Great post, and very timely! I just finished a weekend evaluation of the Innuous Stream 3, which was recommended by my dealer as a Roon Core for my Bartok. Prior to the evaluation, I contacted Innuous directly about connection options, and I was surprised that they recommended their optional USB board over Ethernet. My dealer confirmed that their experience supported the claim, encouraged me to keep an open mind, and sent me home with a Transparent USB cable and the streamer. After two days of listening, I can confirm that the USB connection achieved transformative results. Previously, “center” channel vocalists had receded to the front wall, but the Stream 3 brought them forward, into the room as three-dimensional performers, while simultaneously increasing the dimensionality of all instruments. Of course, these results call into question the quality of my network: I have 5gb fiber to the house from my ISP, and I have a Linksys Orbi connected to the ISP modem with 4 feet of Cat 6e. A Giesman fiber converter, powered by a UpTone LPS, is connected to the router with 1 foot of Cat 6e, then the signal travels over 75 feet of single mode fiber to the audio closet, where it’s converted to copper by a TP link media converter (hopefully soon to be replaced by an EtherRegen 2). From there, it’s 1 foot of fiber into the Innuous (or, previously my Bartok). So, yes, I’ll be purchasing the Stream 3, USB and all. And, in summary, here’s an ordered list of my listening results:
Never really liked the Rossini USB input compared to the LAN and AES/EBU inputs, better to find a streamer with LAN or/and AES/EBU outputs, result will be much better IMHO. (Especially if you can synchronise the clocks)
I really wonder if there is anything to gain by adding an external network transport - you can gain access to additional streaming services such as Amazon, Deezer etc. and in some cases a nice display - but from a sound quality point of view I am really curious to see if there are any benefits.
But the experience above, apparently not, although I am still very tempted to hear for myself.
I currently use a WiiM Ultra, connected via USB to my Rossini - only to access Amazon Music, and the quality of sound is no where near to native streaming, so I am considering trying out a Eversolo T8 transport - in the UK this sells for just under £1300 - if the sound quality from the T8 is anywhere near that of the Rossini I would consider keeping it to access Amazon Music. Although now that Spotify will shortly go ‘HD’ (well up to 24-bit/44.1kHz) maybe I wont need Amazon Music… BTW I am using Qobuz with my Rossini - but there is some music that I wont to listen to that is just not available on that platform, hence the reason I am looking into adding an additional network bridge
Good catch. Yes, the TP Link converts the fiber to copper, with a one-foot cat 6 cable feeding the streamer. I recognize that the TP Link is not ideal; only a temporary solution until the new EtherRegen is available.
I’m glad I took the time for this evaluation, and I learned a couple of things that surprised me:
The Stream 3 outperformed the Bartok streamer on both Qobuz via Mosaic and Qobuz connect.
The Stream 3 sounded best when connected via its Phoenix USB card. Network connection to the Bartok was unimpressive
I’d love to see dCS offer a pure server in this price range, with a low noise motherboard and optimized for network connection to its family of DACs.
My guess….if one wants to top the Rossini’s streaming capabilites with a 2000 € streamer that won‘t do it…it needs better (more expensive so to speak,) gear. Some folks here tested Aurender Nxx or Lumin (+9k€)….
For me I like the idea of an external streamer for a two and a half reasons.
First - I would like to have my media stored as close as possible to the DAC. At the moment it’s on a Roon server elsewhere in the house, and I don’t like all the network hops and I find it a bit unreliable, yes I could create a VLAN and yes I could put it fewer hops away, but I just feel that having media ON BOARD (à la Melco or Aurender) is going to be better. I’d miss Roons interface, so I’m hanging out for a Streamer that can act as a Roon Core.
Second - I like a screen. A big beautiful artwork and playback graphics filled screen. I had the Rose 130 for a while, and loved how that looked. I don’t find it distracting, and because I almost exclusivley listen from playlists, I do find being able to glance over and see the album cover over what I’m listening to. I liked the Naim ND555 screen I had for a long time, just a simple 10cm x 10cm square that showed the album art and just the album art, but I liked the Rose even more.
Third - It might sound better. Jurys out. Haven’t listened but people tell me if you do it right, it does. I think it’s very connection dependant in this regard. To me - if I get 1 and 2, and then 3 is marginal I’m sold. To be honest, as long as it doesn’t sound worse I’m still sold.
I think I’ll most likely get a steamer one day, and I suspect I’ll go Aurender. Although that won’t tick the “can be used as a Roon Core” box I understand their own Conductor software does a perfectly fine job.
…the ideal of course would be for dCS to bring out a streamer that utilises that gorgeous screen and interface they’ve developed for the Varése - and while im not holding my breath, I doubt very much they’d have spent all those R&D pounds for it not to appear in other yet to be announced product lines.
Just to address the first point here - there is no engineering reason to have your media stored as close to the DAC as possible. In fact, it might actually work against you in sound quality terms.
The number of ‘hops’ data takes over a network won’t have any bearing on data integrity or noise (every hop is galvanically isolated and checksum at the endpoint means data integrity is guaranteed). The packets may actually take different routes through the network depending on a variety of factors - probably unlikely for a home network but it’s perfectly possible and has no impact on the resultant output.
However, usually - and admittedly I am making some assumptions here - managing a large amount of locally stored media requires a chunky bit of processing power to index and serve up the content. That’s why we don’t get into having storage inside of DACs, because you then need a processor to run it that is generally fast and noisy, and you don’t want that anywhere near your sensitive audio electronics in the DAC.
If a device is then nearby and has a fast running processor, you may get extra noise being put back onto the mains power supply. If this is close to your DAC, it may be detrimental. Again, this will depend on the implementation and power supply in the streamer, but there still isn’t a need to have it close so our advice has always been to keep it well separated. Having the local storage, and the processing power to run it, kept in one device that can be far away from your audio kit (NAS drive, Roon Core etc.) is ideal. The network hops won’t matter, and you get a good degree of physical separation from any potentially noisy things.
I 100% agree in theory - but the reality of living with Roon on a large flat network is something different!
I have 150 network devices (Hue Lights, Google Hubs, Sonos, TV’s, PCs, Macs, Lawnmowers, Weather Stations, Power Sockets, Cameras) in addition to the actual network components themselves - and I find that Roon is especially sensitive to network dropouts, I don’t know what causes these (Broadcast perhaps) but nothing else seems to struggle, only Roon.
It’s pretty well known for it I think - and as I say, many people put theirs on a dedicated VLAN…which I may well do. I find the Rossini buffer protects from dropouts much better than anything else I’ve ever had, and using a static IP for the Roon Core, and regularly bouncing it helps.
So my point was more about taking the network out of the equation completely or in the case of the streaming services, just as much as possible.
Ah, I understand - I’d gotten the wrong end of the stick. From a reliability perspective on a chatty network, totally agree that simplification may very well help. Thanks for clarifying!
I’d say to try out using the network with both the Roon Core and the endpoint (DAC) both connected directly to the same switch, as the switch will be able to send the correct traffic directly to the endpoint without going via the router so should remain fairly resilient to the of the rest of the network.
Going that route would be preferable over a solution like AES or S/PDIF as there are implications there from a sound quality perspective. Plus if you have a suitable Roon Core already, you can add a cheap switch to test with your existing kit (assuming the device you have running on your Roon server can be moved or is within 50m to be directly wired to the same switch). Might be a good first step to getting better reliability without necessarily having to add new equipment.
As I’m sure you know 150 devices is nothing for an unmanaged switch, I am pretty sure this has nothing to do with the dropouts you are experiencing.
OTOH having your Roon Server, NAS and/or remotes on separate VLANs will almost certainly cause you problems. The rare exceptions are enterprise grade managed switches that properly mirror multicast traffic across VLANs. Unless you’re confident with network management/troubleshooting I would give VLANs a wide berth.
If you really are having issues with excessive traffic on your network then this (above) is definitely one thing to do as a check …
Yup … it’s a decent number of network connected devices but those devices are unlikely to be constantly caning a network.
My gut feeling if you are having those kinds of network issues then I’d be looking for physical problems such as doubled up connections to switches or network loops and things like conflicting WiFi networks … it’s even possible that you might have a faulty switch causing problems.
In the past I’ve had a couple of the slim (GS116 IIRC) 16 port NetGear switches that after a while started creating huge latency issues until they were replaced - I do still regard them as reliable as generally they are - what is the general topology of this network?
Knowing this has paid my mortgage for longer than I care to remember! …yes - but there is something going on - be it broadcast - a chatty device - loops - without a Fluke I’m struggling to get to the bottom of it. What I’m saying is I can live with it (assuming there is indeed actually a problem!) on every single other device but Roon. It’s THE most susceptible to problems - the only one in fact that ever shows any issues.
I do harbour a theory about this. I need to rebuild the whole thing. Herculean task!
Interesting. These are exactly the family of switches I use…
