Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Tidal what do I need?

Hi,

Looking to maybe make changes to my setup with a subscription to Tidal.
I would welcome any suggestions on what hardware and software would be needed at a reasonable price.
I have a spare mini PC, Mac Mini, QNAP TS-453A and a few Sooloos endpoints but I assume utilizing these would need a subscription to Roon.
Can you stream Tidal to a MS200 without Roon?

Graham

Hi Graham,

Ideally, you do need Roon to stream Tidal to Meridian endpoints...

You can always take a feed from a PC and connect it to a digital or analog input on a processor or you could invest in other streamers.

I have Roon running on an Intel NUC and my endpoints are on my network, so can be accessed by Roon.

Remember, Roon is so much more than just an interface to Tidal - it can store your library and if you let it use some of its intelligence, it can take you on some interesting musical journeys!
And it supports many other endpoints...

Cheers,

Steve

Hi Steve,
Thanks for your reply.

I notice a lot of people have the Intel NUC listed in their profile, is this only hosting the software and sending data through the lan to the endpoints?

Can any decent PC do exactly the same job or does the NUC have any additional features?

Do you also have a music store on the NUC or is it just used to stream Tidal?

I am running Sooloos core and store on a QNAP and I noticed it has a Roon app available, is this option any good?

If I go down the Roon Tidal path I assume all I need to do is use a native export from the Sooloos store.

Thanks
Graham

A PC or Mac running Roon Core will work just fine.

A NUC running ROCK has the advantage of being a "set and forget" solution and it will update itself.

The Roon operating system RoonOS needs to be run on its own disk (M2 SSD) on the NUC, while the music can be stored on an additional disk or a USB connected disk. But since you already have a QNAP, I recommend that you use it for storage because it is easier to back up your data.

I will not recommend the Roon Server on QNAP, I have tried it and there were always some problems with it.

Hi Graham,

For me, the NUC is a simple one-box solution. A decent PC will also work, but as pointed out, the Roon OS and music data need to live on separate devices - Roon must live on very fast storage (SSD or faster). If you think in Sooloos terms, the NUC provides Core and Store functions (it can also act as an audio endpoint). My NUC has a 128Gb M2 drive for the Roon OS and database and a 2Tb SSHD for the music library (most of which was a direct import from my Sooloos backup). I also use Tidal and am currently testing Qobuz.

I would tend to stick clear of running Roon on the QNAP, I did run Sooloos on my QNAP for a while but it used to conflict with other things the QNAP did, so eventually switched over to an MS200. I have tried Roon on a lesser-spec PC and it worked fine for a single endpoint but started to run out of steam when having to transcode or if I applied filters.

To get your data out of Sooloos, just do a native FLAC / WAV export, and once Roon is up and running import the backup - Roon will sort out the rest. Add a Tidal login and you'll have access to a whole world of music!

You can setup both Roon and Tidal with a month's free account, install the software on a reasonable PC and you'll be up and running very quickly with no outlay - You can then evaluate for a month and then decide what you want to do. You can move the license by logging into a fresh Roon instance (it will stop the old one working), copy the data across and you are then on new hardware.

Feel free to drop me a PM if you want to discuss further.

Cheers,

Steve

I would add that although you have a spare Mac at hand, I deliberately opted to ignore my Mac in preference to installing Roon on a NUC - as Roon would not be interfered with by the MacOS running periodic housework duties in the background.

My NUC with Roon Rock has been running issue-free for 3 years.

spinaltap,

I agree.

I had Roon running on an iMac, but it was very inconvenient as every time the iMac went to sleep, I had to 'run' upstairs to wake it before I could use Roon in the audio system downstairs.
I bought a used NUC with ROCK installed, configured it with my licence etc, put it with audio equipment where it runs in silence. As a bonus, I'm convinced the SQ improved.

Thanks for all your input guys.

I think I might as well give the free trial a try and see how it goes.

I have had a good look through the Roon site and it looks like NUCs from version 5 are supported so not that much of an outlay if I take it any further.

Looks like eBay has plenty of used NUCs, would I be right in thinking that something like this - NUC INTEL i5-7260U@2.20GHz,8GB RAM,256GB NVMe would be more than up to the job with a library size of only 15000 tracks. Tidal and running 2 endpoints.

Thanks
Graham

Those specs look very similar to my NUC, with my music stored on a 1TB portable HDD and the Roon backups stored on a 64GB pen drive.

I run Roon on an old (late 2012) MacMini (2,3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16GB) with 2 Samsung SSD 860 EVO SSD's, one (500GB) for the OS and applications, the other (2TB) to store my music.

It never goes into sleepmode as I have set it that way in the System Preferences | Energy Saver:



I also set a schedule, so it will boot in the morning and shutdown at night:



It is running fine since 2018 and running Roon is the only thing the MacMini is responsible for other than some occasional browsing.

Edwin

ps. apols for the size of the pictures, don't know how to size them with the [ / img ] code.

Hi
Took the advice and now have Roon with Tidal setup on a windows 11 NUC using a Sooloos native export on a qnap.
I have the free trial on Roon but remembered that I did try tidal a few years back but didn’t really get around to looking at it properly then just cancelled it at the end of the free trial.
Still getting to grips with things but have a few questions.
I have a few albums in different formats but have noticed that any duplicate albums now only have one copy in the Roon library.
You mention using the NUC as an endpoint, is this taking audio out through the HDMI?
Is this only achievable with Rock?
Thanks Graham

Multiple copies of an album that are the “same”, i.e. number and names of tracks appear as one album. If you look at the album, you will see “versions” down the page. If you click on that, it will show the different versions you have, let you pick a favourite which is the default to play. You can select which version you want to play though if you select from versions.