KISS ROON System advice

[kenreau]

Looking to put together my first audio system to be able to utilize ROON in my house living room.

 

I am primarily struggling with a basic system architecture to provide the ROON endpoint (I think...).  My desire is for a K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) platform for wife and family use, plus I'm not going for the upper echelons of sound quality given the intended general recreational use (not critical listening)

 

My current system context is;

1. Using Aurender S5W wireless speakers.  To be controlled by iphone or ipads (and wireless source of music access, streaming)
2. I have a Synology DiskStation DS412+ with 4 bays of 4 TB Deskstar drives. Music files of approx. 2.8 TB.  
3. I subscribe to TIDAL. 

 

I have available in a separate basement isolated home theater space an Anthem MRX 1120 HT Receiver and an OPPO UDP-203 universal player.  These are both connected to my home network by Ethernet cables.  Open to the possibility of using these if practical.

 

From my current limited knowledge, I think I may need some appliance like a NUC, MacMini or ROON Nucleus as the ROON Core.  These could network access to my Synology NAS files.  Or, an alternative is to possibly upgrade my NAS to a newer, more powerful model like a QNAP with the intel core i3 processor (per ROON website recommendations) as an all in one solution.

 

Am I in the ballpark of what I need to assemble?  Any strong consensus to go one particular direction?

 

Thanks in advance

Kenreau

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DaQi]

A  NUC is a great way to go and with a fanless design it keeps the noise down. I like the idea of keeping the NAS and music server separate so you can upgrade improve them separately. The NAS is focused on file serving and the NUC on the music. You will want a bit of horsepower to run Roon Core and the NUC can provide that without having to stress the NAS or buy a new one. 

[bobfa]

I do not know if we can make all this work with the Aurender S5W.  They have a wireless dongle that can plug into devices to send wireless audio to the speakers.  I do not know if we can use that as a Roon output somehow. The dongle has to plug into something that can do that.  You should be able to use a PC/MAC, etc..  

 

Here is the Roon architecture: 

 

https://roonlabs.com/howroonworks.html

 

https://kb.roonlabs.com/Architecture

 

You could test this by installing Roon on a MAC or. a PC and plugging the Dongle into that computer to see if it works.

 

Bob

[jcbenten]

Roon can be installed directly on the Synology.  Not sure if iPad/phone is all you need but worth checking if you want Roon.  Otherwise Minimserver on the NAS and a bunch of apps are available.   Not sure if your speakers can be the endpoint.  You might have to put the Oppo or similar in the middle.

[jcn3]

you need a pretty powerful nas to run roon -- is the op's nas powerful enough?  if not, just need roon core running on any computer and the roon app on phone/tablet.

 

if you didn't want to run roon, could certainly use minimserver/bubbleupnp on the nas as @jcbenten suggested.

 

looks like the dongle is limited to 16/44.  certainly not the end of the world, but worth pointing out.

[jcbenten]

1 minute ago, jcn3 said:

you need a pretty powerful nas to run roon

 

I loaded up a Roon Trial on my QNAP NAS with a Celeron 4-core processor...no issues.  Per the recommendation I added an  SSD to an open slot to enhance database (?) management.  The initial scan of ~2.5tb of music took a while but not nearly as long as LMS.  I did not purchase for a couple of reasons but the interface looks much better than other options, including BubbleUPNP...I am not overly enamored with the options I have come across and tried.

[jcn3]

3 minutes ago, jcbenten said:

 

I loaded up a Roon Trial on my QNAP NAS with a Celeron 4-core processor...no issues.  Per the recommendation I added an  SSD to an open slot to enhance database (?) management.  The initial scan of ~2.5tb of music took a while but not nearly as long as LMS.  I did not purchase for a couple of reasons but the interface looks much better than other options, including BubbleUPNP...I am not overly enamored with the options I have come across and tried.

 

definitely depends on the capabilities of the nas -- haven't see many running roon on nas recently, but seem to recall more success with the higher hp qnap machines.

 

my concern with about the ds412 that the op has -- i don't think it's got the hp to do it.

[jcbenten]

7 hours ago, jcn3 said:

 

definitely depends on the capabilities of the nas -- haven't see many running roon on nas recently, but seem to recall more success with the higher hp qnap machines.

 

my concern with about the ds412 that the op has -- i don't think it's got the hp to do it.

Roon requires 64-bit...and I looked up his Synology, yes an older one.  If the intent is to distribute music, all he can do is try.

 

Minimserver will be a better bet.

[jcn3]

18 hours ago, jcbenten said:

Minimserver will be a better bet.

 

definitely -- i've got a DS2xx that ran minimserver easily.

[maddog95]

I built one of the ZUMA CAPS 3 servers (described elsewhere in this section) and use it as my Roon Endpoint. My digital files are all stored on a Synology D415+ NAS. It's an easy setup and I access the server either through my laptop wirelessly with TeamViewer or via my Android tablet with the additional Roon Remote app added to it.

Quote