Is there an Roon endpoint that supports multichannel?

Yeah, I hear that. But I thought it was a limitation of the kernel being used by DietPi. Since Roon Rock supports MC and that is based on Linux, I think it must not be a general Linux limitation.

ROCK OS is built from the ground up by Roon Labs. Itā€™s not based on a cut-down Linux distroā€¦

Hey @Michael_Grant, your right the limit to stereo is not a general linux limitation. After much experimenting with all sorts of gear I have settled on an Intel NUC running a vanilla ubuntu server 18.04. It acts as a Roon server & emby server and outputs multichannel audio over hdmi quite happily to my AV receiver.

Paul

@weedos Are you getting multi channel in your setup?

Another question for anyone in the know: I have a Roon license obviously and that is used with my Roon Rock CORE server setup on another i7 NUC. If I buy the lowered specā€™d NUC as the MC endpoint will I be able to install and use Roon Rock as just a bridge under my existing license? Sure hope so.

Yes. You only need the license for the core.

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BTW, Iā€™m running ROC on an i5 NUC in a fanless case and having no problems with Mch HDMI playback.

@Michael_Grant. Yep multichannel audio over hdmi from the NUC. Only thing is that Roon sees 4/5 hdmi audio outputs, no idea why and you have to experiment by enabling all of them to find out which one is actually being used. A bit of as pain but bearable.

Yep I had 2 NUCs at one point, 1 as server and 1 as endpoint and only 1 licence. Couldnā€™t hear the difference so switched back to just the core direct to AVR.

Paul

Thanks @weedos and @John_Winterberg. That seals the deal. Going to order my Celeron NUC, 4gb of RAM, and a 32/64gb cheap SSD. Hopefully that gets the job done!

Have look at this post on CA:

It does work. I have done it. My end point is an Asus version of the NUC 250 gig drive 8 Mb of ram. On this I am running Windows server 2016. Roon server is running Win 10. With Windows if it does not see the hdmi on bootup it will not be an option. So if you have a setup like mine or less complicated, if you are listening to ā€œstandardā€ two-channel and then want to go to multichannel you have to reboot the ā€œendpointā€ or the Roon server. The is the only downside I have seen. I also run it through an Anthem Surround processor. Good Luck

My understanding is that you cannot have ROCK on a second NUC only acting as an endpoint.

You can only have one NUC with ROCK, but it can be used as both Core and endpoint which is only possible if it is sitting next to your hifi which have other drawbacks.

Why do you think that? As far as Iā€™m aware, itā€™s the same as for multiple PCs and Macs all running Roon in a network - they will all have Cores running, but only one Core is licensed. So you can have multiple ROCK NUCs, with only one Core needing to be licensed. The other NUCs can be used as endpointsā€¦

Thanks @Geoff_Coupe. Iā€™ve confirmed the original feedback that running multiple COREs is fine as you suggest. I installed a second ROCK instance on a lower specā€™d Celeron NUC ($110) and it runs great as an endpoint for multichannel. This, after all the research and input I got, ended up being the simplest and least expensive option.

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I think we interpret the question differently.
I understood the question as using one ROCK NUC as Core and another as Rock NUC as Endpoint. It is this combination that I is not possible.
So the suggestion is when ever you want to play multi channel you have to switch to the weaker machine as Core. Not really a good solution.
There must be a better way. But I guess it involves installing windows unless there is a Linux distribution that can do it out of the box.

Thatā€™s interesting, didnā€™t realise that at all.

Sorry, this is simply not the case. It is perfectly possible to have one ROCK NUC used as the Core, and another ROCK NUC used as an Endpoint. The ROCK environment is the combination of the ROCK operating system, and the Core and Endpoint components of Roon. What the environment does not have is the Control component of Roon - the user interface.

And Danny has confirmed it:

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Thanks! Glad I was wrong :+1:

Multi channel endpoint has been on my to do list a long time, will try it with a gen 4. NUC wich I previously run MOCK on.

Interesting. I have a spare gen 4 NUC lying around.

After reading everything I could find, to date, this appears to be the ā€œbestā€ solution for a bridged HDMI endpoint without frustrating limitations. Since ROCK is not officially supported on lower NUCs, we need to learn from those who have forged ahead on chance (thatā€™s you!). There are SO MANY posts around this issue, with no good alternatives. Which unit did you choose? Right now, the NUC6CAYH seems to be the lowest cost, current model available (~$143 shipped), plus a stick of DDR3 and some low end 2.5" SSD. Itā€™s still WELL more than I hoped would be needed to provide a ā€œremote HDMI connectionā€ to Roon, but I cannot find any viable solution that is less expensive (or maybe even, at all). Did you encounter any issues with your install, or did all go perfectly with the standard instructions? If a few of us can implement this and confirm success to the community, this should be a recommended way to go, maybe as a new topic so people can find it, with specific details.