Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up
Jul 28, 2022 at 8:08 PM Post #97,128 of 145,577
I've been running Roon on Ubuntu Server for over 5 years. 2000 local albums, mainly jazz and classical. Qobuz for streaming since that's been available in the US. The server side has been very stable all along. I use macOS just as a remote, maybe not as stable but very usable. Other remotes on iPadOS and Android (the least stable for the first couple of years). My classical collection is not huge, 20% of the total, but it includes some old large boxsets that requires some metadata grooming when I ripped them, but are now easy to navigate in Roon. In general, relatively recent classical releases have usable metadata, where things get sticky is with reissues of old recordings. But then that's true for other genres as well.
Yeah. I've been using it dockerized since April of 2018 on an 128gig ram packing Xeon-D2146NT based Ubuntu server and am more or less happy with it. I definitely can't think of a better software for seamlessly playing music around my house, even if I disagree with loads of their technical design choices, UI, price, or online service requirements.

It isn't as unstable right now as it was last year, when they left people who had their libraries on advanced filesystems like ZFS, NFS, or memory based filesystem on root without anything other than Tidal/Qobuz streaming for a couple of months without option of downgrade. Or a couple of months earlier this year where nine times out of ten the Roon client would crash within 10 seconds of launch on AArch64 Macs. The memory problems with the server on Linux got much better after they switched from Mono to dotNet, so at least the server doesn't go into a rapid performance degradation loop requiring restart when the daemon addressed more than 7 gigs of ram. That said, library size is still a huge problem. When you get over 10,000 albums in a library things can go a bit wonky at times, no matter how many SAS drive spindles in raid10 array or NVMe you throw at the database store.

Qobuz has been treating me much better than Tidal with regards to stability of playback via Roon. Tidal tends to randomly stop working and require a restart of the RoonServer process.
 
Jul 28, 2022 at 8:13 PM Post #97,129 of 145,577
Welcome Dave!
Thank you!
You are brave for sharing that you use upgraded cables. :scream_cat:

Wait for the URD, yours will be a much shorter wait than mine and well worth it. For the record I don't play records (they are cut from digital files, anyway, we recently discovered), nor do I use headphones. But 2 channel Schiit is excellent stuff.
Thank you for your vote of confidence but not brave. It just makes sense that if you choose not to have tone controls (like I do) then your only recourse is careful component/cable matching along with a little judicious room treatment. Even on a "budget" I seem to be able to afford it.

Or am I stating the obvious here? If so, I'm sorry.

And yes, I am (im)patiently waiting for the Urd (it's been a while now). Hopefully the wait will be worth it & it will be able to read files from a storage device.
 
Jul 28, 2022 at 8:53 PM Post #97,130 of 145,577
Yeah. I've been using it dockerized since April of 2018 on an 128gig ram packing Xeon-D2146NT based Ubuntu server and am more or less happy with it. I definitely can't think of a better software for seamlessly playing music around my house, even if I disagree with loads of their technical design choices, UI, price, or online service requirements.

It isn't as unstable right now as it was last year, when they left people who had their libraries on advanced filesystems like ZFS, NFS, or memory based filesystem on root without anything other than Tidal/Qobuz streaming for a couple of months without option of downgrade. Or a couple of months earlier this year where nine times out of ten the Roon client would crash within 10 seconds of launch on AArch64 Macs. The memory problems with the server on Linux got much better after they switched from Mono to dotNet, so at least the server doesn't go into a rapid performance degradation loop requiring restart when the daemon addressed more than 7 gigs of ram. That said, library size is still a huge problem. When you get over 10,000 albums in a library things can go a bit wonky at times, no matter how many SAS drive spindles in raid10 array or NVMe you throw at the database store.

Qobuz has been treating me much better than Tidal with regards to stability of playback via Roon. Tidal tends to randomly stop working and require a restart of the RoonServer process.
I realize that not everyone wants to dedicate the resources towards a dedicated Roon server but I've had great luck with Roon ROCK running on an Intel NUC.
I have had Roon Remote on various IOS devices crash on occasion but the server itself has been rock solid since I set it up ~18 months ago.
As always, YMMV.
 
Jul 28, 2022 at 9:03 PM Post #97,131 of 145,577
Why would you use resistors?
Some amps are designed for and sound best with easy to drive 16 ohm loudspeakers, others have a load sweet spot of 8 ohms, and still others 4 ohms. Also a factor on matchup is how an amp tolerates the reactive influences within the loudspeaker. A purely resistive loudspeaker would have a flatline impedance curve; and 8 ohm speaker would measure 8 ohms at every frequency point throughout its bandwidth.

If your amplifier sounds better with a heavier (stiffer), less reactive load, here’s an easy plug and play solution for such matchups.
 
Jul 28, 2022 at 9:18 PM Post #97,132 of 145,577
I realize that not everyone wants to dedicate the resources towards a dedicated Roon server but I've had great luck with Roon ROCK running on an Intel NUC.
I have had Roon Remote on various IOS devices crash on occasion but the server itself has been rock solid since I set it up ~18 months ago.
As always, YMMV.
+1

I'm not risking *any* filesystem I care about to ZFS, or experimental RAM storage method's. 50,000 locally stored files? About 4TB.... meh.... I stopped worrying about fault tolerance, and just backup....

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/10-000-albums-subtracted-one-by-one-from-roon/15240/8

edit: handy dandy storage calculator

https://www.audioconcierge.co.uk/music-storage-calculator

/john
 
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Jul 28, 2022 at 9:34 PM Post #97,134 of 145,577
So I have the Zu omen, and have used them with Vidar, Ragnarok 2, and the Marantz PM6006.

I use the resistors with both Vidar and Ragnarok, but found the Marantz sounded better without.

The resistors weirdly seems to improve efficiency of the Zu. As many of you know sound still comes out of your speakers if you use Saga/Freya and a power amp, even with the volume turned all the way down. With the resistors in play, the Zu play louder at zero volume....

In terms of actual usage, I found the sound to be more detailed, and seem fuller. It was not a subtle change, at least to my ears. I recently took the resistors out and played ragnarok for a while before putting them back in for the same song selections.. the resistors stay...

I hope to get a tube amp someday, I'm expecting the resistors to not play as well with a tube amp..

Im not up to snuff on the technical stuff like many here, but I'm wondering if its a matter of current vs volts?

If you have Zu speakers but dont have any of their resistors I would suggest you order some to play with.

One of these days I'm going to order the ones that knock my omens impedance down 3.7 ish, to see how well they play with Vidar..
 
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Jul 28, 2022 at 9:45 PM Post #97,135 of 145,577
Or you can use command-line in Windows by going to command prompt and typing -- format /fs:FAT32 <drive letter followed by a :> /q (for quick)

ex: If your SD card is drive G: then at a command prompt type: format /fs:FAT32 g: /q

I flashed 1 of my BF2s and gave NOS a try. Gotta say that I like having the megacomboburrito filter in-play better than NOS, but then again, I'm not using HQPlayer to roll a DIY filter. :wink:
You must be really old to remember DOS commands. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
 
Jul 28, 2022 at 9:54 PM Post #97,136 of 145,577
Jul 28, 2022 at 9:59 PM Post #97,137 of 145,577
Does Ex-FAT really not work? Pretty much any system should be able to format to that.
Depends on how you respond. My wife asked me if her new jeans made her look Ex-FAT, and I plead the 5th. That didn't work well. 🤣
 
Jul 28, 2022 at 10:00 PM Post #97,138 of 145,577
I used to write some pretty complex DOS batch files. IF, Goto, command /c, to spawn another instance of command environment to run another process and then return back to the first instance to finish the batch file.

Ascii menu systems with batch files to launch programs, set environment...

I kinda miss those days. 😀
 
Jul 28, 2022 at 10:01 PM Post #97,139 of 145,577
Doesn't everybody?

JC
We've had interesting conversations hereabouts regarding the efficacy of upgraded cables, some folks get kinda Pyst about the topic. :smirk_cat:
 
Jul 28, 2022 at 10:06 PM Post #97,140 of 145,577
I used to write some pretty complex DOS batch files. IF, Goto, command /c, to spawn another instance of command environment to run another process and then return back to the first instance to finish the batch file.

Ascii menu systems with batch files to launch programs, set environment...

I kinda miss those days. 😀
Did they have cars back then? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
 

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