I saw the entry for “USB volume support” at https://kb.roonlabs.com/Partner_Devices_Matrix. The penny dropped what this is, so I tried it with my 818v3 USB input (which, incidentally, is not listed at all). I turned off “Force Maximum Volume” but there was no immediate difference in volume, and the volume slider in Roon doesn’t do anything.
I am supposing this means USB Volume is not supported on the 818v3, right? Can someone else with an 818v3 check that I didn’t do it wrong?
@brian this is totally in Meridian’s court, right? Is there any technical barrier? I think you said to me once that you can query the USB device to find out its volume on starting Roon. Would this mechanism mean that Meridian Comms volume and Roon USB Volume could be in parallel without any clash or confusion (or sudden 100%…)?
818v3 USB input (which, incidentally, is not listed at all)
It’s not listed at all because we’ve never seen one of these and we don’t really know anything about it. We have only one 800-series box in house, and it has no USB.
If Meridian wants to make one available to us, they are free to–we would test it, list it, and use it for QA and support, just like all of the other products that companies have sent.
@brian this is totally in Meridian’s court, right? Is there any technical barrier?
There are probably technical barriers: the way USB Audio 2.0 is specified doesn’t allow for 2-way volume synchronization over USB.
A couple of manufacturers get around this with custom drivers or side-band communication to the device. These approaches involve writing code at the application level to support individual devices or small families of devices–not a very scalable approach for us.
It’s an annoying problem, and part of the reason why we are putting so much effort behind a network protocol that isn’t subject to so many past bad decisions.
@Ludwig@Brian I have my 818v3 connected with both network and USB – correct, no USB volume control, and no automatic power on and source select either. Makes USB seem primitive compared to the network connection. (Although USB does 192 and DSD.)
And as Brian says, my Geek Pulse does implement volume control in their driver.