Replacing Roon - What Should I get?


I'm tired of Roon having brain farts.  I have an original Roon Nucleus and have updated and augmented the Memory.  This helped for a bit.  But now, I keep having to reboot the darn thing.

It's not my network.  I have checked it out and everything in the house works fine.

Here is the setup.  A direct fiber optic link goes to the Router.  Then ethernet to Roon from the Router.  This way I get Roon to talk with the setup upstairs.  I have an 35 foot ethernet cable that runs through the walls directly from the router into my dCS Lina.

I want to replace the Roon.  I am thinking about an Innuos Stream.  Just need a streamer that can hold Roon/Tidal.  Don't need a DAC as the dCS does that quite well.  I have a SSD in the Nucleus that holds a ton of my music that I want to move over.

Thoughts on what to replace the Roon with?  Innuos (Stream) always get bandied about.  I hear about Arender as well. I don't want to get an updated Roon.

I also wonder about deleting and reinstalling the Roon App on my iPads.

Thanks in Advance

pgaulke60

@marcin_gps Unless Proxy is enabled with JPlay, I cannot stream Tidal. But then, if Proxy is enabled, the stream goes through your iPhone or iPad to the local network. That results in dropouts and other streaming issues. I dealt with this on your Forums in June 2025. With JPlay, I'm simply caught between a rock and a hard place when trying to stream from Tidal using JPlay, even though my streamer is JPlay certified. So, no joy. 

Hi @dwmb 

Sorry to hear you're still dealing with this. The fact that you need Proxy enabled to stream TIDAL is a strong indicator that your streamer is having trouble fetching content directly from TIDAL's servers. Without Proxy, JPLAY sends the TIDAL URL directly to your renderer and the renderer is supposed to download and play the stream on its own. If that fails, it points to something between your renderer and the internet – not JPLAY.

A few things you could try:

1. Check if your router has any DNS filtering, ad blocking, or firewall rules that could be interfering with TIDAL's CDN domains specifically. Some routers block or throttle certain HTTPS traffic.
2. Try changing the DNS settings on your router to a public DNS like 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1 – some ISP DNS servers can cause issues with streaming service CDNs.
3. Can you confirm which streamer you're using? Even though it's JPLAY Certified, knowing the exact model would help me check if other users have reported similar TIDAL-specific issues.
4. Does Qobuz work without Proxy? If Qobuz streams fine but TIDAL doesn't, that further narrows it down to a network/DNS issue specific to TIDAL's infrastructure.

Also – if you do need to use Proxy temporarily, make sure your iPad/iPhone is connected via a strong, stable Wi-Fi signal (ideally 5GHz band close to the router) to minimise dropouts.

Marcin

@marcin_gps Oh my goodness, I’m technically challenged. It’s getting too complex for me. Why can’t it just work without so many complex steps? I don’t have a degree in computer science.

Anyway, my streamer is the MSB Renderer and Qobuz is not available in my region.

Streaming through my phone is simply not going to work on my side.

This issue with JPlay is a pity, because I’m led to believe it sounds better.

You could try one simple thing before giving up: in JPLAY, go to Settings → TIDAL and enable **Force HTTP**.

Best regards,
Marcin

Oh my goodness, I’m technically challenged
 

@dwmb, I feel ya on this. I’m having problems with Roon right now. After a year of no problems, suddenly Roon server wouldn’t open on my Mac. Deleted Roon and downloaded new and restored from backup now it opens but can no longer see streamer on network.

roon support has been slooooow and their community forum site is an untidy mess.

They had me jump through a bunch of hoops and delete a bunch of files to no avail. Still waiting (2days) later for further help from support. Did I mention Roon support is sloooow already😒🤨.

Roon works beautifully…until it doesn’t. Then it’s a pita mini nightmare.

I had just renewed in Feb. Now I regret it. Thank goodness for Qobuz connect.