een? meaning one?
My bad adjusted
I am currently about half way through the 14 day trial, but I’m already pretty sure I won’t subscribe without some clearer indication that this will work with my Linn devices. The sound quality via AirPlay is not good enough to be a final solution, and adding RPis to both rooms is a bridge too far. It seems counterintuitive to have paid for the streaming quality if a Linn KDSM and then only use the Dac and not the streaming functionality. Roon is very good, but not so much better than Kazoo or the Lumin app to make it worth compromising sound quality.
Exactly my situation, giving it a try as JRiver frustrating but despite the much much better ‘user’ experience inability to get high res into Linn DS will mean not going beyond the 14 days.
Real shame, but there it is.
Linn I believe have tried to work with Roon with no success
this is such a shame especially as I have supported Roon
promising signs at the Linn Office i hope we see some progress now 
http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=34588&pid=410328#pid410328
Roon support for Linn DS
There’s been a couple of threads regarding when Roon will support the DS, so I thought I’d give a summary of the current situation in one place.
In short, we’d love to see Roon support for the DS and are looking forward to it being completed.
About 18 months ago Roon’s CEO and CTO excitedly promised to output a Songcast compatible stream so that a Linn DS could receive it. We offered help to support the implementation and testing and shipped two DS’s to their offices. We also provided an open source reference implementation of a Songcast Sender. As they were a startup, at their request, we agreed to marketing support (compatible with Linn Songcast) in advance of their launch, with the promise that a Linn compatible version was coming shortly. Within a week we received an initial build of Roon with support for Songcast. It worked, but as expected with an initial release, there were a number of bugs. We reported these bugs to Roon and offered help in diagnosing the root cause. Unfortunately, we haven’t received any further builds.
I’ve met up with the Roon guys a number of times subsequently where they said they still planned to implement support for the DS. To ensure we can get going as quickly as possible when they’re ready, I’ve left the two DS’s with them on long-term loan. To keep Roon in the loop, I’ll write them this afternoon and let them know about the interest here on the Linn Forum. We remain keen to see Roon support for the DS and are ready to help in any way we can with the implementation and testing.
@Brian please respond
I thought Brian has already responded, pretty well in fact. Please review his previous posts if you haven’t read them. He said if there were any new movement then it would be announced.
The problem is that it should be Linn who is adding Roon’s Protocol to the DS and Linn users should really be bugging Linn about when they will do that.
1 Like
I agree, but it’s crystal clear that Linn see it completely the other way around - Roon should support Songcast. I rather suspect an impasse has been reached.
Agree but if that is the case i would like to hear this from both parties, hence the question.
Latest response from Linn…
RE: Roon support for Linn DS
Hi all,
I have been pointed to the Roon Forums and have spent this afternoon reading a number of threads.
It is unfortunate that I learned today from their forums that Roon no longer wish to implement Songcast. No one from Roon has contacted me requesting a different approach to the one we agreed in May 2015, and then was re-iterated in January and March of 2016. We would have welcomed an email or a phone call in order to help them resolve any issues they had encountered, discuss their concerns, and work together to find a solution for our joint customers.
In the spirit of cooperation, we’d love to offer 3 approaches to get this done and deliver Linn/Roon interoperability. If Roon wishes to proceed with any of these approaches, we’ll start the work on our side tomorrow.
- Roon let Linn know what issues they had implementing Songcast. We can then work together to resolve these. We’d be very open to additions to the Songcast protocol to more easily support the point to point nature of Roon.
- Roon open source or openly specify RAAT. Linn takes open access very seriously. Being in control of our source base and being able to ship without restriction is what has allowed us to provide updates, new features, and better performance to every DS for over 9 years. Our commitment is to continue to support the DS’s, right back to the original Klimax DS from September 2007, for as long as possible.
- If Roon is uncomfortable with Songcast and unable or unwilling to open RAAT, then we’d be happy to collaborate on the creation of a new protocol that meets the requirements of both Linn and Roon. Both Linn and Roon are very experienced in design of such protocols and I’m confident together we could deliver the highest quality performance in a maintainable package quickly.
I’ll write Roon again this evening to ensure everyone has the same information.
Looking forward to seeing Roon talking to the DS soon.
Best regards,
Keith
1 Like
[quote=“Joel_Roberts, post:90, topic:1903”]
Looking forward to seeing Roon talking to the DS soon.
[/quote] based on what’s been posited by linn above that’s a pipe dream.
Joel was quoting Keith Robertson from Linn staff, so it’s a positive development. I’ve edited his post slightly to include a quote panel making that clearer.
I thought Keith’s letter was an excellent attempt to step forward and a good point for discussions to start again. For some reason the communication here does seem to have clogged up.
1 Like
[quote=“andybob, post:92, topic:1903”]
Joel was quoting Keith Robertson from Linn staff, so it’s a positive development.
[/quote]yip, I get that he was quoting a Linn representative. Their preconditions … Adopt SongCast, develop another open protocol with Linn, or open source RAAT don’t change the status quo though. RAAT won’t be open sourced, another joint protocol is highly unlikely and catering specifically for SongCast almost as unlikely.
3 Likes
Love to have the Roon official statement on the topic no offence 
@brian the floor is yours.
If Evans view is the correct one, let be out in the open so we all can move on.
If Roon doesn’t want to comply to any of the 3 points that is fine aswel (but let it be clear)
Looking forward to the response
1 Like
That letter from Linn quoted above from Keith at Linn (whom I’ve met) is missing some things. While they say that they would start the work tomorrow if one of these routes was taken, in fact all three routes are fundamentally on Linn’s terms:
- Roon has to implement Linn’s protocol, rather than the manufacturer implementing RAAT as so many, many others are doing.
- Roon has to change the RAAT structure to satisfy Linn, but removing the need for Linn to certify their usage of RAAT. This allows Linn to pick and chose, and potentially also to produce a broken or sub-optimal implementation.
- Roon has to make a new protocol which Linn accepts, which means altering RAAT so that it does what Linn, not Roon, wants it to do.
So, all are on Linn’s terms. I don’t understand at all why Linn wants such special treatment. It seems rather vain.
2 Likes
Hang on Roon agreed to songcast but then seem to have decided this isn’t what they want
That’s not exactly accurate: Roon tried to implement Songcast very early on, but ran into bugs. Now RAAT/RoonReady are here, implementing Songcast support is not really relevant anymore.
As for open source/open access: the inferior software infrastructure is exactly what drove me away from Linn. Open or not – it is simply not of the quality one should be able to expect at Linn’s price levels. Roon as a commercial software company can hardly be expected to open up its crown jewels any more than the current licensing model allows for.
At this point in time though, I think it is best for Roon and Linn to get a room and do or do not reach an agreement on how to implement. This quoting and cross-quoting business only serves to feed unfounded speculation.
Sorry just frustrated as invested in Roon when songcast was being discuss as under development
I’m not sure that publishing an open specification for RAAT would be giving away the crown jewels, but of course I don’t have any specific knowledge of how Roon is running their RAAT licensing. Widespread adoption of RAAT would drive more Roon subscriptions; if subscriptions are where Roon makes the bulk of its revenue, this would be a good thing for Roon (as well as users of Linn and other equipment vendors who are wary of incorporating proprietary third-party code in their products).
In any event, I am frustrated too. Although my Raspberry Pis are working, it would be better not to need them, both from a sound quality and convenience point of view. I now have 4 Raspberry Pis with Hifiberry Digi+ cards; had a moment of despair when I realized that adopting Hifiberry’s new improved version of the card would require both mechanical and software tinkering with all 4 Pis. DietPi, as Rene has helpfully described it in other posts, also looks like a better solution than the images I am currently using, but the thought of re-configuring all 4 Pis is just not very appealing.
Linn is pretty clearly not going to adopt RAAT unless at least the specification is published on an open basis. If this is anathema to Roon, I’d be grateful if they would at least re-consider Songcast. I realize that RAAT implementation is preferable from Roon’s point of view (mine as well, actually) and that Linn users are a relatively small niche, but we are a natural source of incremental customers for Roon.
In any event, I entirely agree that Roon and Linn should just sit down and either agree on a way forward or let us know clearly that nothing is ever going to happen.
1 Like
I’ve made 2 very large posts here: http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=34588&pid=410569#pid410569
4 Likes