When I first tried Roon in March 2018, it failed to work with my three Squeezebox Duets. Since then, 2 of my 3 have died and it’s no longer feasible to replace them, so I got a couple Sonos Connects. Since Sonos is not included in the list of Roon compatible devices, I assumed Roon was still not an option. I have had a lot of problems using Sonos with my large collection of FLAC, as it requires an add-on software called Plex. Plex is terrible and there’s all sorts of problems.
However I found in Roon’s knowledge base that Sonos IS supported. So why is it not displayed in the list? So confusing.
What I really hate is all options I’ve looked at do not include the handy remotes that the Duets have. I’m not a fan of being tethered to my phone, taking it everywhere around the house. I’d rather buy a couple Echo Show 5s to keep next to the Sonos to be able to control the music. But no, Echo products are not supported.
So what can be used to control music on Sonos via Roon without depending on a phone? I’m still waiting for another trial to be activated so I can test than it will even work with my Sonos Connect.
I have a play 3 and it shows up in the list of supported devices, and works fine. you might need to scroll down to see it in settings.
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Sonos is not fully supported. Roon converts their protocol to emulate what Sonos needs. So whilst you can send to it, you can’t group them with any other roon end points.
Sonos don’t, as far as I know, do any controller apart from computer control.
My Sonos devices work fine with Roon.
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Thanks mates. Okay, I’m reinstalling Roon and will see how it goes! I’m also going to try a Chromecast in the living room.
My Chromecast and inbuilt Chromecast work well but some people have problems streaming hi Res content.
Again, it’s not native roon RAAT protocol so you can’t group chromecasts with anything else. You can group chromecasts together but the grouping is done with Google home.
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Understood. That’s acceptable for now, but it’s too bad there doesn’t seem to be a fully Roon supported digital streamer available new for under $200. I don’t even need a DAC, as my receivers have digital inputs and perfectly good DACs. Yeah I know there’s Raspberry Pi but I hate DIY stuff and all the troubleshooting that goes with it.
For $200 one can get a simple laptop computer, a 42" LED smart TV with Roku/Fire, Drop x Sennheiser HD58x headphones, etc. You should be able to get a simple WiFi streaming box with optical dig output.
I do think I have a controller solution - since my Kindle Fire works great with the app (unlike my iPhone), I’ll just get a couple Fire 7s for $29. Definitely an improvement over the $150 Logitech controllers.
Make sure they are new ones the older model isn’t supported.
Roon is a niche market and it’s founding base is high end hifi not the broad consumer market. You have to be producing at scale to get cheap versions, a few thousand users at maximum isn’t enough.
Well yeah, I’m not asking Roon to produce 'em. If they can work with Google and Apple, I’m hoping at some point they can also partner with Amazon and get support. Is the customer base just a few thousand? It seemed ubiquitous in the Head-Fi community for years. Hrm.
My old Squeezebox receivers sound great, and my Marantz DAC is plenty high-end. Given that no one has ever been able to discern Hi-Res in double blind listening tests, I’m not concerned with that.
about 100, 000 users but large amounts of those users are either using hi end stuff or kit hey already had. I imagine that the net new amount of kit is only therefore a few thousand.
I finally replaced my two Squeezebox Touches (I’ve also got a Duet that died), with Orchard Audio’s PecanPi Streamers. It has an awesome DAC and easily runs Roon RAAT. But perhaps pricier than you’re looking for. Orchard Audio currently has them at 20% off holiday pricing at around $400. To my ears, it does sound far better than the Squeezeboxes.
Alternatively, I’ll bet you can find a few used SB Touches at under $200. While they have remotes just as the Duet did, to be able to control music selection, you need more. However, they’re fine for on/off & volume control I believe.
honestly, a RPi 4 w/ ropieee XL is dead simple to set up. cost, ~$60. a flirc case adds $15 bucks, and takes 5 minutes to assemble.
you can tweak the output with a better PS (iFi iPower is $50) and/or USB filter (iFi iUSB is $50.)
so, total cost is $175, and 5-10 minutes of your time. does roon, airplay, spotify connect.
and sounds great in two of my systems, with different dacs.
@mdconnelly I’m def done with Squeezebox, it was a patchy 12 years, and I’m ready to move on, as receivers are rare and expensive on eBay, and have been dying within 8 months on average.
@woodford Well that does sound promising. I did build my own computer, and with top quality parts it worked exactly as expected. I was just spooked by the fact that I probably spent a total of maybe 120 hours of my life troubleshooting Squeezebox over the years, and that had support.
So an update, I connected my 2nd Sonos Connect in the basement, and a new Chromecast Ultra in the living room HT, and it was easy, and Roon connected to them no problem. The music is displaying on the big LED, love it! I can probably group the two Sonos, but playing rooms separately is acceptable for now.
Downside is that the remote app on the Fire is stopping, meaning the song display is frozen while it continues on the playlist. It even did that on the main Desktop control center, which is super lame. Also the music has stopped on its own at least three times so far in the past day. That kind of crap really takes away from listening enjoyment. Also still can’t get the phone app to connect with server, will have to return to that when I have time.
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I finally got an RPi 4 kit to experiment with. So far it’s a big FAIL. Spotify sees it but can’t get any sound to pass through USB to my Schiit DAC, and it doesn’t show up on Roon at all. Will see what the ropieee folks find out from the feedback from the web interface.
Are you using ropieee XL?
Yessir. I’ve got a separate thread for the troubleshooting: Pi4 not recognized by Roon
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