadata (as needed, as mine is), what specifically would be the advantage of Roon?

 

I'm pretty compulsive about metadata, too, so I hear where you're coming from. Besides the basic stuff, Roon pulls in additional metadata — photos, reviews, artist bio's — at this point, mostly from the AllMusic database. That's good, but what I especially like is that there's a lot of hyperlinking going on, so while you're listening, if you're curious about one of the musicians, the composer, the work, you can explore freely, thereby encountering additional recordings in which you might be interested. When Tidal's in the mix, this can be really great for purposes of discovery, but even when it's not, you discover connections between different works in your own collection, and if you're like me, you rediscover music that you have but you've forgotten about.

 

(More about what I perceive as Roon's advantages below.)

 

Especially when considering its extra costs?

 

There's no question that Roon ain't cheap. It's $119 for an annual sub and $499 for a lifetime membership. I know that for a lot of people, this is going to seem like an exorbitant amount to pay for software, but since I've spent a number of decades in Adobe-land (and QuickBooks-land and vertical-market-app-land), I probably don't experience the sticker shock in the way that others might. I do think the cost of Roon can offset some costs involved in other systems (like Aurender), and I also think it's so much better than what other playback software can provide in the way of UI/UX that's it's worth it, but that's a subjective evaluation.

 

And also, David, to complete perspective, how much, how often, have you used Aurender's Conductor app?

 

That's a fair question, and I've probably not logged more than an hour or two on the iPad using the app. (In my defense, I'Il say that I'm a software guy, both personally and professionally, so while I surely don't know all the fine points, I can take in the broad strokes pretty quickly.) I've had a chance to compare the Aurender, Lumin, and Auralic apps side by side, and I did think Aurender's was the best of the bunch. However, whether it's any of these or Apple's Music app on the iPad, or indeed, most of the desktop playback apps available, we're talking about the same overall deal, which I think of as the iTunes paradigm.

 

Roon represents a whole other way of looking at your library, and unlike all its competitors, it's not centered on album and track listings (although you can look at things that way if you want to). It's easier for anyone who's interested to download the trial than it is for me to describe it. There's a whole bunch of info on the Roon website, but really, the best thing to do is download the trial and fool with it. Another unique thing about Roon: The desktop app and the iPad app offer the same functionality in terms of UI. I've just not seen that before, in any context. (I haven't mentioned Roon's multi-zone capabilities, but that'll keep for another time.)

 

Roon's still a work in progress — the product has only been on the market for a little more than a year. There are holes in the AllMusic database (Roon is looking to fill in gaps and to add other sources of metadata), the "radio" function doesn't really work that well, there are issues with integrating your own metadata with what Roon pulls in (this is slated to be improved in a major way in the next dot-rev), and I could go on. The thing is, the Roon forum is very active, and the developers are very much present there. They've been very, very good so far about listening to users' concerns and addressing them, and they've been better than any development team I've ever seen about explaining what they're doing and where they're heading.

 

I'm pretty certain that everyone won't like Roon. There's something really straightforward and comfortable about the iTunes paradigm (I still use Audirvana Plus at the office, and I still use iTunes to deal with a separate library I maintain for my iDevices), but for me, Roon's a lot more fun and rewarding.

 

If anyone's still awake and reading, I should reiterate that I think Aurender makes really good stuff, but it doesn't offer the kind of flexibility I'm looking for, and IMO it doesn't offer anything like Roon' UI/UX. With Aurender, the hardware and software are inseparable; with Roon, the software is separate, and I prefer that arrangement.

 

--David

[orgel]

Haven't tried Roon. From what I've read they don't plan any Raspberry Pi or ARM distro and having switched from a PC to a Pi and with the huge gains in SQ I'll never go back to a PC/laptop. Would have loved to try Roon though, if it was available for the Pi.

 

You can absolutely use the Pi as a Roon endpoint, but it doesn't have the oomph to run Roon Core or Roon Server.

 

--David

[orgel]

Checked the site.

 

They don't seem to have anything Core or Server for a NAS either. I've a Synology with Intel CPU that would have been a nice fit.

 

There are some folks who've been able to get Roon Server running on a higher end Synology NAS. Here's a thread on the Roon forums:

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/synology-spk-package-development/9796?u=orgel

 

There's at least one other Roon thread on this. Chris Connaker has mentioned that he's been able to do it, too.

 

I should have mentioned that this is the most cost-effective Linux-based, commercially available box I've seen that runs Roon Server:

 

sonicTransporter – Small Green Computer

 

There's a thread about the sonicTransporter here on CA, in the Sonore forum:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f26-sonore-sponsored/roonify-your-universal-serial-bus-industry-standard-cables-connectors-and-communications-protocols-between-computers-and-electronic-devices-drive-or-network-attached-storage-sonictransporter-28288/

 

--David

[orgel]

As someone who is on the fence about going the Aurender route vs your way (Sonicorbiter SE or microRendu) I'm wondering if you've been able to compare the two paths in terms of SQ. I haven't been able to find a thread on CA where someone has compared an N100 vs your method on their home system.

 

I'm sorry, Les, but I haven't been in a position to make that kind of direct comparison. The microRendu went on sale a few hours ago, and I assume that before too long, user reviews will start popping up, not to mention further installments of Chris's review. Maybe an N100 owner will decide to take a flyer on a microRendu, and you'll get the kind of feedback you're looking for. Candidly, I'd have to say that while the SOSE is working fine in my setup, it's really not up to the hardware standard of either the Aurender or the microRendu, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if, in an apples-to-apples situation (in this case, straight bitperfect with no software upsampling or filtering), the Aurender would sound better than the microRendu. (Of course, as you know, I'm smitten with HQPlayer, so straight bitperfect isn't really my thing.)

 

--David