I really love roon… It is a life changing experience for anyone who loves music.
But there is something that seems not available at least yet, which is the control over latency issues among different speakers. I have a very simple Airplay set of speakers that I thought it could work just fine, but there is a difference of some ms among them when playing any music.
In my living room, there is one Audio Pro C10 and two Pioneer A4. When only the Pioneer speakers are on, there is no latency issue. When I turn on the three together, there is a latency difference - small but noticeable.
I know Airfoil has the option of configuring such latency issues in “Advanced Speaker Options”, which, though not ideal, just works. I have to do it manually, but it simply works.
Is there already anything like this in roon or, if not, is there any plan to have it in the near future? I think this is quite simple to solve and would be a must for whoever has speakers from distinct brands. And, if Airfoil has it already, I think Roon could not be left behind here, right?
Thank you!
PS.: My Roon Core is a Macbook m5 2016, 8 GB, SSD. Airport Time Capsule and 3 cabled Airport Express all over the apartment (the signal is strong where the speakers are located). The speakers are all being used wireless.
I totally agree that RAAT is better for multiple speaker play. However, many people, as it is my case, have already a set of non-RAAT speakers that could be used with Roon if there were a simple workaround, as Airfoil has with its “Advanced Speaker Options”.
Sometimes I have this impression that Roon is aimed at people who want to spend thousands of dollars for listening to good music. I totally get that there is an audiophile audience here and I respect that, but there are also some Roon subscribers who just want it simple. I think it would not be a big deal to have this control over delays and latency issues in Roon.
The DSP function you showed me looks great, but, as a DSP, it does not work in group zones (as far as I could understand it). So, it does not work for correcting those delays in an Airplay configuration.
It would be great to have a workaround… seriously!
Hi @Juliano_Benvindo ----- Thank you for the report and sharing your feedback with us, very appreciated!
Moving forward, I want to make sure I am conceptualizing the behavior here correctly. When you have a single Airplay zone it is stable and behaves as expected BUT if you group a few different Airplay zones you notice the mentioned latency during playback. Is this correct?
Exactly, Eric. This is the problem… a delay (or latency) among Airplay speakers of different brands. In my particular case, the problem occurs between 1 Audio Pro C10 and 2 Pioneer A4.
Thank you! Well, sorry for my ignorance, but I could not find any tab related to zone grouping when I click on device setup, let alone an option for Zone Grouping Delay. The screen I have are the ones below when I click on Zone Settings or Device Setup:
Thanks, Greg! Yes, I think Roon subscribers with Airplay speakers are not as lucky. But an easy solution seems possible (there might be already… I just cannot spot it anywhere!). I hope @eric sheds some light on this…
I just think that to use Airfoil instead of Roon to solve this problem is not what I expected for given the wonders Roon already provides…
Hi @Juliano_Benvindo —— Thank you for the follow up and clarification. The continued insight has been very appreciated!
Continuing forward, I’m going to pass this over to our DEV team to inquire about what we can do here. They’ll have to give me feedback on prioritization and scheduling, so I don’t have any timeframe for when I’ll have feedback here, but I have logged this with the team and we’ll be in touch when we have some news to report.
Hi @Juliano_Benvindo ----- Thank you again for the continued feedback here and more importantly, thank you for your patience. Both have been greatly appreciated!
I wanted to touch base with you because our DEV team has asked if I could gather some feedback from you in regard to this behavior you are noticing with Roon + Airplay. Our DEVs have asked if you can verify what the experience is like when grouping Airplay based zones outside of Roon, say via iTunes. Is the experience the same? Worse? Better?
Thank you very much! I’m glad you’ve been working on this issue.
Well, with Airfoil, it just works perfectly, and I don’t even need to use that “Advanced Speaker Option” I mentioned anymore. The Airplay speakers from different branches play without latency when I use that software.
What I have been doing is to configure my output system from my Roon core (a Macbook) with Airfoil. So, I select “output system” there and it integrates with Airfoil. I use Airfoil, both on my computer and my phone, to control the speakers.
The problem is that I need to use two different systems for that, and, naturally, it would be much better and simpler if I just needed to be in Roon controlling directly the speakers. I have to switch the app most of the time. Roon controls the volume at least, but of the whole system. Besides, I think I might be losing some sound quality using this workaround.
It seems that Roon is “filtering” Airplay somehow and this is what has brought some latency… just a thought…
I just tested the speakers with iTunes and there is no latency. Since there is no latency with Airfoil either, my conclusion is that the latency is caused possibly by the fact that Roon somehow “processes” or “filters” the audio signal before it reaches the speakers.
Thank you for getting in touch with me and providing the requested feedback, @Juliano_Benvindo!
I have added this information to the ticket we are using to track this behavior which is not back with our tech team for review. As the team continued to provide me with updates I will be sure to keep you in the loop on their progress. Again, thank you for your patience and understanding during this process.
Now that Roon 1.6 was released and DSP also applies to Airplay groups (at least, it seems so), is there any way to solve this delay issue? I used this “Speaker Setup”, “Procedural EQ” (Delay"), but it has no effect on the speakers at all (at least for delay).
Sorry for my ignorance, but I could not even understand how I could create a stereo configuration with these DSPs - how can I define a speaker as left or right using your settings? Once this issue is solved, how could I set up the delay, which needs this definition of left or right speakers.
I was very happy with DSPs coming to Airplay groups with this new release, but I got frustrated in the end as I could not solve the latency issue.
Congrats on the new release. It is visibly more robust and faster.
We continue to investigate this issue and thank you for your patience. We have many customers using airplay zone grouping with speakers playing in sync, it appears that there may be something different about your network or the specific speakers used that is causing this to occur.
What I would like for you to do is start playback to the group with the procedural delay enabled, and report back to me what time (local) you made this attempt. I will then request a set of diagnostic logs from your machine and pass it along to the development team for analysis.
