· I have a Roon Nucleus One which I purchased about a year ago and love it and use that as my Roon Server. About three months ago I connected it via HMDI cable to an Arcam AVR 31 I have in my bedroom so that I could listen to surround sound music that I had downloaded from audio only blu-ray's and DVD's that I own. It took a bit of time to get it running correctly and I did reach out to your support team for guidance and the help was excellent and ultimately it sounds great (in many cases even better than the actual hard media).
I loved the set up so much that I recently purchased a second Nucleus One to set up in my living room sound system with the same intent - access digital surround music over Roon only this time keeping this second Nucleus One as a bridge. In the Living Room I pretty much duplicated what I have in my bedroom - an Arcam AVR 31 with surround sound. When I tried to connect the new Nucleus to use as a bridge via a HMDI cable my Roon app showed it as a an enabled "Nucleus One HMDI Output". But when I set it up there was no surround sound option. Moreover I was not getting any audio to the Arcam but the Roon app was showing that music was continually playing.
I know that Arcam's are notorious for having bad HMDI handshake connections. So I attached a HD Fury Dr. HMDI device in the HMDI line from the Roon unit to the Arcam's HMDI port (I had previously connected the same devise in the same manner in my bedroom setup with great success). With the HD Fury device I am now able to get audio playing to the Arcam via the HMDI cable setup, so it is working but there is still no surround sound options. From the fact that it was not working at all and is now partially working leads me to believe it is an Arcam handshake issue. The only difference between the bedroom system, which works great and the living room system is as follows:
The Nucleus One in the bedroom is designated as the Server and the new Nucleus One in the living Room is not.
The bedroom system is actively connected to a TV where the TV settings are set to use the Arcam as the TV sound. The Living Room system has an HMDI eArc cable attached to a TV, but the TV's settings are set to use the TV's own speakers and not the Arcam's (this is purposeful due to grandchildren issues - the Arcam is way to complicated for a 6-year-old to navigate). I tried enabling the TV settings to use the Arcam as its audio source but that did not help.
Sorry for such a long email, but I want you to fully understand my problem. And I have repeatedly shut down the systems and disconnected the HMDI cable to reboot, as I know you will ask that. My main question to you is if there is anything that I needed to do so that the new Nucleus One would be recognized as a Bridge and if there is any setting that I overlooked to set it to 5.1 surround. Please let me know what you think and I give you full permission to remotely look at my system. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration in this matter.
Tell us about your home network
· Both Roon devices are attached to the home network via ethernet connections and the Server Roon as well as the Roon device I want to use as the bridge are connected to the two Arcam's via HMDI cable
Thanks so much for writing in and for sharing such a thorough report!
Could you snap a screenshot of your Roon Settings>Audio when you’re in the above setting?
To confirm, when you’ve selected the living room Nucleus as your zone:
Settings → Audio → Nucleus One HDMI → Device Setup
Verify:
Max Sample Rate (PCM): at least 96 kHz
Channel Layout: should show options like:
5.1
7.1
Exclusive Mode: enabled
It could be the case that enabling the TV to use the Arcam temporarily often does not refresh EDID unless the HDMI chain is fully reset in the correct order.
Try the below when changing anything HDMI-related:
Thank you for the below email ,message. I am late in responding because I wanted to be sure that my Arcam was running at optimal performance, so I checked for any firmware updates (none) and did a factory reset just to make sure the HMDI connections were clear and working (all is right now) Unfortunately I still cannot get surround sound options on the second Nucleus One unit but I think that I might know what the problem is. A simple question for you is if the second Nucleus One, acting as an endpoint only, will prohibit it from having the surround sound options. If I promoted that second Nucleus One to a second core/server would that get me the surround sound options that I seek? I realize that there is a way to deactivate my existing core/server and then create the new one, but from the literature on your website it appears that simply getting a second Roon subscription is the most aggravation free way to doing it (and I am very hesitant to screw up the system that I currently have). So I tried doing that but I was told in an automated message that I had to contact Roon directly to purchase that second subscription. Waiting to hear back from you on that.
Thank you for the detailed update and further context.
To answer your key question: there is no separate “bridge mode” or surround-sound setting that needs to be enabled on a Nucleus One. When used over HDMI, the Nucleus behaves as a standard Roon endpoint, and multichannel playback is determined entirely by what the connected HDMI device chain reports via EDID.
In your bedroom system, the Nucleus One is acting as the Roon Server and is connected in a complete HDMI chain (Nucleus → Arcam AVR → TV, with the TV configured to use the AVR for audio). That configuration allows the AVR to properly advertise multichannel PCM capability, which is why Roon presents 5.1/7.1 playback options there.
In the living room, the Nucleus One is operating only as an endpoint, and the TV is set to use its internal speakers. In this scenario, the HDMI chain appears to be reporting only 2-channel PCM capability. When that happens, Roon will continue playback but will downmix to stereo and will not expose surround options. Adding the HD Fury restores audio output, but unless it is explicitly configured to present a multichannel EDID profile, Roon will still see the endpoint as stereo-only.
You can confirm this directly in Roon by going to Settings → Audio → Device Setup for the HDMI output and checking the Max Channels value. If it shows 2.0, that indicates an HDMI/EDID limitation rather than a Roon configuration issue.
The most reliable ways to resolve this are:
Ensuring the HDMI chain presents a multichannel LPCM EDID (either by configuring the HD Fury accordingly), or
Connecting the living-room Nucleus One in the same AVR→TV topology as the bedroom system (including TV audio set to the AVR), or
Running the living-room Nucleus One as a Roon Server, which often stabilizes HDMI capability detection in these setups. This is what you’ve concluded in your most recent post. This is the only way to obtain native HDMI multichannel output on the second Nucleus One unit. To proceed with this option, open your [url=https://account.roon.app/en/account]Roon Accounts[/url] page in a browser and select “contact us” under “do you need a second subscription or want to buy a gift code?”. Select “I have a billing or account question” and then “I want to purchase a second subscription.” This will automatically begin the process and you should receive an email from our accounts team shortly.
We’re happy to take a closer look via remote diagnostics if you’d like, and can also review HD Fury or HDMI routing options specific to the Arcam AVR 31.
Please let us know if we can clarify any of these points.
Thank you for the email. After much trial and error I did conclude the best way to go was to add a second subscription. Roon is such a great product that I do not mind at all the extra fee as it will be more than worth the cost. But I did all of what you had suggested above about requestions a second Roon subscription for my account last Sunday and I have not heard back. I followed up again on Tuesday but then after I did I saw the warning to not duplicate requests. So all I want from you guys now is the ability to purchase a second Roon subscription which I am happy to do on a yearly plan. If you could have someone get in touch with me about this request that would be most welcome.
I got the second subscription for my second Nucleus One that I have connected directly to my Arcam AVR31 via HMDI cable and thought my troubles were over, but sadly not and I need your help. Just to reiterate here the goal is to get surround sound music from my multichannel music library I have on a separate storage unit. 2 channel playback is not a problem as I can get that easily enough via ethernet connection, but I purchased this second Nucleus One and the second subscription just so that I could get this surround playback on my Arcam that I have in my Living Room. I originally had the second Nucleus One hooked up as an endpoint to this Living Room Arcam and was trying to get surround music played through that setup but could only get 2 channel playback as Roon kept down mixing the 5.1 channel tracks to 2.0. So that is when I decided to try promoting this second Nucleus One as a second Server and purchased a second subscription for same on my account. But I still am only getting 2 channel playback.
Here is what I have done so far with the new set up: Rebooted the Nucleus One and Arcam and unconnected and reconnected the HMDI cables (I did this several times to clear out any HMDI issues). Changed HMDI inputs on the Arcam. Went to the Web UI for the second Nucleus One and reinstalled the Operating System, Restarted Roon Software, and Reset Roon Settings and Database. None of these actions got me to multichannel playback. I attached 3 photos of where I am at now - one of the Audio set up page where I enabled the Arcam HMDI connection (labeled “Living Room HMDI”), one of Device Setup Screen, and one of the Signal Path when I tried playing a 5.1 track.
Finally note that a few months ago I had the same problems and issues with my main system located in my Master Bedroom. I now have the exact same system in the bedroom as I do in the living room. I had some problems getting the Nucleus One in my bedroom to play multichannel music but eventually did so. There is a HD Fury I used there an I purchased another exact same model and have it set the exact same way for the Living Room system. So I am at my wits end trying to figure out why the Living Room system is not working. Any assistance you can lend will be greatly appreciated
What matters is not the hardware layout, but what role Roon believes each device is playing at runtime. One likely culprit here could be the HD Fury EDID Not Being Active at boot.
Even with identical Fury models and settings, boot order matters.
Very common scenario:
Living Room Nucleus boots
Fury or AVR not fully powered / handshake incomplete
EDID defaults to stereo
Roon locks to 2.0 forever
Let’s see if reviewing boot order helps here.
Step 1: Power Everything Down
Unplug power from:
Living Room Nucleus
Arcam AVR31
HD Fury
Wait 60 seconds.
Step 2: Power Up in This Order
Arcam AVR31
Select the HDMI input connected to the Fury
Wait until fully booted
HD Fury
Confirm correct EDID loaded (same as Bedroom)
Only then power up the Nucleus
This ensures the Nucleus sees full multichannel EDID at boot. Let me know if this gets you across the finish line!
