Custom multichannel mappings

[dmoneyblah]

First, thanks so much for multichannel support! This is one of the most exciting and unexpected developments in this great piece of kit.

I am curious if the developers would consider allowing for custom channel mappings on Roon endpoints so that a multichannel system can be cobbled together from a collection of stereo systems. This would allow a 5.1 recording could be routed to 3 different stereo devices that only play a sub-selection of the channels.

I realize this is an exotic use of multichannel, but it would let a user playback multichannel recordings on existing equipment without investing in multichannel soundcards and amps or other home theatre type gear.

I have gotten something similar working with Snapcast - though it is admittedly a bit wasteful with bandwidth because the full content stream to all connected clients who then play the channels of interest.

[joel]

Hey @dmoneyblah We’ve not tried it, but you can might be able do this today with Procedural Eq in the DSP Engine.

Say you want front L/R, centre/sub, and rear L/R pairs:

• Create a zone for each.
• Group the zones (they’ll all need to be RAAT or the same streaming type: Sonos, Meridian, or Airplay).
• For each zone, turn on Procedural Eq in the DSP Engine and simply pick the relevant channels.
• You’ll need to make sure that Roon isn’t down-mixing on any zone.

Let us know how you get on!

[dmoneyblah]

Thanks for this suggestion @joel - I’ll mess with this configuration this weekend (time permitting) and report back.

[dmoneyblah]

I tried this a couple of weeks ago now and was not able to get anything to show up in the EQ beyond 2 channels per zone. In the procedural EQ in the DSP on each zone it only every showed 2 channels (since the endpoints are only ever 2 channels I think). I will attach images.

[dmoneyblah]

Alrighty. I found the procedural EQ and did the mappings. I have not yet gotten the speakers hooked up on the rear pair to validate the mappings, but I thought I would share images of the screens for setup purposes. The DSP engine is a totally unnecessary thing of beauty that is exacerbating my tinkering tendencies.

Step 1. Make sure that the multichannel mixing strategy is "Channel Mapping Only"

Step 2. Group the zones that will participate in said multichannel

Step 3. Add Procedural EQ filter, then add Mix operation. Now you can remap the channels.