Do I Have to Buy the Rose RS451 ?

[Richx200]

Two out of the box options:

1) a bluray player that also plays dsd over network. Oppo 203 perhaps.
2) a small fanless mini pc.

For option 2 something from:
Beelink
Minisforum
ASUS NUC-style systems

Then either:
Run Android x86
Run Windows with a player such as JRiver Media Center
Run Foobar2000 with SACD plugins

Thank you very much for the path > I have the UGeen 4800 need Mini PC and a Raspberry Pi 5 Got it worked out in my head ..... listen for any load explosions

 

[Redacted]

You can configure a mini pc to boot straight into Kodi, I use an elderly Intel Nuc6 which has a built in infra red port allowing full control with an IR Remote control.
Plays video over hdmi and audio to a usb dac.

You could boot any media player too. You can play to every device on the LAN with it, as I believe Kodi is a DLNA server..

 

[Ruediger]

I used to do Kodi with a NUC, but HDR, DV, audio passthrough and multichannel decoding drove me mad.

As far as I know it has gotten better. So has AOSP over older Android.

 

[Ruediger]

You could boot any media player too. You can play to every device on the LAN with it, as I believe Kodi is a DLNA server..

Kodi does DLNA server (good library functions) and also player.

 

[Madeintooting]

You could boot any media player too. You can play to every device on the LAN with it, as I believe Kodi is a DLNA server..

Yes, very flexible, you can also control it from a PC or phone, use it as a renderer for another media player, I often send streams from foobar on my laptop to it.

 

[Redacted]

You could also run foobar on the NUC and send streams to it from another instance.
I'm not keen of Kodi, Jellyfin, Emby, Plex, Roon etc etc though - it all seems like bloatware to me, and I'm a simple man. Or just a fick bloke.

 

[Burki]

Because I'm using four Hifi Rose devices (2×RS250, 1xRS150 and 1xRS451):
You can't sideloading here android apps (Eversolo can it) and yes, they've the options to play videos and show metadatas over HDMI.
But: Eversolo and also Wiim (I'm using also players from them) have developed apps for showing metadatas on other devices like Android TV.

Also I can't recommend Hifi Rose players, if you're not using them as Roon endpoints.
As DLNA renderer, they don't support Openhome (so no gapless play) and also local saved DSD files can't played gapless.

Eversolo (the coming T10 would perhaps a candidate for you) is here much better and supports a lot of different streaming services (also local ones like LMS/Lyrion).
If you want to pay $3000, I would choose this way...

 

[Puddingbuks]

A rose mediaplayer is a waste of money. Buy an ipad where you can look at the artwork, playlist and lyrics.

Spend your money on better speakers or room acoustics, that is where upgrading really brings great improvements.

 

[Redacted]

I'm surprised about any lack gapless playback - I thought this was sorted more or less everywhere these days.

With all the various permutations of playing music in my house, I've had gapless for several years with no issues. In fact, lack of gapless would be a red line for me, as I have tons of recordings that depend on it.

 

[Burki]

I'm surprised about any lack gapless playback - I thought this was sorted more or less everywhere these days

I know many streamers (especially higher priced one) which are not able to play gapless.
Hifi Rose plays gapless in general, but not local DSD-files (Oppo btw. Cambridge Audio had the same problem). As a workaround you can use here iso files.
More critical is, that they are not able to integrate Openhome and so the device can't play gapless when used as DLNA renderer.
Also the handling for bigger libraries isn't great (e.g. in searching). Their firmware had become better, but they are very slow in new feature requests and bugfixing.
That's the cause, why I said: If you're not in Roon (here the devices are rock stable), then take a look into another brand...

By the way: Build quality is great (better than for eversolo) and the RS451 has a really good display and an excellent headphone amp.

 

[Redacted]

Fair enough. I've never tested DSD files for gapless, but I assumed with FLACs, gapless generally works now - is that true?

I'm not sure why handling bigger libraries is an issue for Rose - isn't it just its app that queries the DLNA server and then cues the results you select for the player? Most of the hard work of doing the parsing of files and traversing folders is done up-front by the server, no? I know when I run say, FB2K on my PC, play selection is really fast when I use its DLNA connection to my NAS, but when I let it get files or a big playlist over SMB, it takes ages (which is why it has the option to build its own local library to speed things up - presumably its own local little 'database')

I digress, but the Rose seems a lot of cash for something that's probably not as usable as I thought (but I have no DSD)....

 

[Ruediger]

Gapless is something I just expect to work, especially with an expensive player. I don't know if DSD has new challenges there, but everything up to flac/pcm should be solved?

Library size is a different issue. Really big libraries will always bring slow handling unless you throw CPU power onto the problem. Whatever builds a library (database) and scrapes info (texts) into it and adds artwork (multiple files) to items in a local storage (mediocre fast filesystem) has a very tough job to do. This quickly escalates with library size. 5k entries in 500 folders no problem. 50k maybe still OK. 500k or 1.5mln items, this is a big database with possibly hundreds of k of additional files to handle. Even foobar on PC takes a decent amount of time to scan that. And building a comprehensive library (all infos scraped) with Kodi on a PC instantly runs into scraping speed as the limit.

There it will show if the developers were smart. Library load is really a problem of the server. A streamer with small power should impose limits when attempting to build a library, which some do.

But traversing through folders via smb, even lists with hundreds or thousands of items, does not have to be slow at all. There is no excuse from SMB to have a bad implementation of that.

 

[Redacted]

Indeed. That's the beauty of using a DLNA mechanism. All the work is done up front and when you add new files, the server automatically scans and adds to its database.

TLDR unless someone else is DLNA curious, but gapless playing works perfectly for my setup (FLAC files)

When a DLNA-aware app 'sees' the server over the network it's just database lookups to present info to the user - much faster than navigating folders and pulling metadata every time. If you use say, FB2K on a phone, it's not DLNA aware (it ought to be, like with the PC version is with a plugin), so it builds its own local database (which works as a cache for tag data), but because all the data is coming over the network and being parsed by a weak phone CPU, it's very slow to do the initial build.

I've experimented with my RAID/NAS (which reads and writes at full LAN bandwidth), and if I wipe the DLNA database and force a rebuild, it's takes two hours to complete! There are a lot of media files on it though. Sure, it's 4 slow HDDs and not SSDs on my NAS, but it's running a decent Intel 4 core CPU. Once built though, the phone app I use for setting up my streamer only takes a second to start populating data on the screen, and as you scroll the display more or less keeps up. You can of course select any of the usual "virtual folders" to display, such as - playlist, genre, band, album or 'by folder', and invidual items show up on the phone with cover art and all the relevant tag data - no larsong, just a a database lookup, and any selection you make to cue to the streamer is more or less instant - and course, once done, the phone is freed up - it's no longer involved in the files that the streamer is playing off the NAS.

Sorry if I'm a bit of a fan of this way if doing things - I've done it this way more or less since it was first possible!

 

[Madeintooting]

You could also run foobar on the NUC and send streams to it from another instance.
I'm not keen of Kodi, Jellyfin, Emby, Plex, Roon etc etc though - it all seems like bloatware to me, and I'm a simple man. Or just a fick bloke.

OP wants to play videos too.

 

[Redacted]

OK, varying use cases...

I stream neither audio nor video.

FWIW - I always use VLC for videos on my PC or phone - it works well using DLNA/UPnP with my NAS, and all my TVs get videos from my NAS via DLNA too (not broadcast though).

 

[Richx200]

Question about your signal chain, semi unrelated: does the MRX1140 have an analog-direct setting? I use an MRX540 which does not. All analog inputs are converted to digital internally for processing. We know most ADCs measured here have been somewhat mediocre, therefore I don't see the point in using and external DAC, and just run the digital output of my streaming device (Pi running Ropieee > D10s converting USB to toslink) directly into the MRX540 and rely on its DAC. I figure taking a conversion step out of the signal chain is more "pure" or at least has the possibility of causing less harm.

I did contact Anthem about the Analog inputs and their reply wasn't vert specific. They told me all audio inputs are processed through the units DAC and are not changed so O asked if the DAC would be Bit Perfect; not answer. So, I have to believe that the DAC may stream the audio in it's format unchanged but the DAC still would add it's own personnality to the performance ie maybe a bit warmer in the middle or brighter at the highs.

Which leaves me with the problem of how to get around the Anthem's DAC. I'll have to switch the two front speakers between the Anthem 1140 and the PVA 7. I use the DAC's preamp when using the PVA 7 and when I switch the speaker back the 1140 just use the HDMI for cinema.

Audio Chain: Ugreen 4800 > Raspberry PI 5 (streams audio and UI) > Topping D70 Sabre Pro >DspMini 2/4 Flex > PVA 7 > Focal Aira 936 / (4) SVS Sb4000

Problem I cannot find a 4 Channel Two Position switch 4/2 AB yet.

 

[Richx200]

OK, varying use cases...

I stream neither audio nor video.

FWIW - I always use VLC for videos on my PC or phone - it works well using DLNA/UPnP with my NAS, and all my TVs get videos from my NAS via DLNA too (not broadcast though).

I'll be using Moode with the Raspberry PI 5

 

[Richx200]

OP wants to play videos too.

I'll only need the video for the UI. Hate looking at a little screen DAC/Phone to menu/select my audio.

 

[Richx200]

Aha! I get why it's nice to have the same info shown on a big screen, but would a be a bit overbearing for me, and not worth the cost of the Rose unit - but each to his own.

I have nice super-cheap tablet that is dedicated to controlling my streamer via its app, although there are many ways to set up what plays, using other apps. Everyone nearby can see the playlist or what's next in the album etc. No problem with picking from 1000's of albums, or genres, or band names etc etc. and 120+ playlists from my DLNA server on my RAID/NAS with the tablet, with just a few swipes or screen presses!

How are you separating the audio form the video; are both being processed by your "cheap tablet and App"?

 

[Richx200]

I also vote Mini PC if HDMI out for UI is a requirement.

You will have more options and therefore more complexity with setup, but most support HDMI natively, many are quite cheap, (no need for a high spec machine just for music playback) and if you get a Windows PC you can use remote desktop so it's controllable via an android phone if you want. Or you get a wireless mouse / keyboard. Or one of those little trackpack / keyboard input thingies. Etc.

You can also run EQ / room correction / whatever you want on the PC itself, so your DSP options open up considerably.

Thank you I went with the Raspberry PI 5 for the HDMI (Video) USB (Audio) instead of the Mini PC