I know Roon was discussed elsewhere. In the past I have listed 4 products to me which, IMHO, in my experience since 1987 have been real groundbreaking products. I now, after a week of "experimenting" with what was not such great experience initially am happy to report this becomes number 5.
My initial caveats out of the way first. My experimenting was and continues to be with a MacbookPro 13" 2.6 GHz dual core i5 with 8 gigs of memory or should I say my wife's and now our only laptop with my CHORD HUGO + LCD-X cans. I have not experimented yet with my MSB Diamond Plus on my main system.
Roon runs as a "server=core" as your licensed computer. All private nodes can be streamed to off the server. Right now to remote into the system and control playback your only option is a notebook or Surface type device but this will change when they support Android and iOS tablets.
As I write this, the product is still a work in progress and will shortly have tablet support, DSD compatibility (which it currently doesn't), integer support on Mac and they are talking to and working with some other people whose player engines and/or DSP could be integrated. They also now understand the need for ASIO and Direct DSD support and will soon be adding that (soon as in they understand and am working on it).
I have been pretty taken by the HUGO and LCD-X as a portable system and when just lounging around tethered to my laptop. My preference on the Mac has been either JRiver or Audirvana 2.1. I thought it was amazing. I installed Roon in "core" mode on the laptop to experiment and while I loved the interface thought the SQ suffered. Others were reporting similar findings.
Last night I installed the server portion of Roon on a high powered desktop on my network and used a client Roon (private node) on my laptop tethered to my HUGO just for playback. What a difference. By far the best SQ I have heard on this system (can't comment on the big system as yet) and the interface is truly a joy to work with. Yes there are issues that need to be worked on and these guys are hard at work doing just that. BUT if you are like me who have tons in their digital library this is by far the best interface I have ever used with the potential to provide the best SQ given their setup. I am rediscovering albums I forgot I have.
I recommend this product highly even in its infant state. Don't judge it too harshly until you set the core server separate from your playback node. It really is very simple but extremely powerful.
My initial caveats out of the way first. My experimenting was and continues to be with a MacbookPro 13" 2.6 GHz dual core i5 with 8 gigs of memory or should I say my wife's and now our only laptop with my CHORD HUGO + LCD-X cans. I have not experimented yet with my MSB Diamond Plus on my main system.
Roon runs as a "server=core" as your licensed computer. All private nodes can be streamed to off the server. Right now to remote into the system and control playback your only option is a notebook or Surface type device but this will change when they support Android and iOS tablets.
As I write this, the product is still a work in progress and will shortly have tablet support, DSD compatibility (which it currently doesn't), integer support on Mac and they are talking to and working with some other people whose player engines and/or DSP could be integrated. They also now understand the need for ASIO and Direct DSD support and will soon be adding that (soon as in they understand and am working on it).
I have been pretty taken by the HUGO and LCD-X as a portable system and when just lounging around tethered to my laptop. My preference on the Mac has been either JRiver or Audirvana 2.1. I thought it was amazing. I installed Roon in "core" mode on the laptop to experiment and while I loved the interface thought the SQ suffered. Others were reporting similar findings.
Last night I installed the server portion of Roon on a high powered desktop on my network and used a client Roon (private node) on my laptop tethered to my HUGO just for playback. What a difference. By far the best SQ I have heard on this system (can't comment on the big system as yet) and the interface is truly a joy to work with. Yes there are issues that need to be worked on and these guys are hard at work doing just that. BUT if you are like me who have tons in their digital library this is by far the best interface I have ever used with the potential to provide the best SQ given their setup. I am rediscovering albums I forgot I have.
I recommend this product highly even in its infant state. Don't judge it too harshly until you set the core server separate from your playback node. It really is very simple but extremely powerful.