What streamer software do you use?

[lovejoy]

just this minute tried it and again nothing showing in ROON, IQAudio Roon Ready Package written to mSD Card rebooted it and nothing........................ putTy sees the Pi ok via SSH so I know it's working and I can select the IQAudio DAC as audio device but Roon just refuses to see it. Quite a few users on Roonlabs forums having the same issue, but as yet no definitive solution.

That's really odd. I wonder why it works for some and not others given that there can't be much in the way of difference between hardware/software.

Might be worth giving PiCorePlayer a go if you still want to give Roon a spin... I used that for a while before the RoonBridge software was released and it was rock solid. You just need to enable Squeezebox support in the Roon audio setup and piCorePlayer will present your Pi as a Squeezebox. You can get wireless working with that too if you want it.

[lovejoy]

I am afraid so, I have a ipad 1 and a ipad 4, a cheap android tablet and a very simple mobile phone.

Ah yes, it's more a horsepower issue than a screen size issue. I have my remote running on a Sony Experia 10" tablet and it looks ace, but it can be pretty laggy when you go into the 'Discover' pages. Which is odd because my Moto X phone has no such problems.
I had some graphics issues when I was first setting things up as I wanted to use mini Dell laptop as my remote in the music room, but Roon required OpenGL3 to be running under Windows, so this little Dell had no chance. It is a power hungry beastie that's for sure.

[WAD62]

Might be worth giving PiCorePlayer a go if you still want to give Roon a spin... I used that for a while before the RoonBridge software was released and it was rock solid. You just need to enable Squeezebox support in the Roon audio setup and piCorePlayer will present your Pi as a Squeezebox. You can get wireless working with that too if you want it.

FYI If you do want to go wifi, I'm using one of these wifi adapters with piCorePlayer, and my IQaudioDAC...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

...I'd previously tried a 'recommended' Edimax alternative, but they'd modified the chip set, so it was no longer compatible with the Pi

Absolutely rock solid...

[mikeyb]

To be honest I'm not bothered about Roon and will just cancel demo and the Tidal trial.

for me this is my list of Pro's and Cons of Roon

PROS:

It's fun to use for about 15 minutes, then you realise you can do the same for free

CONS:

Expensive
Power Hungry
PC needs powered up
Can't use Roon Remote with older iPads such as 1,2,3
It's basically a search engine with some audio addons ( MoOde/Volumio/Rune/Kodi etc can do the same )
Requires Tidal Sub to make it useful
You have to give payment details to use the Trial version of Roon

I'll leave this thread now and let the Roon lovers in peace while I spend my £400+ on a different toy

[lovejoy]

To be honest I'm not bothered about Roon and will just cancel demo and the Tidal trial.

for me this is my list of Pro's and Cons of Roon

PROS:

It's fun to use for about 15 minutes, then you realise you can do the same for free

OK show me the free software that looks as good as Roon, integrates your own library entirely with Tidal, gives you a much better interface to browse Tidal with, supports MQA playback, gives you full multi-room capability, is compatible with a growing range of hardware and portable devices, has it's own drivers for many hi-fi DACs to allow direct bit-perfect streaming, avoiding going through the OS mixer, uses it's own lossless transport to get audio from the server to the endpoint without any resampling, unlike AirPlay etc., has an excellent internet radio interface, sorts and tags your music with the smallest amount of user overriding required that I've ever come across, tags classical music properly, has a fantastic discovery engine that gets you discovering and rediscovering music and could take you on a journey of exploration when you're running short of inspiration. I've probably missed a load of stuff.

I'm sure you can get a combination of things to work for free which will approach the same functionality, but the fundamental difference for me is faffing about with computers rather then enjoying music. Roon makes my Pi feel like a piece of cutting edge hi-fi kit. As good as things like Volumio and Moode etc. are, it never feels like anything more than computer audio geekery.

[mikeyb]

OK show me the free software that looks as good as Roon, integrates your own library entirely with Tidal, gives you a much better interface to browse Tidal with, supports MQA playback, gives you full multi-room capability, is compatible with a growing range of hardware and portable devices, has it's own drivers for many hi-fi DACs to allow direct bit-perfect streaming, avoiding going through the OS mixer, uses it's own lossless transport to get audio from the server to the endpoint without any resampling, unlike AirPlay etc., has an excellent internet radio interface, sorts and tags your music with the smallest amount of user overriding required that I've ever come across, tags classical music properly, has a fantastic discovery engine that gets you discovering and rediscovering music and could take you on a journey of exploration when you're running short of inspiration. I've probably missed a load of stuff.

I'm sure you can get a combination of things to work for free which will approach the same functionality, but the fundamental difference for me is faffing about with computers rather then enjoying music. Roon makes my Pi feel like a piece of cutting edge hi-fi kit. As good as things like Volumio and Moode etc. are, it never feels like anything more than computer audio geekery.

But I don't want it to do all that, I just want it to play music from my NAS, Radio and stream from Tidal, Qobuz, Google, Apple, and for me my Pi in it's current setup with free software does all that, for $500 all Roon does for me integrate with Tidal, search and offers suggestions to what I might listen to, I can do that myself lol.

Cost wise if I took a lifetime sub for Roon - $400 plus let's say 10 years of Tidal ( 1 user ) - £2400 so roughly £2750 over 10 years, and that's without factoring in I would need a new iPad to control it AND have my PC on almost 24/7 as I listen to music at all hours from 7am until 1 am. Now for the same time using Apple Music which costs me £14.99 for 6 family members so that's £2.50 each per month so my cost over 10 years is £300 plus the cost of my Pi at say £75, that's a huge difference, granted Apple ain't lossless but I've heard it vs Tidal and for the cost there isn't a huge difference, I don't use Apple exclusively on my main system, its mostly for browsing/searching while using headphones in bed or for use in the car so Tidal HiFi isn't really justified for that use. It's not like I can't afford it, my system is worth several £1000's, and would quite happily spend more IF it improved it.

Sorry but no matter how I or you spin it we will never agree on Roon and that's cool, be a very boring world if we all liked the same thing, would be interesting to have a head to head with the two systems and see which one people would choose

Right now I have access to Roon free until mid September and Tidal free until October ( I used to be a subscriber to Tidal for my own use, but the family sub at Apple was far too tempting with 2 kids using Spotify at £10 each a month, and 2 grandkids wanting music too ) and yet I haven't touched either since week 1.

As for IQAudio Roon Ready on my Pi - won't work period, I've also tried installing Raspbian and then the SSH install of Roon Bridge but it fails saying my Pi isn't compatible as the software is ARM 7?, PiCoreplayer works but that's really only Airplay isn't it? I was keen to try a Sonore mRendu but with Brexit the price has risen to just short of £600 and I didn't fancy that cost just to have a play, ah well I'll just have to stick to my Pi and it's freebies.