Article: Sonore microRendu Review, Part 1

[skikirkwood]

The microRendu looks like a fine device, but I'd question why I'd want to spend $640 when I could buy a single board computer like the Raspberry Pi 3 (which has a quad-core CPU vs. the dual-core in the microRendu) for $35 and achieve exactly the same level of audio quality with any decent USB asynchronous DAC.

 

More concerning though would be how future proof a device like this would be, as it relies on open source software such as Squeezelite and Shairport, which are constantly being updated. There are certain to be incompatibilities in the future with the specific Linux distro and hardware of the microRendu and these rapidly evolving software packages.

 

By configuring your own renderer with a popular single board computer, and then choosing piCorePlayer, Volumio, Rune, Moode, etc. you also have a large ecosystem of support. And by buying several $8 microSD cards it's easy to try out new distributions. I just downloaded the new 2.05 release of piCorePlayer, which includes a standalone Logitech Media Server that runs on your Pi. And there are recent open source efforts that can add Spotify Connect capability to many of these distros.

 

Again, nothing wrong with commercial offerings such as the microRendu, but for many people I believe you can get a much better solution at a fraction of the price and more flexibility with software updates by choosing a Raspberry Pi or ODroid SBC and any one of the audiophile Linux distros under constant development.

 

Here's a recent blog posting by one of my favorite audio bloggers on the renderer he put together with an ODroid-C2 and Volumio 2:

 

Archimago's Musings: MEASUREMENTS: ODROID-C2 with Volumio 2, and USB digital music streaming.

[skikirkwood]

Take some time to read the article. Dig through the other treads and find posts from the people involved in creating it (see John Swenson above).

 

I have actually. That's why I included Archimago's blog posting, to provide an alternative point of view.

[skikirkwood]

Hi skikirkwood - Good post / questions. I think your comments are indicative of both sides of the wonderful hobby of ours. Some people have the skills, knowledge, time, desire to build a Pi based player. These people are also satisfied with forum only support for their self-built product. That's totally cool. The other side of the coin is most people who want to purchase a well built, well designed product from a reputable company who will call them up or remote connect if there is a problem, and these people believe in doing everything possible to squeeze every ounce of sound quality out of their systems.

 

Its cool when we can all use whatever device floats our boats and talk about the results and share great music. Nobody is right or wrong for selecting either type of product.

 

Hi Chris, yes, different people have different requirements and priorities, and that's why it's great there are so many solutions out there, both commercial and DIY. As a computer scientist who grew up on Unix, I'm very comfortable with playing around with Linux-based systems, but of course most people are not. But for people getting into the computer audio hobby, even without a technical background, a small degree of learning some basics will give them a great deal of flexibility, and perhaps more enjoyment of the hobby in the long run. It certainly will give you more options.

 

Regarding the commercial vs. DIY approach, my point here was to raise the issue of how future-proof any commercial packaging of proprietary hardware combined with open source software can be. That, combined with raising the issue of questioning do you actually get better technical support from a hardware vendor for this class of products vs. the community support with the DIY crowd. I own a Squeezebox Touch, and like many owners was shocked to hear Logitech discontinuing the product several years ago. But despite being a software engineer, I needed to call Logitech twice to get the Touch configured on my home network. So I suspect the support costs Logitech incurred was too costly to continue a $299 product. And for low cost (< $1000) renderers, I would be concerned about the same fate, especially as one who has used, configured, and had issues with the open source software packages the microRendu comes with.

[skikirkwood]

Some other forums I am visiting are flooded with DIY guys claiming that they could do things better for a fraction of the money. It seems like products of the uR category act like a red blanket in front of a bull. Also, It is always about cost plus.

 

I think an interesting comparison of commercial vs. DIY is the upcoming Bryston BD-Pi unit. Looks like it will cost about $1200, but under the hood it's based on a $35 Raspberry Pi 2 and $45 HiFiBerry Digi+ board. Of course Bryston is adding a beefy power supply, and a fantastic looking machined aluminum case with an OLED display. Still not clear exactly what Linux distro they are using and what mods they are making, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't choose Volumio, Rune or Moode.

 

So let's say you could add a decent power supply and case to the $80 base parts here, and flash one of the above distros. Does the Bryston unit justify the huge delta in price over the DIY approach. My main stereo has been based around a Bryston amp and pre-amp for over 20 years. I love the company, and what they stand for, so I'd say for many people, the answer is yes. If Bryston can offer 20 year warranties on their electronics, I trust they will offer fantastic support for this product. And the unit looks fantastic, so sure, if a friend asked me for a recommendation in this area, and they didn't want to ever ssh into a Linux shell and type obscure Unix commands, I'd suggest looking at a unit like this.

 

I also really like what Bryston has done here, being totally transparent about what's under the hood. Virtually all high end renderers are based upon some commodity single-board ARM-based computer and a Linux distro. By choosing a Raspberry Pi and Digi+ board, they are tapping into both the great economies of scale these hardware products have, as well as the large and rapidly evolving software ecosystems behind them, and I think it's a great move.

 

That said, I'm very happy with my two Raspberry Pi's with their IQAudio Pi-DAC+ I2S DAC's, one running Volumio, the other piCorePlayer, both supporting Airplay via the Shairplay emulator, and the open source Spotify Connect having been added to Volumio.

[skikirkwood]

But that is what is different about the microRendu, it is NOT a commodity single-board ARM-based computer. It is a custom designed board specifically designed to produce the highest possible signal integrity on the USB signal, which with most DACs will produce a significantly improved sound quality.

 

John S.

 

Hi John, well the bottom line is how do all of these systems sound in comparison to one another. So with the Bryston unit about to ship, I'd be interested in any group of people who could compare the sound of the microRendu, the BD-Pi, and an off the shelf Raspberry Pi 3 with a $10 power supply.

 

My bias is that with any good asynchronous USB DAC they would all sound exactly the same, but I'd welcome any data points that showed otherwise.

[skikirkwood]

Skikirkwood, no that is YOUR bottom line. Have fun comparing those and let us know. I, myself, have already been through enough poor USB implementations to completely understand the specific focus of the uRendu project. But since you do not have that experience, and assume bits are bits, then I understand your need for comparisons. And it's nice to hear your plans to commit to your ideas. Please let us know what you find.

 

With a few days of the uRendu inhouse it certainly has a sound quality that utterly redefines what a $600 appliance should be able to do, let alone it's multiple modes/feature-sets. And I would bet that it most improves systems that, unbeknownst to the user, have poor USB signal integrity, be it an average USB ansynch DAC or a previous pedestrian design from the source. USB was never considered to be the best choice for a DAC interface, but has become ubiquitous. It's nice that companies like Sonore and Uptone have decided to tackle that aspect of computer audio gremlin DNA.

 

Flame on Ted!

[skikirkwood]

My only "data point" is my ears - the ONLY one that counts here.

This is something you'll prob have to do for yourself. If a product doesn't do what you need it to do then it's not for you.

 

Totally agree with you there Doak. But since I don't have my hands on a Sonore microRendu or Bryston BD-Pi, and don't see that happening anytime soon, I need a proxy to do the listening for me.

 

What's interesting about my IQAudio DAC is that it sounded fantastic out of the box. Best $45 I ever spent. But I recently discovered the TI PCM-5122 DAC chip it uses has 4 different digital interpolation filters, and you could set choose any of them through the alsamixer Linux app. So quite to my surprise, I discovered that I preferred the "Ringing-less low latency FIR" filter over the default "FIR interpolation with de-emphasis". It wasn't a blind test, and perhaps it was expectation bias, but to my ears, the Ringing-less FIR filter sounds better, so yes, it's all about what sounds best to your ears. But if you can't test alternatives, you need a trusted source to do it for you.

[skikirkwood]

There are many on this forum, but you don't want to take their word for it.

 

The thing with DIY is not everybody has those skills, I certainly cannot handle a soldering iron and also its not always cheap and/or better as its made out to be.

 

Case in point, I tried to DIY a NAS. Add up all the h/w and it comes to what Synology costs (and quite often more). And the s/w is nowhere near what DiskStation Manager (DSM) offers. In the end I went with Synology because none of the others (FreeNAS, OpenMediaVault, FlexRAID, UnRAID, NAS4Free, etc.) really measure up, at least to a Linux noob like me. Synology OS takes like 5-15 mins to be and running.

 

Coming to audiophile DIY, I know folks who are into DIY. One guy I know makes TLs and rather well infact. They blow the socks off some commercial speakers, but end of the day he does not make them real cheap. For that price there are excellent budget offerings from many companies like Mission, KEF, Monitor Audio, etc. that compare and then there is the question of support and service. Do you think the DIY guy is going to be able to give unlimited support like the big guys? If Logitech could not, how will a DIYer?

 

DACs, Schiit again. Not many will have DACs that perform better than Schiit and also cost a fraction of what they cost at the same time.

 

The list can go on... but DIY is not all its made out to be unless you have some mad carpentry and electronics/electrical skills.

 

Most of us folks just want to listen to music and enjoy it, at the best budget we can afford.

 

PS: I'm a huge fan of the Pi, in fact use it and even recommend it. My DIY for the Pi is limited to the OS, nothing h/w. Just so you know I'm not biased against the little guy. It's unbeatable for $35 and for how excellent it sounds as a streamer, believe me I've tested it against $2500 PCs and $1000 to $2000 AVRs and in the streaming department (and you could also say as a media server) it was unbeatable. The open source Linux distros in fact offer more features than commercial AVRs, streamers, etc. And I've seen enough Pi's hooked up to excellent DACs like 2Qute and USB Regens and hold their own against just about everyone. That said its not for everybody. I cannot imagine my dad ever writing the OS on an SD card or even physically assembling the Pi in a case and putting together the cables. A Sonos makes more sense for him.

 

Wow, when I composed my original post I didn't realize I would be causing such an uproar - yours is about the only reply I've seen that is well mannered and not trying to personally attack me based upon asking a few questions - thanks!

 

Regarding DIY, I'm really just talking about getting a Pi, a case, an I2S DAC, putting the DAC onto the PI (no soldering needed for a HAT-compliant board), assembling the case (requires screws and tape), and then flashing a microSD card. Yes, I would not ask my wife to do such a thing, but she wouldn't know how to install/configure any commercial renderer as well.

 

But for those who do have the skills to flash a card and assemble a case, my original post really questioned two things. 1) Can you accomplish the same audio quality with a SBC and "audiophile" linux distro such as Volumio? 2) How future-proof is any commercial renderer option that is based around open source software - how can you be sure that in the future as new open source packages are made available they will run on your proprietary commercial hardware?

 

A friend of mine is a member of a San Francisco audiophile club and they have been meeting up on weekends and doing blind listening tests of equipment, DAC's most recently. There seemed to be widespread agreement that the Schiit Yggdrasil blew away DAC's many times its price. Based upon that, if I was to be in the market for a new USB DAC today, I'd probably choose the Schiit. So I'd be interested in hearing if there have been any similar bake-off of renderers, including one reviewed in this thread, along with an off-the-shelf Raspberry Pi, and later this month the Bryston BD-Pi. One without confirmation bias, which is why I'm not giving weight to many/most of the listening results people on this thread have done.

 

Regarding 2), I don't believe anybody has commented on that yet. As a technology early adopter, when new release of piCorePlayer, Volumio or Moode comes out, I want to try them. I have a LMS running on one of my Pi's right now, indexing music from my networked drives, thanks to the latest release of piCorePlayer. It seems that it would be hard for any commercial hardware company to validate and support the range of open source audio platforms that keep appearing, and are evolving so rapidly. And at least for me, it's a lot of fun playing with all of these audio-centric Linux distros.

 

And finally, the one thing I really like about the audio DIY world to date is that their communities are full of friendly and helpful people.

My one post here has elicited a set of replies that are for the most part are arrogant and condescending. Too many highly insecure people for me, so I'll be dropping out here - it's not a community I want to be a part of.

[skikirkwood]

Your approach will not achieve anywhere near the sound quality of the µRendu into a DAC via USB. A better approach to utilizing a small MoBo unit like Raspi or BeagleBone Black (better) is to add external clocking/reclocking with isolation. The masterclock provided directly on these boards is very high in jitter, and the board itself produces so much noise that getting a good clock onboard would be nearly impossible. you can get very good performance out of such an approach, but only with a more sophisticated implementation and more parts.

the discussion of how to do this better is interesting, but very OT for this thread.

 

I replaced my beloved HRT MusicStreamer II+ DAC with an IQAudio Pi-DAC+ I2S DAC, so I'm not actually using a USB DAC any longer. That said, while I agree the Pi has a poor master clock and is very noisy, when feeding an asynchronous USB DAC I don't see how any of that matters. If the renderer is feeding the DAC with the right bits, at the approximate right timing, and the DAC's clock is driving the timing, how would the renderer change the sound quality of the DAC's analog output? And yes, I've read John Swenson's articles.

[skikirkwood]

Not to beat a dead horse, but even IF the DIY solution is better (which it isn't), why this compulsory need of telling ordinary customers wanting a simple and holistic solution that they should buy a batch of PCB's etc and assemble this into something useful. If you DIY guys have seen the light in order to save a few bucks, just sit back and enjoy your ultimate technological superior solution.

 

Well, let's keep on beating that dead horse. First of all, I didn't choose a DIY solution to save a few bucks. I had a Squeezebox Touch and after several years was curious as to what might provide a better streaming component for my stereo. So investing $50 was a low cost and low risk experiment to see what could be done as a possible replacement. I'm not naturally a DIY kind of guy - but the risk/reward ratio here seemed worthwhile to try it.

 

A friend of mine replaced his HRT MusicStreamer II+ with a $6500 Playback Designs MPD-3, and let me have the HRT DAC on permanent loan. Comparing the sound of the Squeezebox (with its built-in DAC) to the Raspberry Pi B+ and MusicStreamer, I heard a significantly better sound on my Bryston/B&W system. As part of that experiment, I tried out various Linux distros and found them hard to work with and configure for audio - until I stumbled upon Volumio. It's a highly tuned Linux distro designed for a headless SBC acting as an audio streamer.

 

Then I started reading about the advantages of I2S DAC's, and thought for $45 it would be fun to try one and compare the sound to the HRT DAC, so I bought an IQAudio Pi-DAC+. IQAudio is as far as I can tell a one man company from Glasgow who recently moved to England. I like supporting small companies with innovative products, and everything I read about his DAC indicated it was pretty remarkable. When I received the DAC it took 5 minutes to add it on top of the Pi, power it up, and use Volumio's Web-based UI to choose it as the audio output device, as well as enable the hardware volume control it supports. The sound was stunning. No soldering involved, which is good, since I've never soldered anything in my life.

 

I was blown away how good this little DAC sounded. And I've had my friend's Playback Designs DAC in my music room. Perhaps the MPD-3 had a bit better soundstage and depth, but not a very big difference. And that's before I discovered I could change the default digital interpolation filter on the DAC to one which I thought sounded even better.

 

After that I forked up another $15 and bought a case for the Pi/DAC combo - that was the hardest part of the whole DIY effort - taping the corners of the case components before screwing them in.

 

Since then I bought another Pi, the 3, and another IQAudio DAC, along with a bunch of microSD cards, having tried out Moode and Rune Audio distributions. I'm currently running Volumio on one, and piCorePlayer on the other. I then added the open source Spotify Connect module to Volumio, so even though Volumio supports Spotify now I can use the Pi as a Spotify Connect device, which is a big improvement.

 

None of this was to "save money". It was due to my curiosity, and I think it's a lot of fun to play around with the various "audiophile" linux distros.

 

I'm also not saying the solutions I stumbled upon are "superior" to commercial solutions such as the microRendu. Different people have different requirements and weights as to what provides the superior solution to them. I am, however, questioning whether the "purpose built" approach that is being advocated by Sonore provides any better audio quality. I don't believe it does. Apparently the engineers at Bryston agree with me, with their approach of using the Raspberry Pi 2 and HiFiBerry Digi+ board as the core of their new BD-Pi.

 

I am also questioning the longer term approach of packaging a bunch of open source modules with a proprietary hardware product like this and how future-proof it will be. Actually, I'm questioning how usable is the current software packaged with the Sonore unit compared to integrated Linux distros such as Volumio and Moode. Yes, Squeezelite is one option for the microRendu, but the piCorePlayer platform incorporates the latest releases of Squeezelite with other options and software (e.g. Shairplay), providing what I am guessing (since I haven't used the Sonore software) is a more integrated, functionally complete and easy to use interface. Third party apps that control the Linux MPD player (an option for the microRendu) are pretty weak, whereas Volumio, Moode and Rune offer highly usable UI's that run in standard web browsers but with CSS tuned to smart phones and tablets above and beyond PC's.

 

And regarding Doak's comment that I'm not welcome here, this is, after all, a comment thread on a review of the microRendu. So in any critical review, and the comment thread to follow, I believe the basic design approach and "benefits" of the product should be questioned and debated. I also believe alternatives should be compared. Hence, my motivation for my original posting.

 

Now, to end here by adding more fuel to the fire, after reading up on digital audio over the last year I decided to post my first article on Medium about what I found. Here it is:

 

https://medium.com/@skikirkwood/truth-lies-and-fraud-in-the-audiophile-world-a365e56c97c4#.nhblwvrgi

 

And I followed that with a post on how I evolved from an early CD player to my current gear:

 

https://medium.com/@skikirkwood/how-to-play-2000-cds-without-a-cd-player-d6f231057971#.xikszxv5l

 

I'm sure the above two Medium postings will provide a bunch of you with a lot more ammo for snarky comments. Bring it on.

[skikirkwood]

Nothing is future-proof.

 

You're making comments about software you've never seen and it's showing. microRendu has Shairplay.

 

Yes, I am making comments about software I haven't seen, but have read the description from Sonore's site. And in that description, it appears that the only software contribution Sonore has made here is the "Audio App Switcher", that lets you choose between 5 different output modes. And it appears these modes are exclusive of each other - you can only choose one at a time. Meaning that I have to choose say between SqueezeLite Output mode and ShairPort Output mode. You've used this software Chris, so am I correct?

 

If I am, then yes, I'm saying this approach of having to choose between one of a number of exclusive modes is vastly inferior in terms of user experience to any of the integrated audiophile tuned Linux distros, with Volumio being my favorite, but Moode looking increasingly interesting, and piCorePlayer being a good choice for those migrating from the Squeezebox Touch. That's the whole point behind these efforts and the hard work of the hackers evolving these systems is to add a layer of integration on top of the low level single purpose open source packages.

 

So this point is not about commercial vs. DIY, it's not about cost, it's about user experience. Since I don't have access to a microRendu, I would be interested in hearing from someone who does, and also has experience with Volumio/Rune/Moode, to compare the end user experience of operating the unit. As someone who closely follows both Volumio and piCorePlayer, I believe the effort of adding value and integration on top of the individual packages such as SqueezeLite and ShairPort provide you with a much more enjoyable experience of accessing your music - for those who don't want to make the investment in Roon that is.

 

Regarding the future-proof comment, yes, nothing is future-proof, but some things are more than others. Take the apps within smart TV's. If you bought a LG TV a few years ago, by now the majority of the apps in that TV no longer work. If you buy a Roku or other streaming device and hook it up to your TV, you are going to almost always have the most up to date apps, as well as the largest selection of them. That's because the TV manufacturers are hardware companies, and want you to upgrade to a new TV versus putting the effort into retrofitting their older hardware models with the latest software. Yes, Roku is a hardware manufacturer too, but compared to virtually all TV manufacturers they've ensured their older models will support the newest versions of apps on their platform.

 

So when i look at offerings such as what Sonore is providing here - a hardware company providing a software solution of separate open source packages with no value added or integration - I wonder a year or two how many of the latest versions of those packages will be available and supported on the microRendu. That's a very valid question to ask, as I've been personally burned by buying expensive hardware units such as Tivo devices, only to be forced to purchase a newer model to have access to software features that certainly could have been added to my older device. But that wouldn't provide motivation for a hardware upgrade, the core of Tivo's (or any consumer hardware) business model.

[skikirkwood]

Hi skikirkwood - One last thing after reading about your disdain for high end publications and including Computer Audiophile in your list of publications (slightly implying CA is like the rest of them).

 

We've been talking about using Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone Back's for years. Here are a couple articles that didn't please any advertisers -

 

Computer Audiophile - Geek Speak: Raspberry Pi HiFi Is Here

 

Computer Audiophile - Geek Speak: How To Build A UPnP / DLNA / OpenHome Renderer For Less Than $100

 

 

In addition we actually educate around here as well -

 

Computer Audiophile - CA Academy

 

Hi Chris, I should have been clearer in my Medium posting when saying "most" of these publications. I like Inner Fidelity, trust Audioholics, and would not place this blog in the commercial category of AudioStream/Stereophile/TAS/ etc. That's why I decided to do a post here and see what happened.

 

My audiophile friend and former college roommate alerted me to your initial Beaglebone Black article knowing I was fooling around with Rpi's and that's when I started reading your blog.

 

That said, as I mentioned in my post, I do believe AudioStream/TAS and others are not much more than an advertising vehicle for the high end audio industry, and purposely mislead their readers with FUD to prop up the the demand for $1000 ethernet cables.

[skikirkwood]

Part of the reaction to what you originally wrote is because we (I) unfairly lumped you with DIYers who say about every product, "I can do it better for 1/10 of the price". The truth is that in the vast majority of cases they can't; and in the cases where the DIY route does result in something with equal sound quality, it may be: a)only so on their setup, and not on someone else's; b)inconvenient to use for others when the commercial product isn't; c)missing some feature the builder doesn't care about but others do; d) ugly - and yes some of us care about how things look and are willing to pay for better looking products; e) without true product support, not just Google searches and forum support.

 

While I may be calling my current setup DIY, it is of course based upon two commercial hardware products - the Raspberry Pi, and the IQAudio DAC. What's lacking is a systems integrator that sells and supports the combination, combined with one or more of the audiophile Linux distros, but I think that is coming soon.

 

In terms of point d), yeah I love the look of my B&W speakers with grills removed, never get tired of staring at my Bryston electronics, and actually think the smoked acrylic case from IQAudio looks pretty damned cool - with the LED's shining through at night.

 

Instead of buying a second IQAudio DAC I was going to purchase an Audiophonics I-Sabre DAC ES9023, which some have said has a slightly better sound than the TI PCM-5122 DAC chip used in the IQAudio. But then I saw IQAudio was developing an aluminum case with an OLED display, and my newest Pi is without a case waiting for this new bad boy!

 

[skikirkwood]

The customer for this device wants exclusive mode only. The rest of your suggestions that an approach is better or worse is purely based on your use of the product and your understanding of a different market.

 

I disagree. If the customer wants to use it as a Roon endpoint yes. But many people will want to use SqueezeLite output or MPD output in conjunction with the ShairPort Airplay emulator. You're listening to your music collection on a network share streaming to the microRendu running MPD and may want to fire up a Tidal or Spotify app on your smartphone or tablet and beam it to the Airport emulator. That should be seamless, which it is with Volumio/Rune/Moode, but it sounds like with the microRendu I have to invoke the Audio App Switcher and change output modes. Not having seen this I don't know how it works, but it certainly doesn't sound seamless as it is with these audiophile distros whose primary purpose is to provide an integrated experience of using several packages without changing "output modes". Another example is adding tracks to a playlist, where those tracks can come from your network share, Spotify, Tidal, etc. Sounds like I can't do that in MPD Output mode on the Sonore.

 

The customers of Volumio/Rune/Moode are by and large audiophiles who use these distributions because they provide a better end user experience than any one open source module in exclusive mode. I believe they are exactly the same market Sonore is targeting with the microRendu.

[skikirkwood]

Measurements, or the difference doesn't exist. Only kidding. I couldn't resist. :~)

 

When the Raspberry Pi 4 comes out, I will purchase one along with the latest Audiophonics Sabre ESS DAC and report my findings.

 

By the way, Audiophonics already sells a pretty cool network player based around a Raspberry Pi 2, DAC Sabre V3 chip and a custom case with an OLED display. And runs Volumio, Moode and piCorePlayer too! Too bad they don't have a U.S. distributor.

 

AUDIOPHONICS RaspDAC Network player Raspberry Pi 2.0 & DAC Sabre V3 - Audiophonics

[skikirkwood]

I suspect (and I'm not trying to be snarky) that many of the audiophile users of Volumio/Rune/Moode use them not only because they like them, but because they are free. That's fine. Some of us are willing to pay $50 or $100 or more for what we consider a superior user experience. To each his/her own. Are you positive the users of free software would still be using them if some of the commercial software packages were somehow free?

 

And again, you haven't used the software so you don't get quite how it works. In MPD/DLNA mode it can be used with a program like JRiver and some other software so you can do just about anything with a playlist or anything else you can think of to do in an audio interface. One of the things you aren't quite getting is that a lot of the members here use one of the widely available commercial playback software packages like JRiver, Roon, HQP, Audirvana, etc. I'm pretty sure that's a majority of the users, or at least of the posters.

 

After reading your comment I downloaded a trial of Jriver on my Mac, but it hung twice and I gave up. I understand it's by and large a Windows product with a follow-on OS X port, but it looks like they have more work to do for the Mac. I tried Roon a while ago but had 4 issues with it.

 

 

1. The iPad app wasn't supported on my iPad 2
   
2. No Spotify support
   
3. A bug that raised the volume of my home office KEF X300 A speakers to 100% (still recovering from that)
   
4. The price
   

 

I realize most people here are Tidal users and that's fine - I find the user experience of Spotify a big step up from Tidal and have 5 different devices in my house that support Spotify Connect.

 

So for me Roon and Jriver don't work. But I also utilize a lot of music sources beyond my own library and Spotify. I have a premium subscription to DI.fm, I like the SomaFM Internet streaming stations, there's great exclusive content on SoundCloud, occasionally use Pandora, TuneIn, Noon Pacific, live concerts on YouTube etc. LMS support some of these but not all, which is why it's great to have Airplay support easily accessible without going into a browser interface to change output modes of a renderer.

 

I can't speak for others in the Volumio/Moode/Rune/piCorePlayer community, but I don't think it's about the fact that they are free. I think it's more of a movement, and people like being part of it. Many of us have made financial contributions to these efforts with amounts equal to or above the cost of the commercial software packages you list. Could be an age thing here too, not sure what the median age of people on this forum are, but I'm guessing there's a younger crowd attracted to the SBC and audiophile Linux distro ecosystem.

[skikirkwood]

Ones inability to determine the difference between mediocre and fine wine doesn't mean the difference doesn't exist and isn't discernible by others... it just means that your cost to enjoy how you practice the hobby will be far less. Likewise with audio. However I recommend you avoid audio reviewers and their systems... else you may be inescapably educated and thrust gasping into a far more expensive plateau for audio enjoyment :<)

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Paris_(wine)

 

I have no concerns regarding being inescapably educated by audio reviewers. Most do not write what I would consider to be educational or informative reviews. Instead, they provide an efficient marketing channel for their advertisers and continue to spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt to gullible individuals, which in turn enables AudioQuest to sell $1000 Ethernet cables and Shunyata Research to sell the same fools $1000 power cords.