The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.

can you use roon as just for using one computer (no server stuff, no installing a certain OS to only run roon as a core and having multiple different stations to play your music).. i dont need Jrivers media player stuff beyond audio, and other than that the only other choice is audirvanna

basically can you use roon as just "here is a music player where you can still use a bunch of other stuff like a browser and a game in the background"
 
duke86fan said:
can you use roon as just for using one computer (no server stuff, no installing a certain OS to only run roon as a core and having multiple different stations to play your music).. i dont need Jrivers media player stuff beyond audio, and other than that the only other choice is audirvanna

basically can you use roon as just "here is a music player where you can still use a bunch of other stuff like a browser and a game in the background"
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In theory (although not sure what processor power it would divert away from other stuff) but you basically just install roon on your main PC. Set that PC as the core. Use it as the remote etc if you don;t want to install the app on phones/ tablets etc too and you're off and running.
 
Rowan said:
In theory (although not sure what processor power it would divert away from other stuff) but you basically just install roon on your main PC. Set that PC as the core. Use it as the remote etc if you don;t want to install the app on phones/ tablets etc too and you're off and running.
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i just want something stronger than foobar
 
duke86fan said:
i just want something stronger than foobar
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I don’t know what you mean by stronger but I recall you were having issues with Tidal on your comp with exclusive mode and trying to use other apps. Based on what you’ve said about your digital listening uses, I personally think Roon would be overkill for you and not worth the expense. IMO the best features of Roon are it’s ability to combine a huge downloaded high-res library with a high-res streaming service to make one library, and the multi-room aspect of it. If I wasn’t using those two parts of Roon, I wouldn’t subscribe to it. It doesn’t make sense to me to pay for Roon unless you do a ton of streaming and have a lot of CD rips/downloads.
 
duke86fan said:
What I have is like not having to get a specific plugin and set myself to a specific output labelled for it if I ever try out DSD, or having a better organisation system that isn't just a bunch of filters
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Honestly, I'd wouldn't attempt to play DSD without a separate DAC I like and without a dedicated rig just for audio. I have a separate rig and still don't feel the need to try DSD. It's so expensive + has a lack of releases in the format.

The organization on Roon is great, but depends on what you're using it for. If you have a lot of rips/downloads + tidal or Qobuz then maybe it makes sense to eventually move towards Roon as it seamlessly combines all of these things. I don't mess with playlists or anything really though. I'm at 300+GB of downloaded music (probably around 600-700 albums right now) and I use the multi-room audio so Roon was perfect for me. I'm not sure my laptop would seamlessly handle running Roon all the time if I was also using it as a computer at the same time. You need the core open to use it and it drains a decent amount of resources. It would be a bit annoying to open and close Roon all the time anytime I wanted to listen to music.

There has to be a better option for you...I wish I knew more about the other software options for ya. I wasn't a HUGE fan of jRiver when I tried it but that was years ago.
 
MikeH said:
Honestly, I'd wouldn't attempt to play DSD without a separate DAC I like and without a dedicated rig just for audio. I have a separate rig and still don't feel the need to try DSD. It's so expensive + has a lack of releases in the format.
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but i feel like if my DAC can support DSD i feel like i need to make use of that since if it has it why not since it makes it more worth it than something thats worth less money

the same reason why i was wanting MQA because i was thinking of moving to tidal since it was the cheapest lossless offer and i planned on getting an ifi hipdac. so technically i do have that integration reason for using roon. but i am just using a simple laptop with about 90 gigs of FLACs and MP3s and i just like the magazine like interface of roon.. also maybe i can make foobar work but the problem is that it requires a lot of detail and customization that i am not active enough to do and i cant find anyone that can create the exact skin i want (something like musicbee but not completely... i like the itunes style of clicking on the album art then seeing all the tracks)
 
also im mostly focusing on these features because whether its the dragonfly black, monolith USB dac, or just my laptops headphone jack.. they all sound the same.. the music doesn't sound different.. its not more dynamic or punchy, i dont know if there is a soundstage change, no additional texture, no enhanced frequencies.. so the only thing making a dac worth a good amount of money worth it is the features.. maybe i just hate the ESS sabre sound because its so boring and nothing pops. maybe im expecting too much a difference because i was once told DACs were the biggest boost you can do to sound, but i just want music to sound much better and none of them are doing anything even on these sennheisers (which i do like but dont have a lot of impact or energy to them)
 
duke86fan said:
also im mostly focusing on these features because whether its the dragonfly black, monolith USB dac, or just my laptops headphone jack.. they all sound the same.. the music doesn't sound different.. its not more dynamic or punchy, i dont know if there is a soundstage change, no additional texture, no enhanced frequencies.. so the only thing making a dac worth a good amount of money worth it is the features.. maybe i just hate the ESS sabre sound because its so boring and nothing pops. maybe im expecting too much a difference because i was once told DACs were the biggest boost you can do to sound, but i just want music to sound much better and none of them are doing anything even on these sennheisers (which i do like but dont have a lot of impact or energy to them)
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I think a DAC can make a huge difference. But not all DACs will make a huge difference. It's not all that different to a cartridge for your TT. If you're upgrading from a $50 cart to a $100 cart, it might not be life changing (I also don't think any audio upgrades are truly life-changing haha). I'd also say that just because your DAC can do DSD doesn't mean you must do DSD. Mine can play DSD but it doesn't really make sense for me right now. It's expensive to buy DSD albums and I have Qobuz and Red and occasionally buy CDs so I don't really need to go down the DSD rabbit hole even though I am curious to at least listen to it.
 
MikeH said:
I think a DAC can make a huge difference. But not all DACs will make a huge difference. It's not all that different to a cartridge for your TT. If you're upgrading from a $50 cart to a $100 cart, it might not be life changing (I also don't think any audio upgrades are truly life-changing haha). I'd also say that just because your DAC can do DSD doesn't mean you must do DSD. Mine can play DSD but it doesn't really make sense for me right now. It's expensive to buy DSD albums and I have Qobuz and Red and occasionally buy CDs so I don't really need to go down the DSD rabbit hole even though I am curious to at least listen to it.
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so how do i really feel an upgrade from this 80 dollar usb stick dac with an ESS ES9018K2M


also hey i was already planning on upgrading from a 70 dollar to a 120 dollar cartridge.. i felt the ortofon just didn't have the sound for me and prefered nagaoka
 
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duke86fan said:
so how do i really feel an upgrade from this 80 dollar usb stick dac with an ESS ES9018K2M


also hey i was already planning on upgrading from a 70 dollar to a 120 dollar cartridge.. i felt the ortofon just didn't have the sound for me and prefered nagaoka
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The Cart thing was just a quick and probably poor example haha. The Nagaoka will likely have a very different sound and I’ve heard good things. You know that you weren’t a fan of the Ortofon and so switching it up seems like a good call.

For the DACs I don’t know what to recommend because I know you don’t want a speaker set up and want something to hook up to your laptop to listen through headphones and I don’t have experience with that. I don’t know much about headphones/headphone amps.

I personally saved money up to go for something in the $400-$600 range for an external DAC and I got something used but like new on the head-fi forums. I wanted a more substantial upgrade than to keep only doing slight upgrades with my digital set up.
 
MikeH said:
The Cart thing was just a quick and probably poor example haha. The Nagaoka will likely have a very different sound and I’ve heard good things. You know that you weren’t a fan of the Ortofon and so switching it up seems like a good call.

For the DACs I don’t know what to recommend because I know you don’t want a speaker set up and want something to hook up to your laptop to listen through headphones and I don’t have experience with that. I don’t know much about headphones/headphone amps.

I personally saved money up to go for something in the $400-$600 range for an external DAC and I got something used but like new on the head-fi forums. I wanted a more substantial upgrade than to keep only doing slight upgrades with my digital set up.
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(i dont actually have an ortofon but a grado and i watched a video comparing the nagaoka and the ortofon and i thought the ortofon sounded better in the blind test of radiohead)

my current plan was to get a ifi hipdac.. its only 150 bucks and it contains a burr brown chipset (so it will be warmer), a bass boost, can run high impedence headphones well, and has balanced and single ended outputs.. i just want a different sound and more detail so that might be a better choice than a dongle... my issue with the other dacs is they all seemed to sound the same, no different sound signature, no new added stuff, just some more features like 96khz instead of how my laptop audio can only up and downsample to 16/48
 
duke86fan said:
(i dont actually have an ortofon but a grado and i watched a video comparing the nagaoka and the ortofon and i thought the ortofon sounded better in the blind test of radiohead)

my current plan was to get a ifi hipdac.. its only 150 bucks and it contains a burr brown chipset (so it will be warmer), a bass boost, can run high impedence headphones well, and has balanced and single ended outputs.. i just want a different sound and more detail so that might be a better choice than a dongle... my issue with the other dacs is they all seemed to sound the same, no different sound signature, no new added stuff, just some more features like 96khz instead of how my laptop audio can only up and downsample to 16/48
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Gotcha--the Grado will also sound different from the Nagaoka. I had an Ortofon and switched to a Grado actually haha.

If there's any way you can test out the DAC, I'd try to do that. I know it's hard especially in a pandemic but not sure if there's a shop that has any sort of 30 day trial or guarantee...
 
Guys this is the dark side and I don't intend to spend a lot of time on here, but I decided to redeem my download cards and bandcamp purchases and store them on a harddrive for one day...

Bandcamp provides a lot of formats as do some of the others. Which one would you guys recommend downloading in?
 
uvwxVinyl said:
Guys this is the dark side and I don't intend to spend a lot of time on here, but I decided to redeem my download cards and bandcamp purchases and store them on a harddrive for one day...

Bandcamp provides a lot of formats as do some of the others. Which one would you guys recommend downloading in?
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FLAC for sure. It is a lossless format that you can transcode to any lossy file format you prefer (MP3, Apple m4a, etc).
 
uvwxVinyl said:
Guys this is the dark side and I don't intend to spend a lot of time on here, but I decided to redeem my download cards and bandcamp purchases and store them on a harddrive for one day...

Bandcamp provides a lot of formats as do some of the others. Which one would you guys recommend downloading in?
Click to expand...
FLAC or WAV for me. Wav files are larger and I have not done a side by side to see how/if the sound differs.
 
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