I’d like to add my voice the the chorus begging for Roon to look at this - in particular to be able to group/synch play for RAAT and Airplay. Why? Well, RAAT is clearly the protocol of choice with Roon, so that’s obvious. But there are parts of any hosue where placing roon-ready endpoints (heck placing a standalone DAC and speakers is,) is unreasonably costly or difficult. I intended to use my phone or tablet to allow me to add a bluetooth speaker on my porch and/or patio – but no go. This is a big setback for enjoying Roon. Maybe there is a workaround? How can we get to some solution for the many who wish to do this?
Update - contrary to what i was told, mobile apple/droid devices CAN be grouped with normal RAAT endpoints. And i have done so. The only problem was that for some reason (not me) “private zone” was checked under advanced. So if you want to add a bluetooth speaker, tethered to your tablet or phone, on wifi, to existing main systems - it works ( as i thought it would…)
Absolutely agree, I thought I had found the holy grail with Roon but somewhat miffed to find I cannot sync my archaic Rotel Pre/power combo with a chromecast dongle and my B&W Bluetooth speaker connected to my phone on the deck/back yard…
Surely there must be a way to simply sync based on the time of the signal?
No there isn’t. It’s not simple to keep multiple devices in sync even using the same protocol and devices. When you then have different protocols that all time their playback in different ways it becomes near impossible. Look at the systems or software that can handle sync playback they are either closed proprietary systems each using different technologies to achieve it or they can only do it over one protocol. Can you sync a Sonos system to Heos system natively no, you have to use
a unified protocol such as Airplay2. Same goes for Roon. What Roon allows though is playback to many different protocols and you can group those together all to be used from one app for convenience.
If I can tweak and get near sync from simply pushing pause then I’m sure there could be an algorithm incorporated into the app to sync playback - this doesn’t need to be absolute high end to the nearest nanosecond but enough so moving inside to out is actually unnoticeable, check the sync at the start of each song in case the different protocols take different times - these guys are pretty clever, it shouldn’t be that difficult to do a clock based sync system.
You will be surprised as what is noticeable. I have a Meridian system that uses EBA Enhanced Bass Alignment. This delays higher frequencies to time align the bass from a given signal.
This zone can also be synced to my Bluesound zones.
The result:- For unnoticeable sync, I have to turn EBA off, even such a small delay is noticeable.
Yes I can sync with EBA on provided the zones do not bleed sound into each other. So I think getting this good enough to use and for people to be happy would be very challenging if possible at all.
Sorry you will notice it a lot more than you think and it’s very annoying. I personally notice it and won’t deal with it. They are clever at Roon but they are not going to release a subpar sync method, it undermines the whole point of their system otherwise.
As far as I understand, multiroom with different systems (raat, AirPlay, chromecast) is not possible in Roon. But what about synchronization with the help of a microphone - a synchronization integrated in the app. You go to your endpoint in the living room, tap on a button - a sound plays and your device (eg ipad) records the delay. After registration of the delays of all of your endpoints Roon can synchronize - multiroom is possible - no rocket science.
The issue that makes this request more frustrating, in my opinion, is that there are free alternatives (at least one: OwnTone, formerly daapd) that do allow grouping of different technologies (Airplay with Sonos with Chromecast, for example). This is the single missing feature that is making me consider cancelling my Room subscription.