 The Rune system for cataloging and playing music seems to be a difficult to understand concept to many. Others, including me, consider it to be the best streaming software around. Let's see if I can shine some light on it. Rune basically is a music player for Windows, Apple and Linux computers. It differs from other solutions in a number of fields though, which we will discuss throughout this video. Let's start with the simplest of setups, a standalone setup and end up with a big multi-room, multi-user system with central server and a different quality of audio in every room varying from ghetto blaster level to the highest of high end. Rune has a super fast user interface and a metadata service and presentation that equals or succeeds the vinyl album cover experience. But let's start with the beginning with the simplest setup, on a laptop that contains your music and is connected to your stereo using the headphone output. It could of course also be a desktop, but let's settle for the laptop right now. We immediately come across the first point where it differs from other programs. It has relatively high system demands for an audio player. The processor needs to be an inter-core i3 ivy-bridge or better, which means the laptop should have been produced mid-2013 or later. Then it needs 4GB of RAM, an SSD boot drive and a screen resolution of 1440 x 900. It might run Windows 7 or later, Mac OS X 10.8 or later or recent X86 Linux 64bit versions. The laptop also needs to be connected to the web over wifi or network cable. Let's be honest, these are relatively steep specs for a music player, but not really for a modern laptop. What you now need to do is go to the runelabs.com site, register and download the correct version for your hardware. If you want to do a test run with Rune, try the promo code below here. You can also find it in the show notes. If still valid, you will be granted a two-month trial period. Otherwise, you could test drive Rune for a two-week period. You could also subscribe right away. When producing this video, prices were € 190 annual or € 499 for a lifetime membership. The membership allows you to use the Rune Core, the part that does the indexing and metadata, on one computer, but you can play back over unlimited endpoints or rooms if you prefer that name. I'll get back to this. Then you install the software, enter the provided username and access code and follow the instructions on the screen. You will be asked where your music is, if you use iTunes, you could use the iTunes information and what audio output you want to use. That, for now, is the sound card in your laptop. The Rune user interface will show up and Rune will start indexing your music map. If you use iTunes or any other music program, don't fear it won't be usable anymore. Rune just makes its own index of your music on the SSD and will not make any changes to the music folder. So you could use iTunes or, for instance, J River, Fubar, Music Bee or Devana, Amara or any other program along with Rune. Even at the same time, as long as you don't want to use the same sound card for both programs simultaneously. Rune also contacts the RuneLab server over the internet to check for updates and check your user account. It then starts searching if more information on the albums and musicians is available. It does that at an easy pace in the background so you can keep using your computer and internet connection for other things too. It also means that the first time it can take up to some days before Rune is ready indexing and updating the metadata. Rune presents itself with a user interface on the screen of the laptop. It is the most intuitive interface I know, although this of course is personal. See the review of Rune for more details, the link is in the show notes. If the laptop is close to the stereo and not close to your listening position, you might use a smartphone or tablet to control Rune on the laptop. Android version 4.4 and iOS version 8.0 or later are required. Windows tablets like the Surface 3 and the Surface 3 Pro are also supported. The Rune Knowledge Base has more specific info. You can use as many tablets and smartphones as you like for controlling the laptop and depending on the hardware you might even be able to control the volume or use the smart device for playback itself. If you have a compatible device for the playback elsewhere in the house, you could also control that from the laptop or smart device. For instance, a Sonos speaker, AirPlay speaker, Squeezebox or Rune Ready device elsewhere in the house can be sent music from your laptop. Depending on the playback device this can be in the original resolution but if necessary high-res files will be down-sampled automatically. Or in plain English you don't have to bother with anything. Just point where you want the music to be played and it will, regardless. You might get an idea of how versatile this is by looking at what I have connected to my Rune system. Several Apple AirPlay compatible devices, an E-Lack Discovery offering three outputs, an iMac running Rune Remote Control software, a Raspberry Pi running Kodi, which I don't use for music by the way, a Sonos Connect, the Rune Ready SOtM-SMS 200 Ultra grouped together with the Rust Pudge, a Yamaha Active Speaker and a Yamaha Streamer and two Raspberry Pi's running RopeA RuneBridge software. Each of these can be sent a unique music stream or be combined if they use the same streaming technology. So all AirPlay devices can be grouped, all Sonos devices can be grouped and all Rune Ready devices can be grouped but you can't group an AirPlay device with a Sonos device and so on. But let's step one step back. Until now we presumed you would use a laptop. But what if you own a desktop computer or if your significant other doesn't like the laptop lying around in the living? Well you now know you could place the laptop in the study or even in the attic as long as there is a network connection. It can feed the audio over the network to compatible endpoints, as mentioned earlier. You might also use a desktop computer instead of a laptop to run Rune Core. Perhaps now is the right time to talk about the individual parts the Rune software is made of. Let's take my automatic espresso machine as a metaphor. It is made up of a water reservoir, a boiler, a coffee grinder, a pressure group and a waste basket for the used coffee grounds. All these parts are in one place, the espresso machine. But there are people that use a separate grinder that manually put the right amount of ground into the porter filter, mount it in the holder of the espresso machine and pull a lever to manually generate pressure that forces the water through the coffee ground. Then the coffee is ready and only the porter filter needs to be emptied in a waste bin. In other words, a full automatic espresso machine contains all the parts needed while the manual machine has several functions divided over several appliances. Now, with an espresso machine this is easily understood since there are all kinds of easily identifiable functions to be seen. With software, and Rune software in particular, its functions can also be in different places and that might, to some, be less easily identifiable. As I said before, it is the core that indexes the music, completes the metadata and sends the music bits to whatever is defined as the audio output as instructed by the user interface. A license allows you to use only one installation of the Rune Core at one time. Now, if you have a holiday house in the south of France and you want to have a second music computer there, you can use the same license. But when you do, the Rune Core at home is temporarily disengaged. In our example of the laptop, not only the core was running but also the user interface and the audio interfacing or the control app and outputs in the Rune lingo. But if you prefer to control Rune from an app on a smart device, like a tablet, you could have downloaded the core-only installation program called Rune Server to only install the core software on a laptop. On a laptop that doesn't make sense, but if you have a computer that will never be used for music reproduction but can run the Rune Core, it might. And if you're like me, you could use the tiny Intel NUC computer and run the special version of the Rune Core named RuneRock on it. I made a three-part video on how to set it up, the link is in the show notes. Whatever you choose, the result will be the same. Only the number of streams that can be processed and sent might vary depending on the computer used. But that's only relevant for people that want to simultaneously use many streams. My 6th gen i3 NUC can handle at least 15 streams. Then I run out of endpoints. It is a Rune Core that needs all the processing power and the fast SSD drive and only for fast searches and selections, also fast data provisions to the control app and conversions when needed for endpoints that support only lower sampling rates and all kinds of DSP functionality that can be optionally used. Reading the music bits from the storage device appears to be not critical at all. A USB 2 drive will almost always be sufficient. I use AUSB 3 drive connected to the Intel NUC computer the Rune Core is running on. An internal drive obviously will work too. But if you like, you can store the music on another computer and share that to the computer running the Core. Or use a NAS. Rune uses a very robust network approach but keep in mind that a network connection can be disrupted by other users, for instance when they start watching videos. Using a hard disk directly attached to the computer running the Rune Core is the safest and the cheapest option. In the laptop example, the Core, the control app and the output software were automatically installed. But if you install Rune on a second computer, using the same Rune installation software, it will detect the Rune Core on the network and ask if you want to install the control app only or have its own Core installed, which would need its own paid subscription. Since it doesn't make sense to have a second Rune Core running, you just install the control app and no extra subscription is needed. If you choose this option, the audio output software, also called bridge, is installed too. On this second computer you can play music from the Rune Core computer, but you can also connect to some other rooms and send music there. As said, these rooms are called endpoints in RuneLingo. Every device that is able to play music sent to it by Rune is called an endpoint. To make things easier to understand, let's divide the endpoints into three groups. Computer outputs, Rune Ready devices and others. The computer speakers or audio equipment connected to that computer will automatically be available when the complete Rune installation, the Rune Core or the Rune Control app, is installed. If you do want to use a computer as an endpoint but it doesn't run the Core and you don't need to control it from that computer, you can install the Rune Bridge software. The computer will then present itself to Rune as an endpoint only. So the Rune Bridge software effectively makes the computer a Rune Ready device. Rune Ready devices use the Rune Advanced Audio protocol that is far more advanced than what the competition uses. It's very robust, contains metadata to be displayed on the endpoint and has bi-directional control signals. It is also unlimited as where the audio format, sampling rate and depth are concerned. If that's not a cadabra to you, simply remember it currently is the most advanced protocol that will play almost any file that contains music. Even more important is that since Rune Labs doesn't produce audio equipment, there are many brands that support the Rune protocol from the Bluesound streamers at about €500 to a Brinkman DAC costing almost 20 grand. From the Raspberry Pi with the appropriate free software to the DCS DAC costing tens of thousands. See the RuneLab.com site for a comprehensive list. It is important to know that given the computer Rune Core is running on works as well as intended, the sound quality is defined by the endpoint chosen and not the Rune software. Of course, cables, power supply and other audiophile tweaks can have their influence but it is highly unlikely the Rune Core computer has any influence on the sound. Unless it is directly connected to your stereo using analog or digital outputs or USB. Then there can be a large difference between computers due to the imperfection in the clock signals and the power lines. Here it is the computer hardware again not the Rune software that defines the audio quality. But if you use the network to send audio to an endpoint, it will be that endpoint that defines the quality and not the computer the Core is running on. Again, provided it runs the Core software as intended. It might be clear that an endpoint made of a Raspberry Pi with SPDIF board, fed from a standard wall-board power supply, will not provide a clean digital signal. Polluted and or distorted digital signals are more difficult to convert to analog signals. I frequently get nasty remarks from people that think that, for instance, an SPDIF signal is a digital signal. It's not. It's an analog representation of a digital signal and distortion of that analog signal will change the timing of the bits on the receiving side. In audio technology, repairing those timing errors appear to be far more difficult than basic electronics suggests, since there effectively is no time for repair. If you want to know how digital signals can be distorted, see Connecting your DAC number 2, how digital can go wrong. The link is in the show notes. If you already have a digital analog converter to use with your current streamer or to improve your CD player, you can use a so-called networked audio adapter. That can be a Raspberry Pi running Roonbridge software or, if you want better quality, products like the Sonora MicroRendu or SOTM SMS-200 family of devices. You could also use a device that combines the digital-to-analog conversion with Roonbridge HUD in software. A good example is the blue sound line of streamers that can use their own software but can also function as a Roon endpoint. The streamer only will set you back €549. The Orallic Airis Mini is only €499 and also works with the Roon software or function as a Roon endpoint. They also have digital outputs that can be connected to the SPDIF input of an amp with digital inputs or to a digital-to-analog converter. For upmarket, you could go for products by Audio Alchemy, AudioNet, Orallic, Air, Belcanto, Brinkman, Cocktail Audio, ELEC, IQ Audio, Crel, NAD, Oppo, SOTM, PS Audio, many others. Roonlabs wants to be the software for as many brands as possible. Therefore, they have contacted and negotiated with many brands for Roon-ready support in their devices. For rapid acceptation, they wanted to get as many brands as possible on board. With Squeezebox, this was impossible, since it is in production no more. But luckily, Logitech has kept the software as open source so that Roonlabs could build their own support. Therefore, all Squeezeboxes work fine with Roon, as do Raspberry Pi computers running Squeezebox emulation software. When the original Squeezebox was limited to 48 kHz sampling, newer models support up to 96 kHz while an open source tweak is supposedly able to open it up to 192 kHz. The emulators on the Raspberry Pi do it all without further trouble. The big names in the low end of the market are Apple with Airplay and Sonos. These brands were not interested in supporting Roon, so Roon developed their own interfacing with products of both brands. Apple's Airplay still remains limited to 48 kHz, despite the rumor Apple would introduce higher sampling rates. And also Sonos remains limited to a maximum of 48 kHz sampling frequency. If your stereo has some class, the low sampling rates might be a limiting factor if you own high-res audio files or are subscribed to a streaming service that offers high-resolution audio. Apart from the low audio quality, the music will simply play since Roon knows the limits of the endpoints and converts the music on the fly to a lower sampling rate. That is also true for those Roon-ready endpoints that support only lower sampling rates. If you want to play DSD files on an endpoint, again Roon will automatically convert them to what that endpoint can handle. The only thing to take into account is that converting from DSD to PCM or vice versa does take a fair amount of computing power and might limit the number of streams you can send out simultaneously. So if you want to send tens of streams, keep that in the back of your mind and make sure the computer the Roon Core is running on is sufficiently powerful. When Bluesound added Roon-ready to all their players, including the Siri that already was discontinued at that time, some people thought that when they bought a Bluesound player, it would offer all the Roon functionality. You now know that it needs the Roon Core installed on a computer plus a subscription. The Bluesound player can only function as an endpoint in an existing Roon setup. But hey, you got that functionality for free and if you want to upgrade, it's already able to work with Roon. The ELAC Discovery is a different story altogether for it does contain a light version of Roon called Roon Essentials. So this is a small and silent computer running the Roon Essentials Core and it comes with a lifetime subscription. Lifetime meaning the lifetime of the ELAC Discovery. If it dies or is passed on to another, the license also dies of passed on with the Discovery to the new owner. The Discovery also has three endpoints integrated, two separate analog stereo outputs and a separate digital output on RCA and Toslink. Since it is a light version of Roon, it does have some limitations. It is limited to indexing a maximum of 30.000 tracks. To send out a maximum of eight program streams does not support the Squeezebox, has no separate composer screen and some other small differences that makes it less interesting for the streaming fanatic. But for the average music lover, it is a very affordable way of having most of the nice things of Roon, including a dedicated computer and player in a small housing for only 1100 euros. You find the links to the review and update review in the show notes. So there is some kind of program called Roon Core that indexes the music collection, completes the metadata and sends music to a local output and or to endpoints over the network. This program is often combined with a user interface where you can read the metadata and instruct the court to send music to one or more endpoints. It needs to run on a computer and that computer can also be used as control and endpoint, but not necessarily. You could use your normal computer to run it on or run it on a dedicated computer, like an Intel NUC. You always need a subscription costing 190 euros a year or 499 euros for a lifetime subscription, unless you go for the slightly limited but very affordable one box solution called E-Lack Discovery that comes with a lifetime subscription coupled to all the hardware you need. If you are only slightly interested, use the promo code in the show notes for a two month trial, unless you currently can't spare the money to buy or subscribe. For it is very hard to explain how different the user experience is. It is also very hard to go back from Roon to other software, so be aware of that if you consider to do a trial. For it is by far the best and most elaborate music cataloging, playing and distributing software on the market and I don't see any other brand taking over soon. But if that happens, I'll be the first to report on it. So subscribe to this channel or follow me on twitter, facebook or google plus. See the show notes for the links. If you have a question, post it below this video, but please don't ask me for buying advice. See my About Questions video to find out why. If you liked this video, please consider supporting the channel through Patreon and see super exclusive videos too. Just one dollar a month will do. The link is in the show notes and don't forget to tell your friends on the web about this channel. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, I enjoy the music.