No RoonBridge Service in Ropieee install

Audio Gear Talk RoPieee
1

Hi,

I’ve just bought a Raspberry Pi 4 to act as a Roon endpoint to connect via hdmi to a Marantz AV processor for digital audio served up by Roon. However, the service doesn’t appear on the Services tab even if I reinstall the RoonBridge from the Advanced tab and hence Roon cannot see it. Any suggestions? I sent feedback with this reference: bc1bb72b52c7db18

Thanks…Miles

2

I may be wrong, but I don’t think RoPieee supports audio via HDMI. It never used to, at any rate.

1 Like
3

From the quick start guide:

RoPieee does not support HDMI (neither for display nor for audio), and it disables the HDMI port after booting. This means that for Roon (or other supported applications), HDMI is not a valid output and will not work.

@Miles_Gwilliam You could use USB if your AV unit has it, or you could add a hat that has the outputs you need. I use the Digi+ pro and use coax, optical, or BNC (added option). There are others the have RCA or AES/XLR, etc.

4

It doesn’t at all, and hdmi audio is disabled by default in RoPieee

5

That’s not correct. Roon Bridge is installed by default, and as such does not have its own tab in the webinterface: all configuration is done from Roon.

Please make sure you have enabled the Roon endpoint in Roon itself (settings->audio).

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6

Thanks for your reply. I was under the impression (from ChatGPT tbh) that there should be an additional service added for the RoonBridge under the Services tab and that this would then appear in Roon>settings>audio. Is it the case however given the other answers that there would be no service visible if the only output was hdmi on the Pi and that wasn’t supported. So Chatgpt says that after installing the RoonBridge, after reboot:

  1. Log back into http://192.168.1.190.
  2. Go to Services → You should now see Roon Bridge in the list (ON by default).
  3. Go to Information → RoonBridge → Status should be Running, with your Roon Core IP listed.
  4. Open Roon → Settings → Audio → you should now see:
  • RoPieeeXL [HDMI 0]
  • RoPieeeXL [HDMI 1] (sometimes both appear).

Enable HDMI 0 → configure for 7.1, 24/192, DSD→PCM.

This whole approach originally came from ChatGPT when I asked the question about rendering multi-channel audio in gapless playback through my Marantz AV processor. Sounds like this is not possible via the Pi/RoPieee solution.

I’m still confused as to why I can’t see it as an end point in Roon though.

7

Personally, I take everything that ChatGPT says with a large pinch of salt.

3 Likes
8

It’s possible that a RPi with DietPi (rather than Ropieee) might be able to use the HDMI connection for digital audio to your Marantz. Unless things have changed, AFAIK it is only possible to deliver stereo via that connection - it did not (does not?) support multichannel. For that, you would have to use a miniPC. Certainly a ROCK/NUC setup will deliver multichannel to an AVR - it’s what I use with my Denon

9

Thanks for your reply. The Digi+ pro solution sounds interesting but I was wanting to find a way of getting gapless multi-channel playback of DSD and FLAC files.

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10

Yes, lesson learned! It seemed totally feasible given that all I’m trying to achieve is an end point that splits a multi-channel feed from Roon into a signal that the Marantz processor could convert from digital to analogue and send to my power amplifiers i.e. what it already does! I have an Oppo bluray player that does this but it isn’t a roon endpoint and doesn’t do it in a gapless render (very disruptive for an album like Dark Side of the Moon!). I may have to consider an Eversolo solution I guess.

11

Over HDMI to a Marantz AV this only works (stereo or multi-channel alike) when fed from an SACD player AFAIK.

12

you can send me feedback, so I can have a look.

But in general: have you checked the ‘audio devices’ in Roon?

13

I wonder if the PI2AES hat would do what you want?

Although it’s pricey… $249 US.

Also, what oppo do you have as some are Roon Ready. My oppo 205 is.

14

Is you are asking the op there was a feedback code in his first post.

15

@Miles_Gwilliam ,

There’s nothing wrong with your unit: Roon Bridge is installed and working.

But… you don’t have an audio output, and that’s the reason why you have a ‘no show’ in Roon. Roon requires an output (either a USB DAC or a HAT) on the endpoint side to show up.

Thanks

16

Thanks for the suggestion, I’ve decided to give your ROCK/NUC option a go instead and move my roon core onto the NUC and use it to process from my NAS. Will have to think of another use for the Pi although it does now work for headphone use with DietPi.

17

Interesting idea but I’ve changed tack to a ROCK/NUC approach which hopefully will work. My Oppo is the UDP-203, kind of wish I’d gone for the 205 but I wasn’t using roon then and the Oppo is pretty excellent at everything except gapless playback.

1 Like
18

Thanks for your reply. Glad the unit is fine, it works with the headphone out but I was incorrectly advised by ChatGPT that it would also render via the hdmi output which I now know is not supported by, well, anything it seems! This is probably a reasonably niche use case to want to render gapless surround sound music to an AV processor and use hdmi as the transport (using a pre-converted pcm signal) but I am learning a lot about hibby computing!

19

Thanks for your reply. I’m hoping that a ROCK/NUC mini pc solution will convert the multichannel DSD/DSF or FLAC signal to PCM and successfully feed it via the hdmi output to the Marantz AV processor in a similar pathway to my Oppo. Are you interested in the outcome?

21

PCM should work quite well.