Cambridge Audio has this week announced firmware updates for its EDGE NQ pre-amplifier’s network streamer* (€4000) and the CXN V2 network streamer (€1099) that add Roon Ready support**. The firmware update is applied over-the-air directly to the device. Neat, huh? Yes…but Cambridge users could already send Roon streams to the […]
T+A. Calm down – this isn’t Carry On Up Your Crossover but an abbreviated ‘Theory + Application’ belonging to 40-year-old German hi-fi company T+A whose MP 1000E, R 1000 E and MP 2000 R MKII each put CD transport, digital tuner (FM, FM-HD and DAB+), Bluetooth input and UPnP network streamer into a […]
How much is your time worth? That’s the question we might ask ourselves when first glancing at Bryston Limited’s latest digital audio streamer, the BDP-π, which for US$1295 gives us a Raspberry Pi and Hifiberry Digi+ snapped into a custom case and boxed up with switch mode power supply – a combination […]
In the network audio ecosystem that is Roon, the remote tells the server (aka Core) which audio to push to the Roon endpoint, when to stop pushing, when to skip to the next track or when to play something different, even from Tidal. The most affordable Roon endpoint are the Apple TV and Apple Airport […]
Eunhasu is the Korean word for Milky Way (or Galaxy). It’s also the name given by South Korean digital audio company SOtM to the in-house coded, web server daemon that runs on the ARM board found inside their all new sMS-200 server/player. The control panel’s colourful config screen, accessible via IP address, puts the small hardware […]
A year is very long time in digital audio. When Swiss company Merging Technologies – they of Pyramix studio consoles – launched the NADAC (“Network Attached DAC”) in early 2015, its Ethernet input and RAVENNA transmission protocol combo promised asynchronously networked digital audio. Buh-bye USB and S/PDIF. DAR caught up with the NADAC at […]
“A Roon Ready product is a hardware audio player which has implemented RAAT and been certified by the Roon team for proper implementation”. That’s how Roon themselves describe Roon Ready. For the layman, it means the certified third party network device can play catch on the digital audio stream emanating from […]
Talkin’ ‘bout a revolution. On 29th February 2012 the UK’s Raspberry Pi Foundation launched its first product, the eponymous Raspberry Pi PC board, designed primarily to promote computer science skills in UK schools and developing countries. The v1 Pi arrived as a smartphone-sized bare board to which the end use […]
“Roon Ready” signage glows with a ghostly blue-white. At a number of CES 2016’s Venetian Hotel suites – in the Bryston room, in the Bel Canto room, in the Danville Electronics room (see above) – it was close to unmissable. To the uninitiated though, the questions barks some, “What the gosh […]
The logo that glowed from the rack central to Bryston’s main display at CES said it all: the Canadian manufacturer are one of numerous signees to the Roon Ready programme. Their Linux-based BDP-2 streamer (US$3000) enjoys frequent firmware updates, sometimes as often as once a month, and next to arrive will be Roon Endpoint playability. Elsewhere, Bitperfect playback […]
UPDATE 10th January 2016: An e-mail from AURALiC: “Because MQA is a ‘end to end’ processing to maximum the performance with best sound quality, the ARIES and ARIES LE will integrate MQA file decoder but the final rendering has to be done by a MQA certificated DAC (ARIES MINI analog […]
Throughout 2015 I wrote the bejesus out of Roon. Go here, here, here, here, here, and here for in-depth coverage. Roon’s intuitive and clean interface screams to be touched, its meta data reveal goes coal mine deep and its network stability is rock solid, even when streaming hi-res content (which you can’t do with Apple Airplay). No surprises […]
John Darko