Is an audio media transport really better than PC?

[preston8452]

Hello guys,

I'm having some doubts about purchasing an audio grade media transport or music streamer.
Wouldn't say I'm a sole PC Hi-FI dude, by recently I've been seeing a lot of reviews and articles talking about using a audio streamer to play music can certainly outperform PC playing, like the sound quality and stuff.
I normally use Roon to play music by my PC, which is not bad, but of course not heavenly I'd say haha... anyways, so recently I did some researches about some audio streamer/media transport with fair prices, there's one called Munich M1T, the price is worth a shot, and it's Roon Ready certified, but I'm just still hesitating that if I should buy it.

Can anyone share some insights with me? I'll be grateful big timeee~

 

[wonko]

Hi, and welcome to the madhouse! It probably all depends on things like what dac/amp/speakers/headphones are you using, and whether you're using the PC's analogue or digital outputs. If you do get a roon endpoint then you wouldn't be able to use it for your other PC audio stuff like watching videos, games, etc., so you may need a way of switching betwen the PC and the endpoint.
I've no experience with the product you mentioned, but it might be an expensive experiment given alternatives like a raspberry pi and RoPieee that you might want to look at.

 

[hornetstinger]

Certainly a lot easier than faff like PC. I use Logitech squeeboxes with Synology NAS and works well. I believe you can install Roon and that'll replace LMS service on the NAS? Would be good, but £700 license is absurd.

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

Roonlabs themselves have in the past stated that the media storage/playback unit makes no difference to sound quality, as long as you use an independent renderer, that is of good quality. Now maybe that's changed, but it's worth considering.
So you "might" be better off considering Roon ready "end points", which can be anything from say a Raspberry Pi3 via digital out to a full DCS unit.

 

[hornetstinger]

Roonlabs themselves have in the past stated that the media storage/playback unit makes no difference to sound quality, as long as you use an independent renderer, that is of good quality. Now maybe that's changed, but it's worth considering.
So you "might" be better off considering Roon ready "end points", which can be anything from say a Raspberry Pi3 via digital out to a full DCS unit.

Don't mind paying £100 for roon, Lms support stopped also new Synology nas no longer supports running Lms.

 

[gEd]

I've got 2 x Raspberry Pi's that I use as Roon endpoints and also an Ifi zen stream. But as already said, if and what streamer you should be thinking about depends on your particular setup so you need to provide more details on your particular setup.

but as this is your first post, I'm wondering why you decided to register and post about a roon streamer on overclockers, rather than on the roon forum...?