Bridge for roon on Synology NAS to HDMI

Audio Gear Talk
#1

Hi,

It doesn’t seem to be too simple here :wink:.
I’m running roon on Synology NAS with DSM 6. roon client is on iPad. For stereo play I use a direct AirPlay connection from NAS to my Denon AVR. Doesn’t sound bad.
So, I thought about multichannel music from e.g. 5.0 DSD files. roon detects such files correctly and insists on downsampling them to 2.0 to send it via AirPlay. As far as I understand because multichannel over AirPlay is not supported (yet).
I tried lms-to-upnp S/W bridge on NAS. It is detected by roon but no sound at all. I don’t want to spend more time on that since LMS is no longer officially part of the Synology package source.
USB audio is no longer supported with DSM 7. So, no option either.
Using a PC for music output or bridging is no option for me :wink:.
So… in general… different sources state optical S/PDIF and digital coax are not capable of handling hires multichannel audio in a reasonable manner or even not at all.
So… HDMI seems to be the only left interface to transport hires multichannel music to my Denon AVR which, in addition, does not support USB audio in.
First successful test… using the roon client on my Mac it easily transfers multichannel DSD audio files to my AVR through HDMI and PCM conversion.
But I don’t want to use the Mac.
So, what about H/W “roon bridges”, “roon ready streamers”, whatever… to simply convert (multichannel) audio from roon to HDMI?
No, sorry, please no Raspberry Pi. The discussions on problems with or lacking multichannel support… it should simply work.
No, I don’t need any additional streaming integration of music services, no music server function, no DAC, just simply from roon/Ethernet to HDMI. That’s all :wink:.
And I haven’t heard or read much about such a standalone box, yet.
Aren’t there any? I would certainly accept a box with more functions, but it shouldn’t be more then about 500USD.
I’m quite lost here. Does anybody know more…?

Thanks,
Matthias

#2

Pi’s don’t work. You need a NUC or mini/micro PC running Windows or possibly ROCK. There is a thread here somewhere where the multichannel crowd have discussed this. I’ll see if I can find it.

#3

Yes, I know. NUC or PC is not an option for me :wink:

#4

A stick PC pre-loaded with Windows 10 is the only affordable option I’m confident will work. Maybe someone else can come up with suggestions!

#5

Got it. Ordered one of the last NUC8s and installed ROCK. Works nicely. And once completely set up the NUC is easily hidden in the living room :+1:t3:.
The only simpler solution for me would be investing in a roon ready/tested AVR. May be in the future…

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