The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.

mdmost said:
That is a great detailed explanation and sounds really cool. I have a lot of different media on my computer such as vinyl rips, DSD, FLAC files, old Pono files, and others that I'm always going back and forth between the Pine Player and Qobuz. Does Roon support DSD and even SACD iso files? Not a huge deal but something I'd love to have it take care of for me.
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DSD works in Roon provided your DAC does DSD. Otherwise I think it will convert it to PCM. Don't think they do ISO but like @Joe Mac said, can just convert them to DSF. I've done that with a bunch of files.

I also have that KoB HDTT...and some Billie Holiday ones. I think they sound great. I wanna buy a few more but they are pretty pricey...

As for Roon in general, the biggest benefits for me are:

*Seamlessly combines my downloads/rips with Qobuz or Tidal into a really nice and easy to use piece of software.

*Can do multiroom audio across different devices if you want. I have Roon hooked up to my Sonos speakers around my house + Google Home + my two main setups in office and living room. I don't use that feature TOO much, but it's kinda nice to have.

*Shows your signal path to make sure you're getting the best quality audio

*If you have a local file that is better res than a favorited album on Qobuz or Tidal, it autoselects the best quality one when you play an album.

*Great metadata editing ability

It kinda sounds like with the large number of files you have + different formats + Qobuz, it's a perfect fit for you. I went the route of building a NUC for a few hundred bucks to run Roon full time instead of using my laptop or desktop. The NUC has the Roon core OS installed on it and acts as my main music hub now. When I download files, I toss them onto the NUC and it auto-populates in Roon.
 
Tried Roon yesterday. It's very interesting. One issue I'm having is there's a lot of duplications due to how many versions of something I own already. For instance, I have 4 versions of Arcade Fire's Funeral on the screen. Is there a way to pair it down to just one as I'm having to guess which is the highest quality? It does not automatically do SACD iso files but there's a pretty easy program to convert to DSF files. I tried to listen in the car but it never could connect to the Core server. Not a huge deal as Qobuz works well. Honestly, I'm a bus driver most of the time so I defer to my kids Spotify selections.

I'm liking it so far. Just need to decide if I like it $15 a month.
 
mdmost said:
Tried Roon yesterday. It's very interesting. One issue I'm having is there's a lot of duplications due to how many versions of something I own already. For instance, I have 4 versions of Arcade Fire's Funeral on the screen. Is there a way to pair it down to just one as I'm having to guess which is the highest quality? It does not automatically do SACD iso files but there's a pretty easy program to convert to DSF files. I tried to listen in the car but it never could connect to the Core server. Not a huge deal as Qobuz works well. Honestly, I'm a bus driver most of the time so I defer to my kids Spotify selections.

I'm liking it so far. Just need to decide if I like it $15 a month.
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If you’re adding it from Qobuz you can chose when you’re adding it which version you use. If it’s files I’d just delete the lower quality ones before adding it to the library. When you’re looking at files in roon it should display the audio quality next to the file.
 
mdmost said:
Tried Roon yesterday. It's very interesting. One issue I'm having is there's a lot of duplications due to how many versions of something I own already. For instance, I have 4 versions of Arcade Fire's Funeral on the screen. Is there a way to pair it down to just one as I'm having to guess which is the highest quality? It does not automatically do SACD iso files but there's a pretty easy program to convert to DSF files. I tried to listen in the car but it never could connect to the Core server. Not a huge deal as Qobuz works well. Honestly, I'm a bus driver most of the time so I defer to my kids Spotify selections.

I'm liking it so far. Just need to decide if I like it $15 a month.
Click to expand...
I also have multiple versions (vinyl rip vs deluxe cd version). I think it will show you the highest resolution version available. So if your version on your hd is redbook and Tidal has a high res version, it will show Tidal as the main version.

One thing I do is add notes sometimes in the folder name in [square brackets] and that will show up as a note in the Version field in the record. I will say things like vinylrip or first cd edition. Also works with normal (parenthesis).
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
I also have multiple versions (vinyl rip vs deluxe cd version). I think it will show you the highest resolution version available. So if your version on your hd is redbook and Tidal has a high res version, it will show Tidal as the main version.

One thing I do is add notes sometimes in the folder name in [square brackets] and that will show up as a note in the Version field in the record. I will say things like vinylrip or first cd edition. Also works with normal (parenthesis).
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Yeah I used to use that kind of labelling in the album name too for the likes of The Beatles or Dylan where I might have 2 or 3 different mixes of them.
 
I found the format option which helps show the different file types (FLAC, AAC, DSF) and resolutions. That will help with choosing albums.
 
mdmost said:
Tried Roon yesterday. It's very interesting. One issue I'm having is there's a lot of duplications due to how many versions of something I own already. For instance, I have 4 versions of Arcade Fire's Funeral on the screen. Is there a way to pair it down to just one as I'm having to guess which is the highest quality? It does not automatically do SACD iso files but there's a pretty easy program to convert to DSF files. I tried to listen in the car but it never could connect to the Core server. Not a huge deal as Qobuz works well. Honestly, I'm a bus driver most of the time so I defer to my kids Spotify selections.

I'm liking it so far. Just need to decide if I like it $15 a month.
Click to expand...
The duplicates are sometimes just slightly different metadata. I forget how off the top of my head but you should be able to merge releases and then select which one you want to be the primary. You may not always want the best quality one to be the version that plays (sometimes want a different mix/mastering or something as the primary) so can manually choose the primary. It should auto default to highest quality though
 
Finally had success using SACD Extractor to get all the iso files converted to DSF. ISO2DSD didn't work. There was a program called Trax that looked good but I didn't really want to pay for it. Just dumped all the iso files into the SACD Extractor directly and let it go for about an hour. Roon had problems with some of the files not being the same length of what was in their archives for some of them. Took about 20 minutes to clean them up. It's great. Tagged each of them with DSD so it's easy to find them. Thinking I might just unlink the iTunes folder I have so it will give me less low resolution files. I can always check on Qobuz for ones I'm missing. I really want to pare this down to hi-res files. I also like the internet radio option. It's really a one stop shop.
 
mdmost said:
Finally had success using SACD Extractor to get all the iso files converted to DSF. ISO2DSD didn't work. There was a program called Trax that looked good but I didn't really want to pay for it. Just dumped all the iso files into the SACD Extractor directly and let it go for about an hour. Roon had problems with some of the files not being the same length of what was in their archives for some of them. Took about 20 minutes to clean them up. It's great. Tagged each of them with DSD so it's easy to find them. Thinking I might just unlink the iTunes folder I have so it will give me less low resolution files. I can always check on Qobuz for ones I'm missing. I really want to pare this down to hi-res files. I also like the internet radio option. It's really a one stop shop.
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Yea I don’t have my iTunes folder hooked up to Roon anymore either.

It really is a nice piece of software. I ended up springing for the lifetime license last year before the price went up.
 
i kinda wonder if i really should keep using roon or not... my renew is next week and I haven't been listening nearly as much as I used to, plus the FOMO of missing things like spotify wrapped kinda makes me wonder if I should give up on hifi digital and just enjoy the music when I have the random mood to (even if its on 200 dollar headphones)
 
Any Denafrips owners care to say a little bit about your experience?

It's been a couple of years since my last gear upgrade and I've got 'the itch'. Pontus II has been on my radar for awhile now, and I'm thinking the time has come. I was able to have a brief listen to an ARES 2 in an acquaintance's home system which seemed very nice - quite different from mine, but it cemented my interest in the Denafrips DACs.

So there's my choice to make: Ares II vs Pontus II. I think my system is good enough to benefit from whatever extra performance is available from the Pontus, and I can live with the price. My primary listening will be from Roon. I also like the more advanced engineering (isolated, beefy power supply; multiple ladders) and deluxe casework of the Pontus II vs the Ares II. A move up to the Venus II isn't under consideration for budget and other reasons.

Chances are that I'll also be adding a Roon Nucleus one of these days. Alvin from Vinshine Audio confirms that The Ares II and Pontus II both work well using a USB connection to the Nucleus.

So, I'd like to hear from anyone who's been through a similar decision process or living with either DAC. Any good or bad surprises? Any other advice is also welcome. Can you tell me about the time/expense for shipping to the US (east coast)?

[not sure if this maybe belongs in the Equipment Recommendations thread?]
 
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duke86fan said:
i kinda wonder if i really should keep using roon or not... my renew is next week and I haven't been listening nearly as much as I used to, plus the FOMO of missing things like spotify wrapped kinda makes me wonder if I should give up on hifi digital and just enjoy the music when I have the random mood to (even if its on 200 dollar headphones)
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Mine is set to renew in May. I am really on the fence. My big issue is that it is the best option when using a Bluesound Node.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
Mine is set to renew in May. I am really on the fence. My big issue is that it is the best option when using a Bluesound Node.
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I have even less reason as I just use a laptop and a 150 dollar portable face, plus some features of tidal bug me because mqa is no longer gapless and so I wonder why not just use Spotify and get the social extras like wrapped and being able to listen to music whenever instead of needing exclusive mode (being able to pause and just decide to watch a video)
 
reformed audiophile said:
Any Denafrips owners care to say a little bit about your experience?

It's been a couple of years since my last gear upgrade and I've got 'the itch'. Pontus II has been on my radar for awhile now, and I'm thinking the time has come. I was able to have a brief listen to an ARES 2 in an acquaintance's home system which seemed very nice - quite different from mine, but it cemented my interest in the Denafrips DACs.

So there's my choice to make: Ares II vs Pontus II. I think my system is good enough to benefit from whatever extra performance is available from the Pontus, and I can live with the price. My primary listening will be from Roon. I also like the more advanced engineering (isolated, beefy power supply; multiple ladders) and deluxe casework of the Pontus II vs the Ares II. A move up to the Venus II isn't under consideration for budget and other reasons.

Chances are that I'll also be adding a Roon Nucleus one of these days. Alvin from Vinshine Audio confirms that The Ares II and Pontus II both work well using a USB connection to the Nucleus.

So, I'd like to hear from anyone who's been through a similar decision process or living with either DAC. Any good or bad surprises? Any other advice is also welcome. Can you tell me about the time/expense for shipping to the US (east coast)?

[not sure if this maybe belongs in the Equipment Recommendations thread?]
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I pulled the trigger on a Pontus II 12a yesterday. Will probably ship Monday or Tuesday.
Pretty stoked to see what it does for my system - I'm expecting good things.

The few criticisms I've seen have all been matters of preference, and the strengths described by listeners are consistently the characteristics that matter most to me. We'll see...
 
reformed audiophile said:
I pulled the trigger on a Pontus II 12a yesterday. Will probably ship Monday or Tuesday.
Pretty stoked to see what it does for my system - I'm expecting good things.

The few criticisms I've seen have all been matters of preference, and the strengths described by listeners are consistently the characteristics that matter most to me. We'll see...
Click to expand...
Looking for are to what you think.
 
reformed audiophile said:
I pulled the trigger on a Pontus II 12a yesterday. Will probably ship Monday or Tuesday.
Pretty stoked to see what it does for my system - I'm expecting good things.

The few criticisms I've seen have all been matters of preference, and the strengths described by listeners are consistently the characteristics that matter most to me. We'll see...
Click to expand...
I have an Ares II and love it! I may eventually upgrade my main system to a Pontus and move the Ares to my office
 
reformed audiophile said:
I pulled the trigger on a Pontus II 12a yesterday. Will probably ship Monday or Tuesday.
Pretty stoked to see what it does for my system - I'm expecting good things.

The few criticisms I've seen have all been matters of preference, and the strengths described by listeners are consistently the characteristics that matter most to me. We'll see...
Click to expand...
Well my Pontus made it to Alaska last night and is expected for delivery on Friday.
I feel like a kid watching the Santa map on Christmas eve.

Of course there's that week or two of break in before it sounds it's best, but I'll be happy just to look at it for a while, lol.
 
reformed audiophile said:
Well my Pontus made it to Alaska last night and is expected for delivery on Friday.
I feel like a kid watching the Santa map on Christmas eve.

Of course there's that week or two of break in before it sounds it's best, but I'll be happy just to look at it for a while, lol.
Click to expand...
curious to hear your thoughts on it once you listen to it a bit!
 
reformed audiophile said:
I pulled the trigger on a Pontus II 12a yesterday. Will probably ship Monday or Tuesday.
Pretty stoked to see what it does for my system - I'm expecting good things.

The few criticisms I've seen have all been matters of preference, and the strengths described by listeners are consistently the characteristics that matter most to me. We'll see...
Click to expand...
The Eagle has landed.

Installation is going to require some reshuffling of gear.
Should be a fun weekend - witholding audio judgements for another week or two in light of the extended break-in period many have reported.
 
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