How is the music from the USB port played?

Audio Gear Talk RoPieee
1

How is the music from the USB port played? Is it just play back local to the device or does everything first get uploaded to the Roon server?

2

Anything played via Roon goes via Roon server then over the network or via USB to devices connected direct to the server. For Ropieee it’s over the network, then it packages this up as a USB data packets that are sent on the DAC to convert to analogue audio.

If you’re using a different player in Ropieee then it depends on that system. Squeezelite require LMS server, Plex requires a Plex server, UPnP requires a UPnP server. Airplay will take your phone, tablet or Mac as the source to it or any other server that supports Airplay as a target.

3

Your question is confusing. Are you asking how to play Roon through the USB port of a RoPieee device? Follow these steps:

  1. In RoPieee, select the Audio tab and enable the Audio USB setting
  2. Connect your DAC with a USB cable to a USB port on the RPi (make sure that the DAC is turned on for the next step)
  3. In the Roon app, open Settings > Audio. You should see your RoPieee device listed, and under it you should see your connected USB DAC. You need to enable it.
  4. After your DAC is enabled, you can select the DAC as the output endpoint when you play something in Roon.
4

Yes, my question is confusing - because I misunderstood the discription on teh RoPieee site: “enables your USB port for playing audio (over an USB DAC).”

I thought RoPiee enables playing USB sticks (and the MP3 tracks on them) via the USB port. That’s why I asked about where these MP3 tracks are played, beacuse this is of course null and void because my base assumption is wrong. — Sorry for this and thanks for trying to help @CrystalGipsy and @mSpot!

I am looking for a Boombox for Roon with MP3 player and thought Ropiee with a connected speaker system could do this…

5

RoPieee isn’t a standalone music player and doesn’t support playing local music files. However, you can use other RPi music player software such as Volumio, which does play music files from USB sticks and has a Roon Bridge plugin.

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6

Great idea. The Volumio project looks good. Thanks.

7

Personally Volumio sucks. If using a pi I would install picore player on it and install Lyrion Music Server. Totally free will work as Roon endpoint via its Squeezebox input and can browse and play files from it using LMS. You can also use any web browser to access it and its high customisable and works with Tidal, Qobuz. Spotify Deezer all for nothing. Volumio charge you to use streaming services via their cloud service. It’s all based on plugin architecture to add what you want. Install Material Skin as a first step to get the best Ui.

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8

Interesting. Tell me more, please.

Why’s picore player better? – Streaming shouldn’t be an issue, because I do that through Roon.

9

Just found it buggy, lacks features, slow in operation compared to Lyrion, online streaming is behind a paywall, remote app never would connect to my setup a common issue never fixed and support I found lacking. I am sure it’s fine for many but for me I didn’t get what the fuss was about.

Used LMS for years of and on and it’s my backup when not using Roon. It does need a bit of setup but once their it’s great especially with material skin and the Artist & Music info plugins.