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McIntosh Labs & Roon


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Good news from the McIntosh Labs and Roon team. I know this announcement isn't a full Roon Ready implementation announcement, but one has to think it's in the works. 

 

 

McIntosh and Roon tested hero.jpg

 

 

Press Release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

McIntosh Announces Eleven Products as Roon Tested

Preamps and Integrated Amps among those to receive Roon Tested designation

 

 

McIntosh Announces Eleven Products as Roon Tested

Preamps and Integrated Amps among those to receive Roon Tested designation

 

Binghamton, NY – March 13, 2019 – McIntosh, the global leader in prestigious home entertainment and ultimate-quality audio for 70 years, is proud to announce that 11 of its products have received Roon Tested designation.

 

Roon is a rich and engaging way to browse, organize, and listen to music. Artist photos, credits, bios, reviews, lyrics, tour dates, and composers are located automatically, then interconnected by links to build a surfable digital magazine. Roon is also a multi-room, multi-user networked audio platform, it offers features such as bit-perfect playback, DSD and PCM upsampling, multichannel support, and Signal Path display.

 

The McIntosh products receiving Roon Tested designation are: C47, C52, C2600 and D1100 Preamplifiers; MA5300, MA7200, MA8900 and MA9000 Integrated Amplifiers; MAC7200 Receiver; MHA150 Headphone Amplifier; and MXA80 Integrated Audio System. All of these models utilize a powerful 8-channel, 32-bit Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) used in Quad Balanced mode. Their coax and optical inputs will decode music up to 24-bit/192kHz; their USB inputs accept even higher PCM signals up to 32-bit/384kHz and support up to DSD256 and DXD 384kHz.

 

Products designated as Roon Tested have been profiled and tested by both Roon and McIntosh for maximum compatibility. Roon will recognize these devices and send them audio optimized for their capabilities. The device settings in Roon are optimized to improve the customer experience. No fiddling with checkboxes or dropdowns, Roon Tested devices are automatically identified and configured out of the box.

 

“Many McIntosh customers have requested support for Roon, and today we are happy to announce that all of our current model preamplifiers and integrated amplifiers with digital audio are now Roon Tested,” said McIntosh President Charlie Randall. “All of these products were already full-featured units, and now with adding Roon Tested capabilities they will bring even more value and enjoyment to their owners.”

 

"We're excited to be working with the team at McIntosh to give their customers the best experience possible of their McIntosh equipment and Roon,” said Rob Darling, Roon Director of Strategy. “Being Roon Tested will make it easier for McIntosh users to enjoy music while taking the technology of their systems to its fullest potential, from streamlining first-run set up to removing the complexity of configuring Roon DSP Upsampling so they can take advantage of the incredible high-res performance offered by McIntosh's digital designs."

 

How to get started


New users will need to create a Roon account, then download and install the application. Existing Roon users can trigger their system to acquire the McIntosh device icons and optimized settings by restarting their Roon Core beginning on March 13. Then they can use the identify My Device feature in Device settings to apply the new information.

 

 

About McIntosh

Founded in 1949, McIntosh Laboratory, Inc. is known for offering disAnguished quality audio products, superior customer service and the ulAmate experience in music and film. All McIntosh products are handcraned at the Binghamton, NY factory by over 150 employees with a passion for music and the McIntosh heritage. McIntosh conAnues to define the ulAmate home entertainment experience for discriminaAng consumers around the world, with the iconic “McIntosh Blue” Wao Meters globally recognized as a symbol of quality audio. Since its incepAon, McIntosh has been powering some of the most important moments in music history and pop culture. From President Lyndon Johnson’s inauguraAon speech to Woodstock to the famous Grateful Dead “Wall of Sound,” McIntosh has not only witnessed history, it has shaped it. With McIntosh, customers have the ability to create their own premium audio experience – and truly live their music. Visit www.mcintoshlabs.com to learn more.

About Roon

Roon sonware provides an unrivaled user experience that is made for music lovers. It offers best in class audio performance and seamless integraAon of local personal content with the 40 million track library of TIDAL. More than just a music player, Roon is a cross-plaVorm networked music system, with server apps for Mac, Windows, and Linux; Control apps for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android; and networked audio Output to any Roon Ready, AirPlayTM, Sonos, Mac, Windows, iOS, or Android device on the network. Learn more at www.roonlabs.com.

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Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

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They are Roon Tested not Roon Ready.  I imagine the same drop outs and fade in at the beginning of tracks and on sample rate change still plague the horrible McIntosh USB input.

Roon Rock->Auralic Aria G2->Schiit Yggdrasil A2->McIntosh C47->McIntosh MC301 Monos->Wilson Audio Sabrinas

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15 minutes ago, Dr Tone said:

They are Roon Tested not Roon Ready.  I imagine the same drop outs and fade in at the beginning of tracks and on sample rate change still plague the horrible McIntosh USB input.

Roon Tested is fine, it means they will work well with Roon. Problems, if any, will be due to those of the USB input.

Main listening (small home office):

Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments.

Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three .

Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup.
Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. 

All absolute statements about audio are false :)

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1 hour ago, Dr Tone said:

They are Roon Tested not Roon Ready.  I imagine the same drop outs and fade in at the beginning of tracks and on sample rate change still plague the horrible McIntosh USB input.

 

Do you listen to playlists made of files with different sample rate that you like to play gapless?  If not, I fail to see how this can not be mitigated to the point of a non issue simply by setting ROON to play a few milliseconds of silence to sync the DAC before playing the album.

No electron left behind.

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8 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

Do you listen to playlists made of files with different sample rate that you like to play gapless?  If not, I fail to see how this can not be mitigated to the point of a non issue simply by setting ROON to play a few milliseconds of silence to sync the DAC before playing the album.

 

It annoyed me with my C47 on album start and playlists with different sample rates.

 

Sending silence doesn’t solve the issue as confirmed by Bryan from Roon.  It would have to be near silence or something equivalent to get the DAC to trigger it’s fade in or silence.

Roon Rock->Auralic Aria G2->Schiit Yggdrasil A2->McIntosh C47->McIntosh MC301 Monos->Wilson Audio Sabrinas

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I was reading about this this morning on the Roon forum:

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/my-dac-clicks-when-the-sample-rate-changes-how-do-i-turn-mqa-off/64789

 

Apparently, the only solution is to up/down/respample everything to a particular rate so that your DAC sees the same thing no matter what the source is.

 

Roon has fallen a bit behind being a front end to the "hi res" streaming services.  They need to implement this ASAP:

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/prefer-tidal-flac-over-mqa-option/61904

Hey MQA, if it is not all $voodoo$, show us the math!

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3 hours ago, Dr Tone said:

 

It annoyed me with my C47 on album start and playlists with different sample rates.

 

Sending silence doesn’t solve the issue as confirmed by Bryan from Roon.  It would have to be near silence or something equivalent to get the DAC to trigger it’s fade in or silence.

 

Yes, playlists with differing sample rates is a problem, I agree. I usually do not listen that way, and instead listen to albums, with ROON set to play the "Re-Sync" thingy before playback the problem is near non existent for me. I do wish this was not such an issue with McIntosh products as it is. Otherwise I love the thing.

No electron left behind.

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I have a nice icon of the MAC7200 now versus the generic speaker icon I had before.

 Interestingly, when it recognized my device, and ROON set it's settings to the alleged "best performance" it set the Re-Sync Delay back to 0ms from the 500ms (iirc) I had it set at before.

 

Screen Shot 2019-03-14 at 2.21.30 AM.png

Screen Shot 2019-03-14 at 2.26.48 AM.png

No electron left behind.

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