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Roon, tell me about it

as my Macbook Pro running Roon just died, this post is very useful. Maybe I'll try this method going forward instead of getting another full blown laptop. Thanks

edit: right now (and for many years) I've been using a Arq to backup my digital collection to Amazon Glacier. How would offline backups work on something like the QNAP?

Happy to hear it James, sharing... tis what its all about!

IIRC you can schedule it to perform backups via IP so it should be simple to do. I personally do backups via USB when i add approx 5+ albums. This is stored away 'safe'ly :)

The other cool thing is to use QNAPs multimedia software. Stick another 1TB SSD into it and use it for Smart TV/film library etc.
I also have Asset 6.2 UPnP installed so functions as a 'networked player' for all other purposes. It's the 'home-hub' for all media platforms... it's on 24/7 and is totally silent.

I have three drives mapped from the NAS which can be accessed wired or via WiFi
1 for Music (M:drive)
1 for Film (F:drive)
1 for Photo (p:drive)
 
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Oh, I have Qobuz and am very happy with it. Plus a library of ripped and downloaded files, organised in a logical, easily accessed folder structure. I wake up to Radio 3 every morning and often use Qobuz to investigate music or performers first heard there.

I don't "subscribe" to software; that seems a peculiar idea to me. Either I buy it or I don't. That makes Roon a hefty investment for which I see little justification.

How do you organize your favourites in Qobuz so you can find stuff again, and so that it fits your way of structuring your collection? I too am very happy with Qobuz, but the more I used it the more the absence of any way of organising my favourites annoyed me. With Roon, your favourite Qobuz releases become part of your library just as though they were your own CDs which greatly helps finding stuff. Plus controlling the whole lot from my iPad is nice - Qobuz itself doesn’t have a useful remote app. I don’t have a problem subscribing to software anymore than I have a problem subscribing to Qobuz. I already subscribe to Microsoft Office, to Dropbox, to Netflix, to iCloud .. and to where I live, though they call it rent.
 
I used Roon at the Munich show on several occasions each day and dislike it.

Too much information makes finding the specific song I am after difficult. (I tend to know what I want to listen to)

What's worse, when searching Tidal with Room for songs I knew they had it did not always find them despite typing in the exact title with the exact spelling... I had to use circuitous routes to find what I wanted to listen to whereas searching Tidal with the Moon app at home takes me straight to the same songs.
 
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It accurately sends the audio data to the dac without modification. It does not alter the sound.

That can be, and often is, measurably worse than doing the up/oversampling and filtering and noise-shaping and EQ'ing before the DAC.
Most DACs up/oversample anyway, and those that use SDM chips also convert PCM to DSD.
 
The inability of Qobuz to present my favourites in a variety of ways useful to me (e.g. by composer surname) is one of its few failings. However, I tend to have musical enthusiasms in which I am focussed upon one area or another (e.g. lesser-known Scandinavian symphonists)... and then I move on to something else... so it isn't a major drawback for the way that I use it. The range of recordings available for 20 quid a month is astonishing, and saves me money. I can see that this might be a problem for artists, but in the classical world selling "albums" no longer seems to be a determining factor in financial viability, if it ever was.

"I tend to know what I want to listen to"...

Likewise. I can see that rock/pop listeners are in a rather different marketplace, with music being created all the time which may not be easy, however rewarding, to become aware of. Classical is not like that; the last really good new orchestral composition I've heard was written in 2014 (Anna Clyne - Night Ferry, if you want to know...).
 
That can be, and often is, measurably worse than doing the up/oversampling and filtering and noise-shaping and EQ'ing before the DAC.
Most DACs up/oversample anyway, and those that use SDM chips also convert PCM to DSD.

It can do that too, if you like.
 
Streaming has another disadvantage: a large carbon footprint.

Music streaming has a far worse carbon footprint than the heyday of records and CDs – new findings
April 8, 2019 12.02am BST

http://theconversation.com/music-st...heyday-of-records-and-cds-new-findings-114944

I have my doubts that any of these kinds of calculations we see in the press are worth much. The article itself acknowledges that there are lots of factors not taken into account. The headline is mostly just click bait. The most important point in the article is that server farms use lots of electricity and we should be mindful of how that electricity is being produced.
 
What's worse, when searching Tidal with Room for songs I knew they had it did not always find them despite typing in the exact title with the exact spelling... I had to use circuitous routes to find what I wanted to listen to whereas searching Tidal with the Moon app at home takes me straight to the same songs.

I think that's more telling about Tidal and how it's database is setup than Roon. The Tidal app itself has the same issue - no Roon involved
 
That can be, and often is, measurably worse than doing the up/oversampling and filtering and noise-shaping and EQ'ing before the DAC.
Most DACs up/oversample anyway, and those that use SDM chips also convert PCM to DSD.
Which has nothing to do with the fundamental playback effectiveness and accuracy of the player. However Roon can do all of that and integrate hq player if you so wish.

It's for another thread but I would debate with you the real world benefit of external upsampling.
 
I see the “sliced bread, who needs it” brigade are once again out in full force.

And those poor knife makers, what ever will they do?

And sure can’t I slice it myself and save money.

It just doesn’t taste the same.

What knife do you use to cut it?

.sjb
 
That's a lot of measurements of out of band signals, ie inaudible.

They are only a potential issue if the subsequent amplifier is of poor design and doesn't have appropriate input filtering. If you have problems with that you are likely to have problems with general RF noise. Just hope you don't live near the radio 4 long wave 198kHz 500kW transmitter ;)

NOS mode is dumb. You need appropriate output filtering. That's why the IM 19+20 kHz test with images above in the transition band are so high. They are also not in any way a realistic test because no music has content at that frequency at such a high level.

Don't get me started on the red herring of filter ringing.

This is really for another thread
 
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I think that's more telling about Tidal and how it's database is setup than Roon. The Tidal app itself has the same issue - no Roon involved
Not at all.
I am talking about accessing Tidal via Roon or through the app provided by the hardware manufacturer on the same day within less than an hour of each attempt to locate several specific songs I know to be available on Tidal.
Using the hardware manufacturer's app I found the songs first time, using Roon I did not find them first time but had to use a circuitous route involving finding the artist, then a specific album and finally the song - a right royal pain!

Just like googling "Buckingham Palace" and getting a nothing found answer...
 
Not at all.
I am talking about accessing Tidal via Roon or through the app provided by the hardware manufacturer on the same day within less than an hour of each attempt to locate several specific songs I know to be available on Tidal.
Using the hardware manufacturer's app I found the songs first time, using Roon I did not find them first time but had to use a circuitous route involving finding the artist, then a specific album and finally the song - a right royal pain!

Just like googling "Buckingham Palace" and getting a nothing found answer...

Do you have an example?
 


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