Chromecast Audio as endpoint? [Delivered; B333]

Any update on chromecast support?

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+1 +1 This would be most excellent. I find my Chromecast Audio to be pretty good, Roon Readiness would make it superb! Would be cool if you could give a progress update…

You should try these, work great and meet your $35 price point What's the difference? RAAT vs AirPlay

I Chromecast Roon from my Android Phone using the Cast Screen/audio function from the Chromecast Android App. This function casts all audio from my phone. I just then play my music from Roon (on PC or phone) using my phone as a networked endpoint.

It works very well.

Excellent Information Vorno! I use my spare Andoird phones as endpoints to setup a quick mobile music. Phone wired or bluetoothed to a good speaker and done.

This also works if you have a Samsung TV and a Samsung Android Phone. They have a built in cast between devices.

A trial Roon User for about three days, myself, but quite keen on better using Chromecast audio.

My initial experiments using Chromecast Audio as an endpoint on a RoonServer running on Windows 10 i7 PC:

  1. Have installed VBCable base on Server and Audio-cast. Output from Chromecast Audio via Toslink is input to a “legacy” Young Dac optical input ==>> Preamp, etc.
    The Device is VB-Audio Virtual Cable (WASAPI) .

I have been using this set-up all day yesterday and today, casting from an Apple Ipad and from two legacy android Tablets.

I have found the set-up quite stable and the results are quite bewildering given the low price of Chromecast audio. I have played 96K and 192K. It will be nice when we will be able to use Chromecast audio without installing additional drivers or programs like the two above mentioned.

Pls. note that PC Server is connnected to Ethernet and Chromecast Audio is connected to USB 4ports (Sitecom) Hub from which it draws its power. A Sitecom Ethernet to USB dongle is also connected to the USB Hub. The Ehernet network connection is quite stable. I had been trying to use Chromecasts without WIFI (!). The experimentation has been worthwhile.

Using Chromecast Audio on the Macs, outside of Google products, has been a bit frustrating.

I really want CCA to be usable with ROON. I just bought a peachtree Deepblue2 for the patio, and the CCA would be perfect for it.

@Brian, @Mike,
Tidal have added Chromecast to their service. Can this now be incorporated as an endpoint?
Steve

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I sure hope so!

@Brian, @Mike,
I’m currently playing from my Tidal app to the Chromecast. Quite impressive really. Must be imminent as it was on the roadmap! (hint, hint)

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+1 as a request to Roon to enable Chromecast Audio devices as Roon end points. Sync is not important (to me), but would love to be able to use Roon for bedroom, kitchen, bathroom setups.

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I’ve been holding off buying roon until chromecast audio, and listening to music direct on the iPhone is implemented. So it is encouraging to hear that CC audio support is coming; and I hear that listening to audio via iOS devices is awaiting changes to Xamarin.

The one query is casting audio to, say, the nvidia shield android tv; would that work? At the minute you cannot cast audio to the nvidia shield android tv, but, i can cast audio via the Spotify app to the Spotify app on the nvidia shield tv. I imagine that google must sort this out, as it would be awfully annoying having to buy a chrome cast audio just for the TV despite having a android tv device attached also.

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The problem with chromecast right now is that although we can do it, the sanctioned sdk is only supported on ios/android/chrome :frowning:

there is a chance we could implement this and google could ding us, preventing release.

we have to support mac/windows/linux (as our ios/android are only remotes) and we require platform uniformity.

we are working on trying to get this sanctioned.

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No one has mentioned in this thread that Chromecast Audio (CCA) does not do gapless playback (or have I missed it?). I have found one very clunky implementation using Foobar2000 + foo_out_upnp (plug-in) + BubbleUPnPServer where I can get music playing gaplessly through the CCA. Does no one else or Roon team not see this as a problem?

Apart from gapless playback, and few apps supporting it, I like the CCA device very much.

We would not send files to CCA, so this is not an issue for us.

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I think Google Music is gapless.

I think gapless playback has got close then further away with the CCA as updates have been applied, so YMMV with any particular implementation using the CCA. I think this thread explains much :-

https://code.google.com/p/google-cast-sdk/issues/detail?id=745

In particular look at posts #25 and #33 if you do not have time to read the whole thread.

The main thing here though is that gapless playback will not be an issue for the Roon team

I’m holding off setting up roon at the minute until CCA is supported. I imagine these negotiations with Google could take some time; is it many months we are looking at or closer to half a year, say?

And thank you very much for keeping us updated. The extra detail roon provides in these matters was a strong deciding factor in me buying life membership. Do keep up the good work.

From what I have been told, Chromecast audio is not a high audio quality device.
It works and plays audio and that’s it. For the price though, this is not unreasonable.
I wouldn’t want it as my main listening experiance and would recommend better quality audio to go with the amazing Roon interface.
Thoughts, Chris

We are using airplay at the moment, and I want to switch to CCA; it’s all about simplicity. CCA (the hardware) has had a good writeup in some reviews, and at least it can do 24-bit unlike the airplay express (and I don’t really use the router side of the hardware on the express either).