KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Nov 25, 2019 15:45:58 GMT -5
You bring up an interesting point....
But how will you feel if Tidal or QoBuz goes out of business next year?
At the moment none of the streaming services is making money.
It seems likely that some of them will be sold, bought, or go out of business sometime soon. (And how well will they compete against new services by the likes of Amazon?)
I would much prefer to see Roon with a steady stream of income they can use to continue development of their service... And perhaps even use to broker new deals with new streaming sources, both to expand their current offering, and to replace segments of it that may eventually disappear.
Nothing grows and evolves on one time money. Your car wont get better after you purchase it unless mandated by the Federal Government. So, like your car if you don’t by a new one or At least lease, it won’t get any upgrades. Their explanation was an articulate one and honest to a fault almost. Love that they were up front about the future sustainability of Roon. Continued funding is always required to grow and provide their product. I contemplated a lifetime membership for a long time before finally deciding that this may happen. ( Price increase, it had to ) I’m into month #2 of my membership, that was close! 😁 I wish them continued success as it means continued enjoyment for many of us. I am three months into my Roon subscription. The Roon lifetime is a great deal and works very well, especially when it is coupled with Tidal and Qobuz. Between my Pandora and Sirius subscriptions I have already paid out over $3000 with nowhere the versatility I now have with the Roon. $699 is still not a bad price for the functionality you receive.
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Post by brubacca on Nov 25, 2019 15:47:16 GMT -5
OK, wilburthegoose , you've got me interested. Might I ask a few questions? What did your NUC cost? What CPU runs your NUC? Does Intel make any i9 NUCs? Thanks - Boom The NUC was about $500 (I picked up the 8th gen i7 - you DO NOT need an i9). Model is NUC8i7BEH. This page will tell you more: kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_Optimized_Core_KitI highly recommend Micro Center, especially if they have a retail store near you. www.microcenter.com/product/511201/intel-nuc-mini-pc-kit-nuc8i7beh-core-i7,-tall-version You need to purchase 8GB memory and a small SSD hard drive. I just cleaned up my work area and put the NUC and an external USB 3.0 hard drive in my utility room in the basement. It's about 1' from my FiOS router, so that was a snap. Boomzilla, I purchased a NUC8i5BEH from an Amazon seller OEM XS. They see "used" barebone systems at a discount. I paid $300 for the $525 one listed above. Its a 4 core 8 thread processor and works great. I then purchased a 128 GB ssd for the OS and 8gb ram. Works great.
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klinemj
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Post by klinemj on Nov 25, 2019 16:13:17 GMT -5
At some point, by little Dell 660s will be at end of life. When it does, I'll likely do a ROCK, but for now the 660s works just fine as my Roon Core. And, I can use it to run Dirac, also.
Mark
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Post by wilburthegoose on Nov 26, 2019 11:13:40 GMT -5
klinemj - the new NUC is amazingly fast. I'm convinced I overbuilt it with an i7 - an i3 probably would've been plenty.
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DYohn
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Post by DYohn on Nov 26, 2019 15:14:33 GMT -5
klinemj - the new NUC is amazingly fast. I'm convinced I overbuilt it with an i7 - an i3 probably would've been plenty. I think Roon is recommending the i5 as the basic requirement, but yes I know people running very successfully on an i3. My server is running a circa 2015 quad-core Athlon.
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Post by Loop 7 on Nov 26, 2019 16:32:13 GMT -5
I have Roon Optimized Core Kit running on a NUC5i5MYHE with a 64 gb M.2 SSD and 8GB RAM (music is on a NAS).
Spec-wise it's definitely below what most use but it still blows away the Mac I was using.
The fan is not silent but the NUC is not in listening areas.
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Post by wilburthegoose on Nov 26, 2019 16:54:20 GMT -5
PS - Thanks for the NUC builders here for convincing me to move. My new NUC8i7BEH is running great.
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klinemj
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Post by klinemj on Nov 26, 2019 17:44:29 GMT -5
klinemj - the new NUC is amazingly fast. I'm convinced I overbuilt it with an i7 - an i3 probably would've been plenty. I think Roon is recommending the i5 as the basic requirement, but yes I know people running very successfully on an i3. My server is running a circa 2015 quad-core Athlon. Minimum reco is an i3 with 4GB of RAM. Mine's an i3 with either 4 or 8 GB of RAM. Works fine. wilburthegoose - when you say your NUC ROCK is faster...how do you notice that? Mine returns search results and responds to requests to play/pause things so fast that I don't notice a delay, Where do you experience the faster speed? And, what were you coming from? Mark
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Post by jdmusante on Nov 26, 2019 22:06:48 GMT -5
I purchased a sonicTransport i5, with a 1TB SSD, ultraRendu and their linear power supply last year during Small Green Computer's Black Friday sale. The sonicTransport runs Roon Server. Coming from a 2014 MacMini, this thing is a dream. Works flawlessly. I could not be happier with this purchase.
The package wasn't cheap but they have the same deal this year for $30 more than last year.
I really like the 1.7 update. As the update roll out, the program works better and better. So glad I found Roon.
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Post by SteveH on Nov 27, 2019 7:37:12 GMT -5
You bring up an interesting point....
But how will you feel if Tidal or QoBuz goes out of business next year?
At the moment none of the streaming services is making money.
It seems likely that some of them will be sold, bought, or go out of business sometime soon. (And how well will they compete against new services by the likes of Amazon?)
I would much prefer to see Roon with a steady stream of income they can use to continue development of their service... And perhaps even use to broker new deals with new streaming sources, both to expand their current offering, and to replace segments of it that may eventually disappear.
I am three months into my Roon subscription. The Roon lifetime is a great deal and works very well, especially when it is coupled with Tidal and Qobuz. Between my Pandora and Sirius subscriptions I have already paid out over $3000 with nowhere the versatility I now have with the Roon. $699 is still not a bad price for the functionality you receive. I have thought about what you said. If Tidal or Qobuz go out of business, I have not lost anything, I pay a monthly subscription so I have nothing invested in them. If Roon goes out of business, that is a different story, I purchased Roon to control my music library, the streaming services are just a great enhancement. The $119/month sounded steep compared to the $499 lifetime, I almost felt like Roon was coercing me to purchase the lifetime membership. As long as Roon stays in business until the first of the year, I win. Sirius started off in the same manner. But your right, Roon needs income to provide a quality service. Perhaps I can get grandfathered in at a reduced monthly fee whenever Roon changes their business model to a monthly subscription only business.
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Post by wilburthegoose on Nov 27, 2019 7:52:58 GMT -5
I think Roon is recommending the i5 as the basic requirement, but yes I know people running very successfully on an i3. My server is running a circa 2015 quad-core Athlon. Minimum reco is an i3 with 4GB of RAM. Mine's an i3 with either 4 or 8 GB of RAM. Works fine. wilburthegoose - when you say your NUC ROCK is faster...how do you notice that? Mine returns search results and responds to requests to play/pause things so fast that I don't notice a delay, Where do you experience the faster speed? And, what were you coming from? Mark I'm coming from a Windows 10 desktop PC. Intel i5/4 CPU with 32 Gb memory. Everything on SSD, including the music collection. I didn't have delays on the PC. I was actually happy with it. But the NUC is "peppy" - it's light-speed fast. Everything from searching to changing music to lyrics display. Even bringing up streaming internet radio is peppier.
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klinemj
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Post by klinemj on Nov 27, 2019 8:18:43 GMT -5
Minimum reco is an i3 with 4GB of RAM. Mine's an i3 with either 4 or 8 GB of RAM. Works fine. wilburthegoose - when you say your NUC ROCK is faster...how do you notice that? Mine returns search results and responds to requests to play/pause things so fast that I don't notice a delay, Where do you experience the faster speed? And, what were you coming from? Mark I'm coming from a Windows 10 desktop PC. Intel i5/4 CPU with 32 Gb memory. Everything on SSD, including the music collection. I didn't have delays on the PC. I was actually happy with it. But the NUC is "peppy" - it's light-speed fast. Everything from searching to changing music to lyrics display. Even bringing up streaming internet radio is peppier. Was your W10 PC fully dedicated to 1 job or a multi-use machine? Mine one serves as Roon Core. It does have DIRAC on it, but that rarely runs. It doesn't have MS Office or any other software on it - just W10, Roon, and Dirac + anything that is standard w/W10 Pro. Mark
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Nov 27, 2019 9:39:54 GMT -5
A lot of that value proposition depends on whether you use Roon mostly for managing your personal collection, or mostly for streaming, or both equally. At the rate things are going, I fully expect either Tidal or QoBuz to either go out of business, or get bought by someone in the next year or two. That's just my guess, but based on the fact that neither is making a profit as it is, and Amazon has now entered the "CD quality and up streaming game", which will introduce more serious competition. It seems likely to me that some of the unprofitable players are going to get squeezed out; while, at the same time, some big players like Google will be looking to buy their way into the game.
Whatever exactly ends up happening, as things sit now, nobody is actually making a good profit streaming audio or video.
Even Netflix, who is spending a lot of money creating their own content, and continually adding subscribers, is currently still losing money on their actual sales. (And, thanks to aggressive competition, companies who are already losing money are being forced to lower prices even more to remain competitive.) Obviously, something is going to have to give, or we're going to see significant changes in the basic business model pretty soon. (My guess is that they'll move to a model similar to cable TV... where, instead of paying $20 a month for "every record in the world", you'll pay $7 a month for rock, and $7 a month for country, etc.)
In general, when a product goes from a "lifetime" deal, to a monthly subscription, I would expect them to give their lifetime members some free time as a consolation prize. You bring up an interesting point.... But how will you feel if Tidal or QoBuz goes out of business next year?
At the moment none of the streaming services is making money.
It seems likely that some of them will be sold, bought, or go out of business sometime soon. (And how well will they compete against new services by the likes of Amazon?) I would much prefer to see Roon with a steady stream of income they can use to continue development of their service... And perhaps even use to broker new deals with new streaming sources, both to expand their current offering, and to replace segments of it that may eventually disappear.
I have thought about what you said. If Tidal or Qobuz go out of business, I have not lost anything, I pay a monthly subscription so I have nothing invested in them. If Roon goes out of business, that is a different story, I purchased Roon to control my music library, the streaming services are just a great enhancement. The $119/month sounded steep compared to the $499 lifetime, I almost felt like Roon was coercing me to purchase the lifetime membership. As long as Roon stays in business until the first of the year, I win. Sirius started off in the same manner. But your right, Roon needs income to provide a quality service. Perhaps I can get grandfathered in at a reduced monthly fee whenever Roon changes their business model to a monthly subscription only business.
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Post by wilburthegoose on Nov 27, 2019 9:54:38 GMT -5
I'm coming from a Windows 10 desktop PC. Intel i5/4 CPU with 32 Gb memory. Everything on SSD, including the music collection. I didn't have delays on the PC. I was actually happy with it. But the NUC is "peppy" - it's light-speed fast. Everything from searching to changing music to lyrics display. Even bringing up streaming internet radio is peppier. Was your W10 PC fully dedicated to 1 job or a multi-use machine? Mine one serves as Roon Core. It does have DIRAC on it, but that rarely runs. It doesn't have MS Office or any other software on it - just W10, Roon, and Dirac + anything that is standard w/W10 Pro. Mark It was a multi-purpose machine, but 95% of the time, it was doing nothing but serving Roon.
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Nov 27, 2019 12:33:58 GMT -5
You're missing part of the point there.
Yes, running other programs at the same time is going to significantly affect performance, and should be avoided. And, yes, even having programs installed may slow down the system, even when you aren't running them.
However, in a general purpose operating system, most of the parts of the operating system itself are not used at the same time. Therefore, regardless of what you're running at the time, or not running, there are still a lot of software services and modules that are running "in case you need them". (You are already running a lot of stuff simply by running a full copy of Windows or Linux.)
So, when you design a custom operating system like the ROCK uses, the first thing you do is to start eliminating the parts that you know you won't need. Eliminating these extra services and modules can improve performance dramatically.
(It also somewhat reduces the odds that the system will slow down over time - as updates occur.)
Was your W10 PC fully dedicated to 1 job or a multi-use machine? Mine one serves as Roon Core. It does have DIRAC on it, but that rarely runs. It doesn't have MS Office or any other software on it - just W10, Roon, and Dirac + anything that is standard w/W10 Pro. Mark It was a multi-purpose machine, but 95% of the time, it was doing nothing but serving Roon.
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Post by audiosyndrome on Nov 27, 2019 13:42:04 GMT -5
Just loaded 1.7. Took less than a minute. Listening to Live Radio. Great feature.
Russ
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Post by audiosyndrome on Nov 28, 2019 10:18:04 GMT -5
I'm thinking that my above post does not include enough information for a better understanding by viewers. I've only ripped about half of my CDs so my roon database (on an external USB drive) only contains 7,200 tracks resulting in the fast download and scanning time. I still have (about) 500 CDs to rip plus several hundred SACDs to rip to .dsf. Hmm; that sounds like a lot of work. I think I'll go listen to some vinyl. Russ
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