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Tag Archive for Roon

Regarding Roon issues with some hardware devices including Nimitra in update 1.8 build 880

 in News

UPDATE: Roon 1.8 build 882 is released now and it’s working fine with Nimitra. Please contact me for updating Roon to latest version and happy listening.

 

Hi. Today Roon launched new update 1.8 build 880 and some Nimitra users has the following issues

  1. Database is corrupted (which it is not but build 880 can’t read database for some reason)
  2. There’s no audio device in Audio section at all

These issues are from changes in build 880 that doesn’t work properly with some hardware and it’s widespread issues through Windows/Mac/Linux platforms. You can check Roon Support section for more details about 1.8 build 880 update issues.

For current workaround I can rollback Roon core to version 1.8 build 831 which is stable with Nimitra. You can download Roon 1.8 build 831 from the following links below to control until they release an update that fixes these issues.

 

Roon 1.8 build 831: PC / Android / iOS (Not available outside App Store)

 

iOS devices can’t install older Roon version so only PC and Android can perform rollback for now. Please contact Fidelizer support for setting up Roon 1.8 build 831 rollback. You may consider using other apps like mConnect / Lumin / Kazoo to control Nimitra also.

Extreme dual PC computer audio setup shootout between AudioLinux and Windows Server 2019

 in Article

I’ve been exchanging ideas about computer audio improvements with my pals for a long while and recent he started doing some very serious shootout between the best of Linux today “AudioLinux” and “Windows Server 2019” with software optimizations.

I’ve been checking out in forums recently and it seems there’s only good thing about one thing and the another but never see anyone posting about direct competition. So I asked him if I can share his test results in website and he said it’s OK.

 

The test was performed with AudioLinux with the double PC. Server with Xeon optimized with Roon Server and music on NAS and the renderer on Celeron with Roon Bridge, both started by pen drive and then put in ram without disks in headless extreme mode.

Good sound tonally correct, but lacking body and less broad and deep, thin sound and long tiring, compared to my current type configuration based on a single PC with Windows Server 2019 core with the new JPLAY 7 and Fidelizer 8.2, NAS with MinimServer commanded by mConnect.

Sound warmer round, analog with more body and that projects you more in the sound event, in short, the sound of Linux I do not like. Put Linux both in ram has not had positive effects the sound of Linux is always exile, lack of harmonics compared to Windows.

 

This is a serious shootout in extreme dual PC setup environment. AudioLinux is only $50 and should do pretty well for its price. I hope the future of Linux-based OS will be bright for those who don’t mind paying for products and services in near future. 🙂

Correction: Roon Rock OS isn’t Windows emulator nor emulation from Windows environment

 in Article

Since I published my article yesterday about Roon Rock OS, I noticed my headline has misleading title as Mono is open source platform to emulate what .NET runtime does in other platforms like Linux/Mac. It’s not conveyed properly and some may understand Mono as .NET runtime emulator so I apologize for this mistake.

I also have my own misunderstanding about Roon development that it was based on Windows with expansion to support Mac/Linux through Mono. Last night Mr. Danny Dulai, one of Roon’s founders shared his insights to correct my misunderstandings.

He said Roon was firstly developed on Linux and MacOS using Mono so my assumption to say Roon is based on Windows is incorrect. So my opinion of Roon Rock OS as to emulate what Roon does in Windows is incorrect and I’d like to apologize again for stating as emulator. It was rude of me.

Mr. Danny Dulai is truly a gentleman developer. He came to provide facts to correct the mess I created in calm and composed manner which is really rare to find from software developers. I truly respect him for passion of his work and his attitude.

As I already stated in my previous article, I believe Mr. Danny Dulai and his team did what could possibly be best to share Roon experience in Linux. I however will stand on Windows side because .NET runtime still has better garbage collection and I believe that’ll affect audio performance.

Let’s exam Roon Rock OS – Windows emulator in Linux clothing

 in Article

Correction: Roon Rock OS isn’t Windows emulator nor emulation from Windows environment

 

Most people probably know me as a Windows guy but I actually took all possibilities to improve computer audio including Mac and Linux too. I wouldn’t be able to push 100% positive feedback on Fidelizer Purist ROM for Android ROM without intensive research on Linux OS.

Today I decided to explore what’s inside Roon ROCK and see if I can improve Roon Rock image with optimizations based on my research from Linux’s audiophile OS optimizations. We’ll start exploring with Linux Reader and you also need program to unpack tar.gz file too.

 

Roon Rock - 01

 

There’s Linux ROONRESET partition and FAT16 CUSTOM_ROON partition. Inside ROONRESET has bootfs.img.gz for ROON OS installation loader I guess. After extracting and opening bootfs inside, It was named ROONBOOT. In there, it looks like ROONRESET but this time we have roonos-1 folder which looks like this.

 

Roon Rock - 02

 

This seems to be RoonOS partition to be cloned to Intel NUC’s device. there’s rootfs.img so it should contain something worth examing for further improvements. Let’s open rootfs.img and see how it looks like. I’m sure it’d be great.

 

Roon Rock - 03

 

Unallocated? That’s weird. But there’s no error during mounting process. Maybe it’s unsupported partition? Wait. There’s another CUSTOM_ROON partition from Roon Rock image too. Maybe this is an empty partition waiting to be created from there?

 

Roon Rock - 04

 

And there’s roon.tar.bz2 file. There’s nothing inside identity folder. Let’s extract roon.tar.bz2 file and see what’s inside. RoonServer folder? Cool! Let’s jump into it and see how Roon OS works!

 

Roon Rock - 05

 

RoonMono? Mono? It’s not what I’m guessing right? This can’t be real, right? Just to be sure, let’s open Server folder and see how it looks like.

 

RoonRock - 06

 

It seems Roon Rock OS is a Linux with Mono runtime running RoonServer’s .NET code through Mono platform. MacOS version also use the same principles too and works pretty well with MacOS support through Mono.

That aside, I think it’s good idea to run Windows .NET runtime emulation software rather than making a Linux port that can be worse than main code they wrote in main code if not done right. Mono is quite powerful. Maybe not as good as .NET Runtime in Windows but getting better over time.

As for possiblity of Fidelizer optimizations on Roon Rock OS, maybe I can optimize kernel and ramdisk image with some tweaks I can apply, insert some optimizations in startup script to further improve Linux OS environment, adjust Mono configuration, etc.

But I think the best way to optimize is to moved from Windows emulation platform to native Windows platform. Running real Windows with Windows environment optimizations should be better than optimizing Linux environment to emulate what Windows does better.

Roon 1.5 test results with NimitraS featuring DSD and MQA with DSP

 in Article

 

Roon 1.5

 

Few days ago Roon released version 1.5 which is a major upgrade improving Linn, Tidal, and MQA support. There were sound signature changes in 1.4 making the sound too bright so I immediately checked on version 1.5 and here’s my findings.

I tested Roon 1.5 with NimitraS I’m going to bring to Munich show and use eXD audio interface for native DSD playback and converting MQA tracks to DSD format. It looks like they resolved brightness issue and Roon sounds musical again with improved transparency.

I checked audio output options and found new MQA options which freely allow user to use software (Decoder) and hardware (Renderer) to decode MQA files. Using Decoder will work with any output and Renderer will only work with MQA-capable device.

I also tested MQA with DSP such as Crossfeed to for my Rudistor RP030 + Beyerdynamic T1 and DSD upsampling for eXD interface with Emm Labs DSD playback. It worked fine and sounds very good.

So far I’m very happy with Roon 1.5 upgrade. It didn’t cause a huge mess with database like 1.3 upgrade and sounds better to my liking. I can search through Tidal better with official MQA support.

 

Fidelizer Munich AV Show 2018 Map

 

Oh, I will also bring NimitraS with Roon 1.5 and other goodies in Munich AV Show tomorrow so feel free to check our booth in Hall 3 J15. There’s also 3,000th license purchase offer for Fidelizer Upgrade Program including Fidelizer Purist ROMs so feel free to check out and take up offers. 🙂