I have been trying to find the best software configuration across my Antipodes Oladra based CX and EX that sounds best, can use convolution filters, and can play Tidal hi-res. I also need to state up front that this setup is not supported by Antipodes, so Mark may not thank me for telling this story.
Early on in this journey I discovered that using Upnp via Ethernet sounded better in my system than USB. This may not be the case for people that have Kala/Oladra Antipodes models as I understand that the USB implementation on these models is much improved.
Normally when using a hardware network renderer (as opposed to a software renderer such as MPD) you would connect it directly to the CX (or EX) running Lyrion but when I tried this the sound was a little harsh, so I needed some way to use the CX as server and the EX as player using upnp to achieve a more organic sound; easier said than done as it turned out.
This is what I ended up with:
1: Antipodes CX: Roon server running local files and Tidal using the Squeezebox option
2: Antipodes EX: Lyrion SERVER, running the Upnpbridge plugin receiving the stream from Roon
3: Plinius hardware renderer connected via ethernet (Network Upnp Render and non-upsampling DAC) receiving the upnp stream from Lyrion Server (on EX)
As far as I know this is the only way to use Roon with an hardware ethernet renderer/dac (unless your dac is Roon ready) using current Antipodes software, all other options require USB.
Roon Server: The easy part of the solution, Roon is the only server that will play Tidal hi-res and also allow a convolution filter to be used.
Lyrion Server: This is where it gets interesting, Roon will connect to a Squeeze player when using USB via the Squeezebox option (standard Antipodes option) but using ethernet/upnp requires the upnpbridge plugin running on Squeeze server (not Squeeze player). So now we have two servers running on seperate machines!
The upnpbridge plugin must also be setup using the “Roon mode” and other settings which are only possible by manually updating the plugin configuration file. Using the upnpbridge in Roon-mode was used successfully by Naim users prior to their devices being made “Roon-ready”.
In this setup Lyrion server on the EX only runs the upnpbridge plugin and provides the bridge from Roon to the Upnp protocol and acts as an intermediate player to the Plinius network renderer/dac. To run it this way two servers on seperate IP addresses are a must, Roon will not permit a Lyrion server to be active on the same server while using the Squeezebox option.
If anyone is interested in running this setup I can provide details on how to manually create a upnpbridge plugin configuration file with the necessary settings, unfortunately the menu options in the plugin are not sufficient. However all the clues on how to do this are in the documentation for the upnpbridge plugin.
Obviously this is a very bespoke setup specific to my hardware, but I hope others may benefit from this example. The end result is that I get the amazing sound that is normally associated with using Lyrion, and all the benefits of using Roon including the ability to play Tidal hi-res (currently not available through Lyrion) and the use of convolution filters, all via ethernet (not USB). I also compared this setup to Jplay direct to my hardware renderer, and also via MPD/usb, but the sound was not as good and there is no ability to use convolution filters in Jplay.