Hi-Res Streaming With Roon Tidal & Qobuz
Stream it. Store it. Play it. Hear it.
Digital music has transformed the way we discover, collect and listen to recordings. What was once limited by the physical albums we owned can now extend to an almost limitless catalogue of music available instantly through streaming services. For the serious music lover, however, convenience is only part of the equation. The quality of the source remains fundamental, and the SW1X VDT has been developed to bring together the enormous possibilities of modern Hi-Fi streaming with the performance and independence of a locally stored digital music collection.
Hi-Res Streaming, Your Way
The VDT operates using Volumio OS, a dedicated audio operating system designed around digital music playback. This provides a flexible platform through which listeners can access a variety of music services and digital sources, including Qobuz, TIDAL, Spotify and Roon, allowing the VDT to fit naturally into a modern high-end Hi-Fi system. Rather than restricting the listener to one particular method of accessing music, the VDT is designed to accommodate different listening habits, whether that means discovering new recordings through streaming, exploring an existing collection or combining the two.
For listeners who take sound quality seriously, the development of Hi-Res streaming has made online music considerably more attractive. Streaming is no longer synonymous with heavily compressed audio. Services such as Qobuz, TIDAL and Spotify (subject to region and plans) offer high-resolution recordings, with some releases available at resolutions such as 24-bit/96 kHz and 24-bit/192 kHz. These formats can preserve the full resolution of high-resolution masters, provided the source recording and mastering make use of that additional resolution.
Qobuz and TIDAL also demonstrate another important advantage of streaming: discovery. An enormous catalogue of music is available without the listener having to purchase each recording individually, making it possible to explore unfamiliar artists, revisit neglected albums and investigate different recordings of familiar works. For someone passionate about music, this can be as important as the technology itself. The ability to discover a new favourite album or artist is one of the great pleasures of modern digital audio, and the VDT provides a sophisticated way of bringing that experience into a dedicated Hi-Fi system.
Building Self Hosted Digital Libraries & Network Streaming
Roon users can also integrate their digital music ecosystem with the VDT as an endpoint. There are 3 separate parts to a Roon system: the Roon Server, which is the brain, the control app, and the Roon endpoint, which is the playback device. The SW1X VDT is the endpoint.
You can run the Roon Server on a dedicated Roon Nucleus, a PC/Mac/Linux server, or a compatible NAS. Your music can either be stored on that machine or on a separate NAS. With Roon Bridge installed on the VDT, the VDT appears in Roon as a playback endpoint. Roon Server sends the audio to the VDT, which outputs it digitally to the connected DAC. For instructions on installing Roon Bridge on the VDT, see our video guide here.
For someone who is not familiar with Roon, Roon is not required as music management system at all.
The VDT can also operate directly through its built-in Volumio platform, providing a simpler way to access music stored on a home network.
If a customer already has a NAS, or simply keeps their music library in a dedicated folder on a home PC, Volumio can connect directly to that network storage and make the music available for playback. There is no need for a separate Roon or additional music-management computer.
There is also a potential sonic advantage to this simpler architecture. Every additional software layer and processing stage is another part of the digital playback chain. By accessing the music library directly through Volumio, the signal path can be kept straightforward, with fewer processes between the stored music file and the digital output to the DAC. Some VDT customers have reported that they prefer the sound of this direct Volumio approach, describing it as more immediate, natural or transparent compared with playback through Roon.
Ultimately, neither approach is inherently right or wrong. The emphasis is not only on providing highest quality access to music, but on creating a flexible digital source capable of adapting to the way an individual listener has chosen to build their library.
Streaming Convenience. Local Playback.
Yet streaming is only one part of what makes the SW1X VDT distinctive. Unlike a conventional streaming device that depends primarily on retrieving music from an online service, the VDT’s intuitive OS allows playback from music stored on the local network, independently of an internet streaming service, taking advantage of its best feature: the ability to playback locally
When ordering, users can choose from a range of internal SSD storage options, allowing their music library to reside directly inside the VDT.
For those who prefer removable storage, the VDT’s USB input provides a simple alternative. Connect a USB flash drive containing your music, and the VDT can access the library directly. For the best experience, we recommend using a high-quality, high-speed USB drive to ensure fast and reliable access to your music files.
For anyone who has spent years building a CD collection or purchasing high-resolution music files, this is an especially important capability. A personal music collection represents more than a collection of data; it is a record of the music that has mattered to the listener over many years. Albums may have been purchased because of the recording itself, the performance, the mastering, the artwork or simply because they formed part of a particular period in the listener’s life. Moving into the world of streaming does not have to mean leaving that collection behind.
Music from a CD collection can be transferred to digital storage and incorporated into a local library (subject to country laws), allowing those recordings to remain readily available through the VDT. High-resolution downloads can be treated in exactly the same way, creating a central digital music collection that sits alongside the streaming services. The result is a listening system that combines the permanence of music you have chosen to keep with the almost limitless discovery offered by online services.
There is also a fundamental appeal to local music playback for those interested in extracting the best possible performance from a digital source. When a recording is stored locally on the VDT, the music data is already present within the playback system rather than being continuously retrieved from a remote server. The path between the stored recording and its reproduction can therefore be kept particularly direct, avoiding unnecessary dependence on external sources during playback.
This concept has an interesting relationship with the traditional CD transport. With a CD, the recording is physically present: the disc is loaded into the transport and the data is read directly from that physical medium. Local digital playback follows a similar philosophy while replacing the individual disc with stored digital files on a physical drive. Instead of having to locate and load a physical disc for every album, an entire collection can be held within the VDT and made available from a single dedicated source.
A Digital Source Built for Serious Listening
For the audiophile, the combination of local playback and Hi-Res streaming removes the need to choose between convenience and ownership. Streaming provides effortless access and discovery, while local playback offers a dedicated home for music that has been carefully selected, collected and preserved. The SW1X VDT brings these approaches together, reflecting the changing nature of the modern music collection, where CDs, special editions, high-resolution downloads, digital libraries and streaming subscriptions can all coexist within a single system.
There is also a broader point: the future of high-fidelity digital music does not have to be defined by streaming alone. Streaming has solved the problem of access, offering an extraordinary choice of music, while local storage provides control and independence from the changing availability of individual streaming services. Above all, the local playback offers a significantly better sound quality that is akin to the CD playback.
The SW1X VDT combines both, providing access to Qobuz, TIDAL, Spotify, supporting Roon within the Volumio environment, while also allowing music to be stored locally and reproduced directly. It therefore offers a more versatile approach than a conventional streamer or a traditional physical-media-only source.
For listeners who have invested in serious music systems, the digital source is a fundamental part of the playback chain, not simply a convenient gateway to music. Source quality, digital-data handling and playback architecture all contribute to how a recording is ultimately presented. Many music lovers may not realise that a poorly designed source can become a bottleneck to achieving the best musical reproduction.
The SW1X VDT is designed around this principle, giving listeners the freedom to discover new music through streaming, retain valued recordings locally, enjoy high-resolution downloads and return to their physical collections. Rather than asking listeners to choose between streaming and local music, the VDT brings these worlds together in a dedicated digital source designed to provide greater choice, flexibility and a more direct relationship with their music.
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