Roon vs. other solutions for (down-resed) high-res over Sonos

[new_media]

I have just set up a system in my upstairs sitting room consisting of a Sonos Connect Amp and a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 10.7s. The idea is to stream my lossless library from my computer downstairs to the sitting room upstairs. The problem is that I have dozens of albums in the library that are 24-bit, and that play back as white noise over the Sonos. I would like to avoid having to maintain a separate library of down-resed files if possible.

 

My current solution is to stream the hi-res files through an Apple TV 2, with a toslink connection to a Beresford DAC, then to the analog inputs of the Sonos. It works just fine, but it's a bit kludgy. I have read that Roon will down-res on the fly for streaming to Sonos. Anyone have any experience with this? Would I be able to sit upstairs with an iPad and use the Roon Remote app to stream my hi-res library?

 

The simple solution of course is to just listen to those albums on Tidal, but I like to make things difficult.

I'm also playing around with a Chromecast Audio, but I'm in an all-Apple environment, which makes that more difficult. I would of course welcome any other suggestions.

[realhifi]

I have just set up a system in my upstairs sitting room consisting of a Sonos Connect Amp and a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 10.7s. The idea is to stream my lossless library from my computer downstairs to the sitting room upstairs. The problem is that I have dozens of albums in the library that are 24-bit, and that play back as white noise over the Sonos. I would like to avoid having to maintain a separate library of down-resed files if possible.

 

My current solution is to stream the hi-res files through an Apple TV 2, with a toslink connection to a Beresford DAC, then to the analog inputs of the Sonos. It works just fine, but it's a bit kludgy. I have read that Roon will down-res on the fly for streaming to Sonos. Anyone have any experience with this? Would I be able to sit upstairs with an iPad and use the Roon Remote app to stream my hi-res library?

 

 

 

Yes. Bad ass piece of software that kicks the whole streaming digital music paradigm into high gear. For ME it is THE new standard. I'm sure their will be other that disagree and have their own favorite but the ease of use, tight integration with Tidal and ability to broadcast whole house music through its easy multi room interface makes it a winner in this field.

[new_media]

Thanks for the response. Will give it a try.

[captfidel]

I have just set up a system in my upstairs sitting room consisting of a Sonos Connect Amp and a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 10.7s. The idea is to stream my lossless library from my computer downstairs to the sitting room upstairs. The problem is that I have dozens of albums in the library that are 24-bit, and that play back as white noise over the Sonos. I would like to avoid having to maintain a separate library of down-resed files if possible.

 

My current solution is to stream the hi-res files through an Apple TV 2, with a toslink connection to a Beresford DAC, then to the analog inputs of the Sonos. It works just fine, but it's a bit kludgy. I have read that Roon will down-res on the fly for streaming to Sonos. Anyone have any experience with this? Would I be able to sit upstairs with an iPad and use the Roon Remote app to stream my hi-res library?

 

The simple solution of course is to just listen to those albums on Tidal, but I like to make things difficult.

I'm also playing around with a Chromecast Audio, but I'm in an all-Apple environment, which makes that more difficult. I would of course welcome any other suggestions.

 

 

For me, it’s get Roon or go home, what a great piece of software! I have about 2TB of music in Redbook Flac, HiRez Flac, and DSD. I have multiple playback areas in the house each with different hardware and resolution support. These include Sonos, Bluesound, and two MicroRendu front-ends to high-end DACs.

 

Prior to setting up Roon, I had a complicated workflow using DBpowerAMP to take all my higher resolution music (DSD and FLAC) and create redbook (44/16) copies of the files – then I pointed each player to the version that is was best able to support. Needless to say, this was very limiting not to mention a real inconvenience. Since Roon, I have one copy of each piece of music and Roon re-samples as necessary for each zone/player for optimal sound. It couldn’t be easier! (Not to mention the ability to find/organize and curate my music!)

 

Now, I want more hardware makers to support Roon – it’s funny that so many hardware companies just don’t get it (the importance of the software side of things) and for whatever reason are moving very slowly to adding real network support and either building or teaming with a solution like Roon. I had a conversation with an exec at Bricasti, I was stunned that they didn’t have even the most basic understanding of what Roon does (and by their position they should have!), much less have any activity in the company to address the need. The audiophile world in my view doesn’t want their laptop sitting on top of their DAC feeding music manually via a USB connection.

 

Enough said.

[new_media]

Thanks for the response.

 

I'm now streaming 24/192 ALAC and DSD 64 through the Sonos and it sounds terrific

 

Great interface, too. I guess I'm sold.