Forgive me if I am out of touch here. Is there a Roon Ready endpoint that has nice physical controls my family can use? A nice (large) volume control, play/pause button, and track skip etc.
Use case: I stream music to the endpoint which powers some active speakers in our family room. I walk out, the phone rings, somebody needs to just quickly run in and press pause. Or perhaps a track is playing that is annoying someone, they just want to press “next track”.
I’ve tried googling this but I’ve yet to see any network streamer compatible with Roon describe such functionality.
BTW displaying album art would be a plus as well.
I am not that interested in a DAC, as my plan is to use active speakers with a digital input.
Tablets get “borrowed” very easily by young kids. They run out of batteries or literally get hidden by my kids! I’d like a permanent bit of “kit”, just like a CD player sitting there, except its controlling Roon.
If you’re intimidated by the DIY aspect, check out Ropieee - A Beginner’s Guide.
It’s really easy and straight forward, plus you’ll get a very stable appliance-like end point that way!
Ropiee does not allow browsing so is not what the OP realy wants it allows for play controls only. There are no streamers with Roon remote built in would not be much use to bend down and use it all the time, also likely very slow and awkward to use. There is a web remote you can install as an extension that will work via most webbrowsers but its not the best or I would say not Family friendly. You really have no choice but to use the app on a tablet/phone or PC.
The ARCAN ST60 Streamer does all you want and it also has an IR remote with all the functions you mentioned. You can also control it with an Harmony Elite remote. The only issue is that still it is not Roon Ready Certified. Roon Ready Certification is coming soon. I use mine with Roon via AirPlay, though.
Then I would suggest the Matrix Mini i3 Pro its got a remote and its Roon ready.
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Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
11
Any Google Assistant speaker will do this. I’ve got Google Home Minis all over, and they call respond to spoken “louder/softer”, “pause”, “next”, and “previous” commands when playing Roon. Roon likes them because they are Chromecast.
They are on the low end of the fidelity spectrum, but there are also high-end Google speakers, like the Google Nest Hub Max.
If you want something that will run the full Roon interface but don’t want to use a tablet, then how about an old Win or Mac laptop? Depending on what type of inputs your active speakers offer, this could be a simple and cheap solution.
i do have a google speaker for lo-fi kitchen music. The zone I had in mind is my family room, currently with analog active speakers, but hopefully one day with digital (input) active speakers.
Yes I had thought of this. It might work in some other room, but its not the vibe for the family room. Wife already puts up with two subs, 2 active mains, and a host of surround and atmos speakers. Adding a PC + screen would never fly
Alastair what inputs do your speakers have.
mini-I pro 3 has XLR and phono out and you can do digital volume control or fixed volume. I am not convinced that the volume is it’s biggest selling point. Maybe a RooDial would be the best solution as very tactile.
The Roon ready is great and the remote is good.
There is a thread where a number of us owner’s answer questions, and there have been a few of us in the last two months.
For this use case alone, an RPi tucked away discretely with Ropieee and a Flirc remote would work, I think. The remote allows you to stop, pause, skip track and change volume AFAIK - I tried it out but failed to realise that it would interfere with the 2.4GHz WiFi dongle on the RPi I was using it with. You can then either use the RPi as a streamer or any other Roon Ready streamer you fancy.
So no headphone listening?
If not then I am sure I saw HifiBerry did a HAT board with XLR on it and still make one of their nice cases for it. Would save you several hundred pounds with no loss of quality.
No interface though
