Review of Roon Media Player and Server

Andre Marc

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Wow, that is remarkable. We supported UpnP in Windows Media Player and it was nothing but grief on the device side. It was so bad that we thought about releasing our own stack for device guys to assure reliability.

At RMAF I asked a company who was very proud of the fact that they had added streaming functionality about reliability and got an earful. He said they were forced into doing it because of market pressure but that it was not at all a reliable protocol.
Never heard that about UPnP from anyone ever..except from a few tech people. On the user side? None. And how far back are you talking? I am sure it is a decade +.
 

still-one

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Aug 6, 2012
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The Roon Team is very anti-UpnP. You will find several such comments in their support pages.
 

amirm

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Apr 2, 2010
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The Roon Team is very anti-UpnP. You will find several such comments in their support pages.
I don't blame them. The moment they support it, they wind up accountable for any failures in the device and protocol which they have no control over. You wind up putting in hack after hack to get around the bugs and you get a black eye for each one along the way.
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
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Never heard that about UPnP from anyone ever..except from a few tech people. On the user side? None. And how far back are you talking? I am sure it is a decade +.
My personal experience is dated. But the conversation at RMAF is weeks old.
 

still-one

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Aug 6, 2012
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I tried Roon when it was first released and cancelled my trial subscription after about 10 days. I know that the program has matured quite a bit since then but I am going to hold off dipping my feet back into the Roon waters until more hardware manufactures are on board. Some of my initial concerns have been addressed but here were my issues.
-Too much trouble just selecting an album to play
-I do not choose to what to play by genre, what albums an artist played on, similar tracks, etc
- No iPad ap at the time. I don't want to use a laptop to select music.
-Roon was having a hard time with identifying my Sooloos albums. (How I had set albums up to find them easily)
- I would have needed to purchase a Windows PC to edit/modify my Sooloos configuration to properly handle whether Roon or Sooloos was controlling my endpoints.

There is not doubt that Roon is more capable than Sooloos but Sooloos is just too easy to use and never gets hung-up.
 

Andre Marc

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My personal experience is dated. But the conversation at RMAF is weeks old.

I think it is pretty useless to discuss any protocol from the perspective of a decade plus removed.

Ten years ago you could not even stream video over the internet reliably.

..the conversation from folks who stem to profit from Roon..correct?
 

Andre Marc

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I don't blame them. The moment they support it, they wind up accountable for any failures in the device and protocol which they have no control over. You wind up putting in hack after hack to get around the bugs and you get a black eye for each one along the way.

And they won't be accountable for any failures in device protocol with Roon?
 

amirm

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Apr 2, 2010
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..the conversation from folks who stem to profit from Roon..correct?
No. The conversation was with a DAC manufacture who had just added streaming support. I asked how reliable it was and the fellow ranted for 15 minutes how horrible it was from reliability point of view to make it work with all the other software.
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
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And they won't be accountable for any failures in device protocol with Roon?
??? They will be held accountable whether the bug is in their implementation or the streamer device. Since they can't control the implementation in other devices, they down a painful path of working around bugs.
 

Andre Marc

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No. The conversation was with a DAC manufacture who had just added streaming support. I asked how reliable it was and the fellow ranted for 15 minutes how horrible it was from reliability point of view to make it work with all the other software.

Who was it??? I can tell you that just about every manufacturer I know has solved it..Simaudio, Micromega, Bryston, Cambridge Audio, Marantz, Denon, and countless others......I just reviewed a $699 Marantz network receiver that took all of 5 minutes to install and stream music from my library...even DSD.
 

Andre Marc

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??? They will be held accountable whether the bug is in their implementation or the streamer device. Since they can't control the implementation in other devices, they down a painful path of working around bugs.
FYI.. I am taking a devil's advocate hardline because audiophiles have been strung along with digital for decades, with marketing lies and total and utter disasters...

DAT, digital casette, DVD-A, SACD..this is the industry that brought us $25,000 "universal disc players"..we were told USB was going to save us all from evil SPDIF....we were told abut tens of thousands of DSD downloads which are no where to be found.

Meridian, where the Roon folks come from, has a very checkered history in digital..they banked on DVD-A..how did that go? They thought apodizing filters would save the CD player, They failed to bring a stand alone DAC to the market in any timely fashion and that shipped sailed, And now they bring us MQA...ZZZzzzzzz.

My personal view is the way they started Roon was in a very clumsy way. It was not ready for prime time, limited to computers, and the pricing was a huge obstacle. Again just my 2 cents. if the products Rocks, I will be on board..I don't want to stop progress.
 

Andre Marc

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??? They will be held accountable whether the bug is in their implementation or the streamer device. Since they can't control the implementation in other devices, they down a painful path of working around bugs.

all i know is my two streamers show up 24/7 on the network and on my Audionet app and I can stream over 10,000 albums. I handed my wife the ipad the other night and she was able to put together a playlist in 30 seconds, which led to some spontaneous dancing around the room. ;)

UPnP is mature and works. That being said, if Roon is viable and works better, bring it on.
 

amirm

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Apr 2, 2010
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I think it is pretty useless to discuss any protocol from the perspective of a decade plus removed.

Ten years ago you could not even stream video over the internet reliably.
One has nothing to do with the other. HDMI is many years old and you can still buy two devices and have them not work. The problem is lack of proper testing, and mandatory certification. Each random guy can wake up tomorrow and build streamer based on licensed or open-source software, having no idea what bugs there are.

And it is not just reliability but security vulnerability. UpnP was responsible for one of the largest breaches of Windows years back. Even today, it remains very vulnerable and given the above situation with a bunch of random little companies implementing, the problem is not likely to go away anytime soon: https://www.akamai.com/us/en/about/...arns-of-upnp-devices-used-in-ddos-attacks.jsp

"Akamai Warns Of UPnP Devices Used In DDoS Attacks

Cambridge, MA | October 15, 2014

Four million Universal Plug and Play devices may be vulnerable to use by attackers
Fake requests to UPnP devices can elicit DDoS traffic to a target
Advisory explains need for vendor and community action

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading provider of cloud services for delivering, optimizing and securing online content and business applications, today released, through the company's Prolexic Security Engineering & Response Team (PLXsert), a new cybersecurity threat advisory. The advisory alerts the security community, device vendors, Internet service providers and enterprises to the risk of massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks involving Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) devices. The advisory is available for download from Prolexic (now part of Akamai) at www.prolexic.com/ssdp.


PLXsert has observed the use of a new reflection and amplification DDoS attack that deliberately misuses communications protocols that come enabled on millions of home and office devices, including routers, media servers, web cams, smart TVs and printers. The protocols allow devices to discover each other on a network, establish communication and coordinate activities. DDoS attackers have been abusing these protocols on Internet-exposed devices to launch attacks that generate floods of traffic and cause website and network outages at enterprise targets."

This was posted a month ago: https://threatpost.com/upnp-trouble-puts-devices-behind-firewall-at-risk/114493/

"UPnP Trouble Puts Devices Behind Firewall at Risk
Security vulnerabilities in UPnP continue to crop up and continue to put millions of home networking devices at risk for compromise.

The latest was revealed in early August, but prompted an advisory yesterday from the DHS-sponsored CERT at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. It’s called Filet-o-Firewall and it combines a number vulnerabilities and weaknesses in routing protocols and browsers, conspiring to expose networked devices behind a firewall to the open Internet.

The primary target is the UPnP service running on commodity home routers, and according to the advisory and research disclosed by researcher Grant Harrelson, attacks can happen in fewer than 20 seconds and any router running UPnP is at risk."


http://routersecurity.org/bugs.php

"Attackers are using insecure routers and other home devices for DDoS attacks
by Lucian Constantin of IDG News Service August 18, 2015

"Attackers are taking advantage of home routers and other devices that respond to UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) requests over the Internet in order to amplify distributed denial-of-service attacks. A report released Tuesday by cloud services provider Akamai Technologies shows that the number of DDoS attacks is on the rise." Akamai points out that very few organizations have the infrastructure necessary to deal with DDoS attacks, and, of course, they sell the cure. SYN floods and Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) reflection were the most popular DDoS vectors. The use of SSDP for DDoS started in the last quarter of 2014. SSDP is part of UPnP which was intended to be used on Local Area Networks only. Despite this, many routers and other devices respond to SSDP queries over the Internet. How many? According to the Shadowserver Foundation, there are roughly 12 million IP addresses on the Internet that have an open SSDP service. You can't make this stuff up. You can test your router, from the inside, by visiting upnp-check.rapid7.com. A good result looks like this.

Q2 2015 State of the Internet - Security Report by Akamai August 18, 2015"


I can go but I hope you get the message. This is messy software. I highly recommend that you disable UpnP in your routers if you don't need it and don't deploy it in other devices unless you are dead set on using it.
 

Andre Marc

Member Sponsor
Mar 14, 2012
3,970
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One has nothing to do with the other. HDMI is many years old and you can still buy two devices and have them not work. The problem is lack of proper testing, and mandatory certification. Each random guy can wake up tomorrow and build streamer based on licensed or open-source software, having no idea what bugs there are.

And it is not just reliability but security vulnerability. UpnP was responsible for one of the largest breaches of Windows years back. Even today, it remains very vulnerable and given the above situation with a bunch of random little companies implementing, the problem is not likely to go away anytime soon: https://www.akamai.com/us/en/about/...arns-of-upnp-devices-used-in-ddos-attacks.jsp

"Akamai Warns Of UPnP Devices Used In DDoS Attacks

Cambridge, MA | October 15, 2014

Four million Universal Plug and Play devices may be vulnerable to use by attackers
Fake requests to UPnP devices can elicit DDoS traffic to a target
Advisory explains need for vendor and community action
Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading provider of cloud services for delivering, optimizing and securing online content and business applications, today released, through the company's Prolexic Security Engineering & Response Team (PLXsert), a new cybersecurity threat advisory. The advisory alerts the security community, device vendors, Internet service providers and enterprises to the risk of massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks involving Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) devices. The advisory is available for download from Prolexic (now part of Akamai) at www.prolexic.com/ssdp.

PLXsert has observed the use of a new reflection and amplification DDoS attack that deliberately misuses communications protocols that come enabled on millions of home and office devices, including routers, media servers, web cams, smart TVs and printers. The protocols allow devices to discover each other on a network, establish communication and coordinate activities. DDoS attackers have been abusing these protocols on Internet-exposed devices to launch attacks that generate floods of traffic and cause website and network outages at enterprise targets."

This was posted a month ago: https://threatpost.com/upnp-trouble-puts-devices-behind-firewall-at-risk/114493/

"UPnP Trouble Puts Devices Behind Firewall at Risk
Security vulnerabilities in UPnP continue to crop up and continue to put millions of home networking devices at risk for compromise.

The latest was revealed in early August, but prompted an advisory yesterday from the DHS-sponsored CERT at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. It’s called Filet-o-Firewall and it combines a number vulnerabilities and weaknesses in routing protocols and browsers, conspiring to expose networked devices behind a firewall to the open Internet.

The primary target is the UPnP service running on commodity home routers, and according to the advisory and research disclosed by researcher Grant Harrelson, attacks can happen in fewer than 20 seconds and any router running UPnP is at risk."

http://routersecurity.org/bugs.php

"Attackers are using insecure routers and other home devices for DDoS attacks
by Lucian Constantin of IDG News Service August 18, 2015
"Attackers are taking advantage of home routers and other devices that respond to UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) requests over the Internet in order to amplify distributed denial-of-service attacks. A report released Tuesday by cloud services provider Akamai Technologies shows that the number of DDoS attacks is on the rise." Akamai points out that very few organizations have the infrastructure necessary to deal with DDoS attacks, and, of course, they sell the cure. SYN floods and Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) reflection were the most popular DDoS vectors. The use of SSDP for DDoS started in the last quarter of 2014. SSDP is part of UPnP which was intended to be used on Local Area Networks only. Despite this, many routers and other devices respond to SSDP queries over the Internet. How many? According to the Shadowserver Foundation, there are roughly 12 million IP addresses on the Internet that have an open SSDP service. You can't make this stuff up. You can test your router, from the inside, by visiting upnp-check.rapid7.com. A good result looks like this.

Q2 2015 State of the Internet - Security Report by Akamai August 18, 2015"

I can go but I hope you get the message. This is messy software. I highly recommend that you disable UpnP in your routers if you don't need it and don't deploy it in other devices unless you are dead set on using it.

I don't stay up at night worrying about someone hacking into my streamers.

I can't really comment on HDMI..my only experience with it is with home theater and computer monitors.
 

hifial

New Member
Apr 7, 2013
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Just to clear up a few things.

Andre- Roon has NO plans, at all, to bring "active speakers" to market of their own. They are, and plan to stay, a software only company. That does not mean that a speaker manufacture might not bring "active speakers" to market using some form of Roon.

Starting the next few months and over the next few years you will see equipment manufactures, both large and small, releasing Roon enabled products.

Also, the principles of Roon are the ones who developed Sooloos. They did not want to be equipment manufactures and went looking for one. Meridian was the one they ended up with. Roon has no ties with Meridian. It is a separate entity. Though they will continue to support Sooloos separately.

They will not support UPnP.

I agree somewhat that they should have held off until the software was a bit more mature. But some of their industry supporters wanted them to come to market sooner then later. Plus they received loads of feature requests that users and potential users wanted. A few examples: HQ Player; Quad DSD; not only DoP but native DSD; And so many more. Some of which was not on the drawing board or not a high priority.

How do I know the above? Well besides reading what has already been published about Roon, The New Jersey Audiophile Society hosted a presentation by Roon two weeks ago. Present were two of the principles of Roon.
 

Whatmore

Well-Known Member
Jun 2, 2011
1,011
2
438
Melbourne, Australia
I love roon
I really don't love that I have to fork out hundreds of dollars for a tablet that will essentially be a remote control because roon doesn't run on my iPad 2
 

Rodney Gold

Member
Jan 29, 2014
983
11
18
Cape Town South Africa
^^^^^ Exactly, I tried roon , lovely program etc BUT it does not run on a 1400 x 800 small PC I use as a remote , it wont run on my ipad 2 and it wont run on my phone ..

Useless unless I shell out for another device to use as a remote.. and its expensive relative to other products...

I MAY relook at it if it has a Squeezebox touch as an endpoint.
 

asiufy

Industry Expert/VIP Donor
Jul 8, 2011
3,711
723
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almaaudio.com
alex, here is what is confusing, I do understand RoonSpeaker is a protocol.but from what I understand, and correct me if I am wrong, Roon IS going to make advanced active speakers as well?

No, never heard or read anything of the kind. They're doing software, and software only.

Moving on..to address your points and answer a few questions..

FYI, I have used UPNP without OpenHome for years with zero issues. I have tested over 50 streamers in my system from a lowly Squeezebox to five figure models from Plinius,etc. some with internal hard drives, some without, some with internal DACs, some without. etc. I have never had hiccups of any kind via DLNA/UPNP. None.

If Bryston starts to support RoonSpeakers, I will jump on board. They continually add features based on user feedback..for instance..users were asking about Tidal, and now it was added to the current beta firmware. I think Audionet and Linn Kazoo are terrific apps, but YMMV.

Bryston does support regular network file sharing, but there is absolutely no sonic difference at all. And as a matter of fact it is far more kludgey. When the file hits the unit, it is either rendered by the internal soundcard or processed via MPD and sent to the DAC. The player has no idea how the file got there, whether by locally attached storage, via ethernet/DLNA or ethernet/file sharing. Your statement is 100% subjective as far as being massively better.

In the end my opinion and those show share it, that Roon has an uphill battle, is meaningless because the market will speak. If it works, is a big improvement logistically and ergonomically over current systems..I am ALL FOR IT! But as you know..high end audio is filled with unfulfilled promises..

As I said, I'm happy you find UPNP to work for you. But Linn Kazoo is not UPNP, it's OpenHome. It doesn't work purely in UPNP anymore. Linn Kinsky, a deprecated app, is UPNP. I don't know about that Audionet app, though. And I agree, Kazoo is a great app, you should see it in action with a Linn product. It's by far the most stable, solid app out there.

My statement came from an observational standpoint, as well as a technical one. In a previous life, I dealt with computers and software, so I know what goes behind the scenes with a simple network file transfer, versus a UPNP/DLNA stream. And you'll have to take my word for it, they're not even remotely comparable, UPNP loses every time. It's a roundabout way of getting files across a network, from device A to device B.

Progress is made by ditching unnecessary technologies, and UPNP is one of them. The sooner hi-end audio abandon that, the better we'll all going to be.
 

asiufy

Industry Expert/VIP Donor
Jul 8, 2011
3,711
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almaaudio.com
all i know is my two streamers show up 24/7 on the network and on my Audionet app and I can stream over 10,000 albums. I handed my wife the ipad the other night and she was able to put together a playlist in 30 seconds, which led to some spontaneous dancing around the room. ;)

UPnP is mature and works. That being said, if Roon is viable and works better, bring it on.

I don't agree. UPnP is not solid, sound technology. It's ill-conceived, and the fact that it somehow works for you just means you're lucky :)

For instance: UPnP, by itself, doesn't allow "apps" or third-party streams inside the control point apps. So if you're using Tidal, it's either a hack on top of UPnP, or it's using OpenHome/DS to do that.
 

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