Due to the Roon implementation on the LS50W you cannot group them with other zones. There is no way around this. Sorry. It’s not a hardware issue. It’s the way that Roon was implemented on the speakers. It’s not a RAAT implementation and so not grouping is possible. The trade off is that you don’t need a separate renderer to get Roon to play on these speakers. That would be the work around.
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I’ve heard of people using £150 RaPi +DAC + AMP to power their ceiling speakers, and a RaPi + DAC into the LS50W, then apparently all end points can be played in sync.
Thanks for the quick responses. That makes sense now. I may have to rethink my setup, which is a pity as I really love the Roon interface.
Why would you think the Roon interface because you can’t group zones? What would you go to that would allow you to group zones that was not Roon without adding additional hardware. I never group zones so I guess I don’t understand the need to do so.
Yes, it looks like I’ll need to change hardware if I want to group zones with Roon. Could I hook up a Sonos Connect to the LS50’s to allow grouping? Kind of defeats the purpose of the inbuilt amp in the KEF’s, but seems like the only way I can think grouping would work.
Would multiple LS50w’s group together successfully? I have never needed to group zones so have no experience.
Sorry, maybe I’m not explaining myself very well here. Appreciate everyones input! I only have one pair of LS50’s. The other speakers are passive ceiling speakers, which I’m powering from a Sonos Connect amp. As I’ve found out, they cant be grouped. If I were to connect the LS50’s to a Sonos connect, would this allow grouping of all speakers?
A Sonos Connect into the LS50W’s would allow grouping with other Sonos hardware, but not with other Roon Ready devices in general. I think you would want the Connect version without the amp, and you could use either the RCA line level or digital optical input on the LS50W, and the DAC/amp built into the LS50W’s. The only restriction would be that Roon would have to downsample everything to match the Sonos 48khz/24bit limit, which may or may not matter to you.
Alternately, you could use something like a Raspberry Pi or Sonore MicroRendu into the USB input on the LS50W, and replace the Sonos amp powering your existing ceiling speakers with a Roon Ready DAC/Amp of some sort. That would allow grouping with any other Roon Ready hardware made by any other manufacturer, but would probably be somewhat more expensive.
For the record, I am not aware of any other software that would let you group the LS50W and Sonos hardware together.
Multiple LS50W’s do not group in Roon, for the same reason that we can’t group the LS50W’s with anything else.
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Are you saying that you have the LS50 and NOT the LS50W? Two different animals. If this is the case all the messages here are moot.
Thanks for the detail there Ben. That makes sense!. John, I have the LS50W.
Thanks for clarifying. In a previous message you mentioned grouping with Sonos. This can be done but you will lose some SQ as the Sonos system is mid-fi and the Roon is more of a hifi play. I have Sonos all over my home. In the year that I have had Roon I find I never use my Sonos system in any room that has Roon capability and I never use Roon to play through my Sonos system. That’s just me. YMMV.
I use a RPi with HiFiberry Digi+ Pro running RoPieee with a touchscreen feeding the LS50W with Optical so that i can group them when needed. This, IMO, is the easiest way to get around the issue without spending a lot of money.
Very nice integration work as always by the Roon team! Nothing to do with Roon but I have recently moved back to running a SOTM SMS-200 in between as the endpoint.
I lose direct Roon volume control but just couldn’t get away from feeling this configuration really makes them sound better to my ears. Important to me to max out the SQ. Presenting the music in a more easeful manner (DAR word). All the detail still included but definitely a more relaxing listen IMO.
Possible decr@pifier impact from the SOTM device or the Ethernet to USB input suiting my listening more…
Noticed there were a few people on here ditching their microrendu’s once the Roon update arrived.
Now that the dust has settled, are people noticing a drop in sound quality or are you still hard pushed to tell a difference?
I can’t tell any difference. I am very happy to do away with my ultraRendu. One less thing to worry about.
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Hey John,
I sold my Microrendu and LPS-1, hopefully you were successful as well. I noticed you added a sub from Kef. Was that to add to the LS 50’s?
Yes I bought the sub to add to the LS50W. KEF Direct was having a close out sale a few months ago and I picked up the 10" sub on sale. For me it really fills out the low end. I set it up with very little volume so it just augments the region below 80Hz. I like the extra weight.
Is anyone else getting the error message ‘roon lost control of audio device’ with the KEFs connected via Ethernet?
I keep experiencing audio dropouts but am stumped as to how to fix it!
I was surprised to see Tidal available for Apple TV so tried it out with the Kefs. They are connected to my TV by a Blue Jeans cable optical cable and the 4K Apple TV to the TV by HDMI.
It sounds good from Apple TV but better from Roon to the Kefs. Richer and more detailed from Roon and its pretty easy to notice.