For years, I had my Roon Server connected directly to my DAC’s. I resisted the separation of the devices. Once I did finally separate them, I was mildly pleased at the sound improvement. I now have the ROON Core in our office. It’s directly connected to our router and I use a long Ethernet cable to my audio room. There it goes into a Waversa Bridge, Standard and on to a Waversa Reference Plus noise filter into my Bartok. The sound has never been better.
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Thanks Bob-- have you used the WRP with usb directly to your Bartok or only through your network. Also , Was this INITIAL sound improvement before you used the WRP on the network-- I have the Dac connected to the router directly by EtheREGEN switch and I hve noticed an improvement with better qulity switching. Just was Thinking a nice USB direct connection might render some improvement as well
The separation was also driven by a desire to have as few “boxes” in my audio room as possible. I have used the USB input in other DAC’s. DAC’s that didn’t have an internal ethernet bridge. That was to transmit a DSD256 signal. The Bartok only accepts DSD128 Natively so I was wasn’t tempted to use USB. USB can sound very good and will require a good cable. I used Siltech USB, the Classic Anniversary version for years and still own it. It’s a hobby, try it to see if you like the sound. Ultimately it’s your ears that you need to please.
dCS recommends ethernet, not USB, if that is an option for you.
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Hello,
What Synology NAS work with the Rossini’s UPNP?
Thanks,
Robert
@robob I believe most Synology NAS’ support Ethernet as a connection option. I have an older DS416J Synology NAS that I’ve been using for over 5 years via UPNP with my Rossini. If you’re only using the Synology to store/play ripped music via your Rossini, you probably want one of their DiskStation (DS) models.
Ethernet was not the question. My question was specifically about which Synology NAS will work with Rossini. Rossini claims UPNP which many NAS do not support due to security issues with it. Also Rossini does not claim to support DLNA which is the newer tech developed from UPNP.
Ripped not so much as highres downloads and yes, I only want network storage.
Thanks for your reply,
Robert
Pretty much every NAS vendor supports UPnP Servers. Of the leading consumer NAS suppliers, both Synology and QNAP come with UPnP Servers by default (in fact, Synology’s Media Server works with Mosaic Control/dCS just fine).
That said, if you want full compatibility with Mosaic Control, then either MinimServer or Asset works much better, and both are available for installation on the respective NAS OSes; Synology DSM and QNAP QTS.
FYI, DLNA is derived from UPnP and uses the UPnP underlying protocol. For just music streaming, UPnP suffices, DLNA is unnecessary.
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Actually Buffalo for instance does not support UPNP in their SOHO and enterprise lines, again due to the security concerns. Several others I looked at did not claim to support plain UPNP.
What Mosaic compatibility? In Mosaic I go to the main menu, select UPNP and Rossini sees the available servers. It does recognize individual folders. What else is there?
I did mention DLNA was derived from UPNP in my last post. It does not mean that devices that support UPNP can access a DLNA server.
I got a good email response from Synology so I ordered a DS220+ and two WD Red Pro NAS drives from Adorama.
Thanks for your help,
Robert
Hi Robert,
Be aware that there are two general usages for the term “UPnP” …
There is the ability to be used as a UPnP server for media which is functionality provided by a UPnP Media Server application running on the NAS itself (or on a separate computer on your network) and there is also the ability for devices such as NAS’s and Routers to be CONFIGURED by UPnP commands from other devices on the network.
The former isn’t in itself a security risk but isn’t functionality that you would expect to be available on a device that isn’t targeted at a domestic use case so may well not be supported on their “professional” NAS’s.
The latter is a security risk however and should normally be disabled on any devices such as NAS’s and routers as you don’t want nefarious apps or services on your network opening up ports and setting up port forwarding.
It is very common for people to see a “UPnP” option in their router setup and simply presume that as they are wanting to use UPnP media servers on their network then they have to enable it but are in fact enabling the ability for the router to be managed via UPnP - this is not a good thing!
So, just to reassert, running a UPnP Media Server on your network in itself is not a security risk.
DLNA is basically a more tightly specified subset of UPnP which is a very large and loosely defined command protocol … I have not yet come across a DLNA Media Server that isn’t accessible from a UPnP Media Client and vice versa and so as far as Media Servers are concerned the two terms (UPnP and DLNA) can be assumed to be interchangeable. DLNA servers seem to have very much fallen off the radar nowadays and seen to generally al now be lumped under the “UPnP Server” category.
Media Servers (whether DLNA or UPnP) all have different ways of indexing and browsing your music collections - for example Twonky will start out with “Music”, “Videos” and “Photos” options as it is more a “Jack of all trades” media server whereas MinimServer will just straight into albums, artists, genres etc. and make no attempt to serve up videos or photos.
Once you select a UPnP server within Mosaic (or any other application that browses UPnP servers) then everything that you see is generated by the UPnP server, not by the client or the browsing app, so for example I have often been asked why when someone was demoing some kit at a dealers then there was a specific option available in a certain menu and now they have the product at home they don’t see that option and why have we removed it and how do they get it back but it’s actually down to using a different UPnP/DLNA server which has a different browse tree.
MinimServer and Asset UPnP are very capable UPnP servers that are paid for / commercial applications (although MinimServer is available as a free tier version on many NASs and some Audiophile Music Servers) … at dCS we do all our testing using MinimServer as that is quite a stickler for adhering to the published protocols and is a very stable and reliable UPnP server but that doesn’t necessarily make it the best for functionality and other UPnP or DLNA servers may suit your needs better.
Best Regards
Phil
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Thanks for the clarification. As an IT Consultant I was aware of most of that. I am definitely no UPNP expert as it is not allowed on the corporate networks I manage.
Still waiting to know what else would be available via Mosaic. All I need is the Rossini to see playable files on the NAS.
Thanks,
Robert
Hi Robert,
What do you mean by “What else”?
If you can elaborate then I’ll try to help…
Just that.
Other than seeing the folders on the NAS and the files which are available to play, what functionality might be available when viewing a UPNP server via Mosaic connected to my Rossini?
Thanks for hanging in there with me,
Robert
Hi Robert,
Most UPnP servers allow you to browse the folder and file structure (which is what I suspect that you are currently using) but that effectively precludes any of the actual useful functionality of the UPnP server being used.
What else would you like? - It really depends on the functionality provided by the UPnP server itself and how complete the tagging data that the music files contain.
Typically basic UPnP servers will allow the searching and browsing of music collections by Artist, Album and Genre but UPnP servers such as Mosaic and Asset allow additional sorting and searching such as by date, by composer, by conductor, by featured artists or by combinations of tagging information - both Asset and MinimServer have extensive configuration abilities.
You’ve mentioned that you are an IT Consultant - in that case then perhaps the best way to explain is to contrast looking at a folder structure of individual files of data using Windows Explorer - when you are in one folder you have no concept of anything anywhere else and you can’t really look for anything or search for anything and relating the information that you look at in one file to the information contained in any other file is basically impractical - whereas if all the information that is held in those files were in a properly indexed SQL database you could perform an almost unlimited number of different searches and queries on the data used in those files to allow you to - say - find other music that has the same number of beats per minute or the same instruments, or the same performers even if they aren’t the actual artists, or the same piece of music but by a specific orchestra or conductor or the version of a specific track that was recorded in 1970 when they had the lead singer that you liked rather than the version that was recorded in 1972 after the lineup had changed … as long as the tagging data on the files is there to support it then you have so much more flexibility in how you can then access those files.
OK, so some UPNP servers can allow one to search via the metadata and will group accordingly. In my test with TWONKY it did support that.
If the builtin Synology doesn’t allow that then I will probably pay for MinimServer as I am used to that functionality with Tidal and Qobuz.
BTW, the earlier post in that someone said streams from UPNP servers go through the Mosiac board is correct? I thought Mosiac is only for control.
Thanks Again,
Robert
BTW, I prefer my Macs, but of course most of my customers use Windows.
Hi Robert,
There isn’t really a “Mosaic board” as such - Mosaic is the name of the software that runs on the phone or tablet and it is a control interface to the kit.
Mosaic was originally used to describe the whole hardware and software infrastructure (pieces fitting together to make up a whole greater than the sum of the individual parts) but that was a bit confusing as people didn’t know what you were referring to so Mosaic is generally used just to refer to the app itself now.
No audio passes from the streamer to the portable device / app and back to the kit unless you are using AirPlay and then the audio is sent from the device to the kit via the network … the app is simply a control interface.
Hey,
I was referring to the control hardware in the DAC, not the app.
Does the stream go through the control hardware in the DAC after it leaves the DAC’s Ethernet hardware before it goes to the upsampling circuit?
Take it EZ,
Robert
On the contrary, I’ve yet to come across a UPnP client that could not access a DLNA server. The only exception is DLNA Servers based on the OpenHome “standard”.
Welcome to the club. Once you start using Mosaic Control and get some actual experience using any particular UPnP Server, Phil’s commentary will sink in.
Yes, I’m sure Phil can elaborate. The dCS platforms have a Compute module built-in which handles the streaming before sending the raw PCM/DSD bit-streams for upsampling and D-to-A conversion etc.
Hi Robert,
Of course …
You can’t just connect a DAC and Ethernet controller together without some intermediate control hardware, just as you can’t put an Ethernet port on a graphics card and it play NetFlix.
There has to be some control hardware (and firmware) involved there to handle the Ethernet comms and the different protocols being used (Roon support, TIDAL Connect, Spotify Connect, Qobuz, UPnP), buffering the data, decoding it from the file format pulled in from the network, reclocking it out of the buffer, handling control inputs, handling volume control, updating the display etc. - the upsampling itself isn’t a purely hardware function either, it is a software process running on FPGA based hardware.
Cheers
Phil
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