Just wondering if anyone has any info they can share…
M.
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At the moment, we haven’t announced any plans regarding Airplay 2.
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Is this a fix you are working on and a short wait will resolve or are you saying “Don’t wait we have no current plans to support Airplay 2 - roll firmware back to use Roon or go back to iTunes”. Thanks.
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This is very sad. I just bought my second HomePod for my office so I can listen to the sweet sounds of 24bit music through Roon and now I find out it is not supported? Big bummer.
@Not_Roon guys… What do you recommend? I don’t want to use iTunes… That sucks…
Can you comment on plans or should I find a way to listen to stereo music again. I’m willing to wait i just need to know. I will also imagine your silence as a no?
Thank you! I truly love your app but this is huge for me and for many others.
Thank you
Isn’t Airplay2 supposed to be backwards compatible with AirPlay 1 or are Apple being somewhat economical with the truth? If so, why doesn’t Roon work with Airplay 2 products? I can understand that all the new features are not supported but basic music playback should work?
New Roon user chiming in here. I’m running an Apple-centric setup with Airplay 2 devices and while Roon itself doesn’t see my updated Airplay 2 speakers I’m not having issues at all.
Config:
Synology DS 918+ with Roon Core
MacBook Pro with Roon & Airfoil
iPhones and iPad with Roon Remote and Airfoil Satellite
Workflows:
a) Play Roon on my Mac with Airfoil capturing playback, use any Roon Remote to control and Airfoil Satellite to tweak speaker config and volume
b) Directly play to iPhone/iPad via iOS Roon Remote app and use the native system sound picker to send to multiple Airplay 2 speakers.
Speakers involved:
2x Devialet Phantom Gold
1x Apple HomePod
3x Libratone ZIPP Mini
1x Libratone ZIPP
While native support would be nicer, this works really well for me. Let me know if you have any questions.
Using what you’ve outlined in your option [b], music seems to echo and and play independently on each HomePod, even-though they are setup as a stereo pair.
I have three paired sets of HomePods in addition to my primary Meridian system.
Currently I’m forced to use Apple Music independently of Roon for my peripheral speakers. Needless to say it’s an aggravation.
I’m waiting and expecting eventual support for Airplay2 but it bothers me to be treated like a mushroom and kept completely in the dark about their intentions. I think a bit of open kimono would assuage most concerns and move us from the anxious unknown column to the patiently (or impatiently) waiting column.
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Has anyone heard an update on this topic?
I use roon to stream to many devices around the house using Airplay as most of my audio collection is 16/48, so Airplay is fine. If that option is no longer available for new devices with Airplay 2, then roon is not going to be for me in the future. I am looking at adding a new device but I am stuck with not knowing if it will work with roon as all the ones with Airplay are now Airplay 2, so will not work.
Am I correct? Is there a solution on the away?
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I am having luck using my iPhone or iPad as a Roon endpoint then launching an Airplay2 stream to my paired Homepods.
Not as clunky as it seems since I use the iPhone/iPad to control Roon anyway. A few swipes and Ive got great sounding tunes coming from the Homepods.
A few times there’s been a glitch in the latency of a channel, creating an echo/reverb effect. Easily cleared and occurs rarely. There are other heavy streamers/gamers on my home wifi and I attribute the glitch to that.
I am confident Roon will eventually implement an Airplay2 solution to stream to a pair of Homepods.
Other than Apple Music, I have yet to find an application that runs on MacOS and streams to a stereo pair of Homepods. Tidal cant do it. Neither can Qobuz.
An iPhone/iPad running Tidal or Qobuz and a pair of Homepods make a very nice stereo system.
This excludes Meridian’s streamer.
Can we please get some guidance?
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Any chance we can move support for Airplay2 from the ‘no announced plan’ status to ‘requirement accepted, but no date committed’ status?
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I’d like to see this happen as well.
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Regarding AirPlay 2 implementation, my understanding is there’s a larger issue at hand—while the legacy AirPlay protocol has found its way into the open source realm with ShairPort Sync, AirPlay 2 is still a proprietary and closed off technology. So while Roon seems to work fine with any ShairPort Sync / AirPlay 1 device, AirPlay 2 will be a different beast until the open source community figures out the crucial authentication part. Some bright minds are dabbling in possible solutions.
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Thx for your insight. I’d be willing to pay the licensing fees for myself but I’m sure that’s more hassle than it’s worth.
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Absolutely.
I really doubt it has anything to do with a licensing fee. It makes no sense when all kinds of devices large and small, cheap and expensive, have it.
I doubt it’s just the fee that is the issue here. You have to jump through an awful lot of hoops to get certification from Apple, and Roon may have taken a view that this is not the way to go for them.
Last time I looked Roon is in the software business not
hardware so why does it need to support Airplay 2? What advantages does it bring to the Roon experience that it does not do already? You can still play to Airplay2 devices via Airplay, you can still group them for multiroom playback in Roon. No stereo pairing for Home pods is the only thing that I see that stands out as missing by not having Airplay2 or is there other things that I have missed about Airplay2?
No other software only library product such as Roon, JRiver, AudiVarna, Amarra et al supports Airplay2 either so that surely must signal something is not all that simple at getting Airplay2 certification or getting working along existing code without changing fundamentals.
Bluesound and Sonos, and all the others have packages that are tied in to hardware and is more pressing for them to support it. Streaming service apps are selling their service so it makes sense for them to adopt it. For Roon I see no immediate urgency.
Maybe you should look at you beloved Apple for the slow uptake as to me it looks like just the big players so far and no small ones and it’s been out for a long time now. I know Naim took a long time to get it on their devices so it’s not that simple as you make out.
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