Inexpensive Roon endpoints

Audio Gear Talk
1

Silly newbie questions.

I have two Yamaha RN602s. My main system has a Chord Mojo attached. Speakers are BW 603s. The secondary system has Q2020s.

Roon is running on an iMac. I have Qobuz sublime.

I am using Chromecast audios to feed one RN602 and the Mojo. But they keep dropping out which is infuriating.

I was thinking of getting an Allo Boss for the secondary system. Would this work?

And the Digi One would feed the Mojo. Would this work? How much better would the Signature version be and would I even notice?

Thank you

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I have the DigiOne and used it for years. I tried out the Signature and decided not to upgrade as the SQ difference to me was not noticeable in my setup.

3

Hi @Will_Symonds. I don’t know if this will be of interest to you. I bought myself a Raspberry Pi 4B from the Pi hut along with a power supply, a cheap case and a very cheap micro SD card. I installed Ropieee on the SD card (instructions on the Ropieee website - dead easy!) and makes a Roonbridge available on the pi. Then the Pi connected to my Chord Mojo via USB. Rock solid and great sound. I think the price all in was around £60.

This was so good I moved this RPi to my main system. I then bought another RPi, a Hi-Fi Berry Digi pro HAT (the one with the coaxial and optical outputs), case, another power supply, SD card and a coaxial cable. Ropieee installed. This now feeds my Chord Mojo. Rock solid and great sound again. Around £100 I think.

The RPis do have wifi but I use Ethernet to them just to keep things nice and stable.

3 Likes
4

Thank you Sam. It is of great interest to me.

Getting a Digi One and Boss comes in at well over £300 all in. I live in Cambridge so I may pop into the Raspberry Pi store here. Does the Digi pro Hat comes from RPi too?

5

How are yours connected? Wi-fi?

I have several connected via ethernet on secondary systems (or for easy zone grouping, etc…), and they seem to be flawless.

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The Digi one is a third party board. That’s the signature link. I’d concur with @Rugby that the SQ difference, if any, isn’t a big deal.

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I use Google Home Wi-Fi mesh routers. Chromecast Audio is Wi-Fi only.

8

Thanks Daniel

1 Like
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Thanks. I think I need to read up more. Clearly the ALLO Digi One does more than a pure R Pi. I guess it’s all about timing and jitter?

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I use several RPi endpoints and they’re a really useful little device. Sound hats were introduced to overcome some of the necessary design compromises, for example USB and ethernet competed for limited bandwidth. If I was building now with an RPi 4 I’d be sorely tempted to start with a straight USB connection and add a Pi board if unhappy. I use a HiFi berry Digi Pro board to drive my MoJo in the office. It’s a much cheaper board than the Digi and sounds really good with an optical link.

Apologies, am replying from my phone and not the best written response.

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@Will_Symonds I got the lot from the Pi hut
https://thepihut.com/ And just put it all together. They sold a case specially for the RPi and Hifi Berry Digi Pro - looks good.

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Give wired ethernet a try. (If you have a router and cabling nearby. Otherwise, yeah, you kind of have to stick with wi-fi.)

I have mine hooked up via ethernet, and it really helps with network connection reliability. :+1:

13

Thanks for all your help.

I went into the rather wonderful Raspberry Pi shop in Cambridge yesterday and I am getting there. I am also chatting with other the Pi Hut.

Quick question has anyone tried the new Hifi Berry DAC2 HD - is it better than the ALLO Boss 1.2? I sense it’s the better bet?

Cheers Will

14

I haven’t tried that but I did consider it. It seems a rather attractive solution as an all in one, and even has a headphone socket. I have my own DACs though so didn’t in the end. Amazing possibilities though aren’t there!

15

It’s mind-blowing. It means that you could invest in a very solid low-tech amp, knowing that you can inexpensively update the tech bits.Any fancy streamer one buys now will be close to redundant in 5 years time (as I am finding with my Yamaha Chromecast Amps).

16

Hi, I’m trying to repurpose an old FireTV that has an optical out as a Roon Endpoint. I sideloaded the RoonMobile.apk app and am stuck on the Initial terms and conditions page. Does anyone know how I can agree to the terms? I’ve tried clicking with the FireTV remote and also tried plugging in a keyboard. But I can’t seem to be able to click the I agree button.

On a positive note, my Roon app on my iPad sees the endpoint in the audio settings page so something seems to be working, but I can’t select it as an output.

Has anyone tried/done this? Will it work? If so, how?

Thanks!