Review of Roon Media Player and Server

Blizzard

Banned
Sep 30, 2015
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The Berkeley is not DSD and I am not entirely convinced ..yet.. maybe I don't have a DSD DAC of the Berkeley caliber... HQ is nice though and I will look more into it.

It still sounds better even upsampling everything to 24/192 PCM. Didn't you read the impressions from Lateboomer on my streamer thread with Roon/HQplayer with his Bryston BDA-2? He was only upsampling to 24/192, and was even using the $3000 Bryston BDP-2 server prior as comparison and says it was way better with Roon/HQplayer/streamer. You also don't need a powerful computer if just upsampling PCM-PCM. Uses nothing for CPU power.


http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...mer-to-kill-the-big-boys-for-under-250/page53
 

FrantzM

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Thanks Blizz.. Will try that and report.
 

asiufy

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Jul 8, 2011
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almaaudio.com
Frantz,

As for Tidal, I believe they don't check the IP once you have a login. So, you can ask somebody in the US to make an account for you, and use that. I was using my Tidal account (created in the US) here in Brazil with no issues, before Tidal officially arrived here... What happened was that, if you tried to *register* a new account over here, it would tell you that was not possible... But register elsewhere, and you could log in just fine...

Hope that helps :D


cheers,
alex
 

FrantzM

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Apr 20, 2010
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Frantz,

As for Tidal, I believe they don't check the IP once you have a login. So, you can ask somebody in the US to make an account for you, and use that. I was using my Tidal account (created in the US) here in Brazil with no issues, before Tidal officially arrived here... What happened was that, if you tried to *register* a new account over here, it would tell you that was not possible... But register elsewhere, and you could log in just fine...

Hope that helps :D


cheers,
alex

Hope they don;t read WBF lol

I am travelling this week and will register there.. The problem remains that our Internet Access is not the greatest in the World (Euphemism for : Is sucks!! ) :D
 

Rodney Gold

Member
Jan 29, 2014
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You need a stable 4-6 megs to stream tidal without artefacts and buffering...adsl will do..I took a 100mb fibre line , but I have a household full of devices and serial downloaders (wife and kid) as well as movie streaming services.. a heavy load
Pals of mine with 4 meg lines do moan a bit if it drops below 2 .. cos then tidal is missing in action..
6-10 seems the sweet spot
 

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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You need a stable 4-6 megs to stream tidal without artefacts and buffering...adsl will do..I took a 100mb fibre line , but I have a household full of devices and serial downloaders (wife and kid) as well as movie streaming services.. a heavy load
Pals of mine with 4 meg lines do moan a bit if it drops below 2 .. cos then tidal is missing in action..
6-10 seems the sweet spot

Then no Tidal for me in Haiti :( We are too happy to get a steady 1 Mb/s .. There's some kind of FTTH but the country connectivity to the Internet is sorely lacking at this point... Will have to make do with Spotify :).

I would have thought that 2 Mb/s would be enough for Tidal since it is 16 bit/44.1 KHz thus 2 channels is about roughly 1.5 Mb/s plus the bits of metadata and other housekeeping stuff should be in the vicinity of 2 Mb/s or slightly more...

I have it in the US but should check on my desktop when I get there ...
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
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You can download files Frantz from Tidal. So just schedule them before going to bed and should have them to listen to the next morning.
 

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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You can download files Frantz from Tidal. So just schedule them before going to bed and should have them to listen to the next morning.

Whaaaaaaaat!?

Need to read on the Tidal Manual :)

Thanks a Million!!
 

Rodney Gold

Member
Jan 29, 2014
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You can only go offline and download to a device like a phone , not to a pc , the files can only be played back via Tidal .. as far as I know
 

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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You can only go offline and download to a device like a phone , not to a pc , the files can only be played back via Tidal .. as far as I know

I understand the need for the files to be played through Tidal. They're subscription-based so no subscription = no playing of saved files, just like Spotify Premium. I would have though that the files could be saved on a PC as well, not that I have tried it and I don't have Tidal in here to check it out.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Sep 30, 2015
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I understand the need for the files to be played through Tidal. They're subscription-based so no subscription = no playing of saved files, just like Spotify Premium. I would have though that the files could be saved on a PC as well, not that I have tried it and I don't have Tidal in here to check it out.

I think they can be if you use the Tidal desktop app. But haven't tried.
 

Rodney Gold

Member
Jan 29, 2014
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Cape Town South Africa
Ive tried on my PC..I have no option for offline mode on it .. do have the option on my cell
 

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Will go through the hoop of getting a Bluetooth to SPDIF converter they're cheap enough .. anyway I am getting extremely enthused by ROON!
However organized a person is , once you start having a sizable record collections over 200 I would think .. Without a software of some sort, you'll miss some gems That you already possessed. We all forget what we purchase especially if it was a spur-of-the-moment kind of acquisition... No fear Roon is there :)

If it is truly about the music... Do yourself a favor and subscribe to the service. Take some time to try it out. You'll be glad you did :D

Currently listening to "Anastasis" by Dead can dance. it came to me via my listening to a very good album/compilation of Crowded House called "Recurring Dream".. knew the Dead can Dance album .. The Crowded House album? Didn't know I had it :)
 

Rodney Gold

Member
Jan 29, 2014
983
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18
Cape Town South Africa
200 albums with no external streaming is a small collection in my books.. not sure the expense of Roon would be worth it with that
however I have 8000 cds and tidal.. roon is amazing .. finding stuff I never knew I had
 

FrantzM

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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200 albums with no external streaming is a small collection in my books.. not sure the expense of Roon would be worth it with that
however I have 8000 cds and tidal.. roon is amazing .. finding stuff I never knew I had

Typo Rodney .... Well over 2000 Albums, closer to 3000 actually and unfortunately growing :D.
Same here I am finding things from TIDAL too. At night in PAP with my Internet COnnection, it works fairly well, will upgrade with my fingers cossed to some new service they're advertising my .. Meanwhile, enjoying new "old" music :) I had for the longest time thanks to Roon... Listening right now to Fela Kuti's "The Best Of The Black President" and later whatever else from my African Music collection Roon will serve me :D
 

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