I am about to replace a Meridian 210 with a dCS Network Bridge, feeding my 818v3/8kSE system. (I‘ll write more about the whys and wherefores later.) Obviously I’ll loose Comms,
These days any Meridian 8x8 or 861/ID41 can (I believe) be controlled over the network without further hardware. This would seem to make it possible to have Roon replace the basic Comms functions quite easily, if the protocol is known.
Anyone already done this? Or have insights? @danny @Hectorson ?
if you are streaming to these devices using the Sooloos audio streaming protocol (i dont know if there is another way), control already works.
To name only the streaming devices Roon sees:
I am not streaming to Meridian ID4x: Sooloos protocol, integrated with Meridian Comms
I am not streaming to Meridian 210: RAAT, integrated with Meridian Comms
I am streaming to dCS Network Bridge: RAAT, not integrated with Meridian Comms. (It will be connected from AES to the AES pins of a Meridian SL in.)
To replace Meridian Comms (switch on, change input, mute, volume) I could use a RPi, I think.
More elegant, and cheaper, would be to control the Meridian Comms using the ID4x LAN connection, which for a few years has offered LAN based control of the Meridian device, beyond what was already there in the Sooloos protocol.
Ludwig,
I’m afraid that I can’t offer anything extra, I do use the Pi/Meridian Volume extension which Danny created and then was subsequently packaged and added to the extension repository. Once up and running I have had positive experience and stability.
Good luck with finding a suitable solution for you.
Matt
Does it select sources and turn on/off the zone? If so it would add a box but maybe as a stopgap worth it…
Yes, in that it auto selects the source when playback starts, it doesn’t offer more comprehensive source selection.
Standby function works from Roon, I recall having some trouble with auto standby but haven’t tried this recently.