Got it, I had ATV4 w/ app support on the brain… rather than streaming A/V via AirPlay to an ATV from Roon.
Just curious if there’s any release for Roon Speakers coming now that Roon is really stable. I’m dying to use my iPad with my remote setup in another room while connected to my stereo. The App is pretty useless for me until that happens.
Same for me. I have an extra Mac ready to use in my living room but need roon speakers to easily use it. Any idea on the release date? Everything else is working great for me except for the play from here function on my iPad Air 2 remote.
I don’t have a firm date, but we made a lot of progress on RoonSpeakers in September…it’s a top priority right now to get it out the door. I’d be unhappy if it wasn’t released by sometime in November. That’s a goal, not a commitment 
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Can’t wait for the iOS app that can turn my old iPhones (3GS, 4) into RoonSpeakers to hook up to my existing multi-room setup.
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Thanks Brian. It’s good to know it’s on the horizon. This will make a fantastic product indispensible.
Hi Brian… Can you give us more color on what will be available? Is it an API for third parties such as Auralic or Aurender to implement in their streamers? (sorry if this was made clear previously)
We will release builds for DIYers to integrate into a variety of platforms (win, mac, linux arm+x64 incl raspberry pi, android, ios eventually).
We will also release an SDK to partner companies doing hardware integrations, so they can implement in their own hardware.
A lot of packaging details need to be finalized, so consider this a rough sketch.
So no API??
I wish I we had an emoticon of Charle Schultz’ “Snoopy” character doing his “happy dance”, for it you’ve seen it… that’s what I’m doing now. 
Thank you.
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Companies like Auralic and Aurender (anyone in that space who’s working with us) will have access to source code of our reference implementation, and API for integrating their audio hardware, volume controls, etc.
So a closed, proprietary, API.
I’d encourage you, at least in time, to open it up.
I know details aren’t finalised yet, but for a device like an Aurender, say one with its own storage and computing power, is it envisaged that roonspeakers will utilise all the relevant Aurender tech, or would it simply become an endpoint for a music library and database which would all reside on a Mac type server?
I’m really keen on trying an Aurender, and as I understand they do plan to incorporate roonspeakers, but how this would work I’m not really sure. I don’t want to be left with a largely redundant box if I use it with Roon down the line.
Any news on if/when your code will be finalised, or when the first vendors might offer it?
RoonSpeakers is just an audio transport mechanism, so Aurender + RoonSpeakers would still require an external Roon server running on another box. If the Aurender ran RoonServer, then it could be a standalone solution.
Whether or not that will happen for a particular manufacturer/model is not something I have the answer to right now. It will depend on some future decisions as yet to be made, and also on the hardware spec of the device in question (i.e. is it powerful enough to run RoonServer).
Thanks Brian,
I was kind of assuming there would still need to be a Roon server somewhere in the chain (although if it could run on the box itself that would be amazing). What I was thinking in particular, is where audio files are stored on the Aurender (for arguments sake), will Roon trigger them being played directly from there - or will it essentially just become a NAS, with the files pulled to the Roon server and then sent back again for playback. I guess I just don’t fully understand how it works! Perhaps in this case its just too early to know…… Looking forward to the next announcements/updates for this hardware and the Pi2. Exciting times.
Roon decodes the files itself and then sends a decoded stream to the endpoint, so the Aurender would be essentially a NAS if RoonServer were running externally.
An important design goal of ours is that all content that Roon supports can be played on all devices, and that that support works retroactively, even with older devices that haven’t been updated–as soon as we start trusting devices to handle the raw source material (files or protected streams from providers like TIDAL), it becomes impossible to support that level of interoperability.
Something happens very couple of years–a new streaming service comes out. We’ve done some kind of integration and relationship with at least 10 (probably more, but I made a list in my head, and I count 10) such services the eight years that I’ve been in this space.
TIDAL is pretty new–about a year old. Hardware older than about a year old can’t handle TIDAL streams directly. But Roon can play TIDAL to older hardware because we handle the stream and then convert it into a form that the device can understand.
The same is true of DSD and high-rate PCM when playing to AirPlay or Meridian devices. In almost any category, there are devices that can’t play all of the content.
There is also a quality argument for minimizing the work done on endpoint hardware, and offloading as much heavy lifting as possible to a server running in a different box, on a different power supply from any analog audio circuitry.
The point is: Roon processes the audio internally, and then sends streams to endpoints in a fashion that requires as little additional processing in the endpoint as possible. This is a core idea in our architecture, and is unlikely to change too much.
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Great, thanks Brian thats really helpful.
As far as I can see then, buying an Aurender with built-in storage specifically to use with Roon wouldn’t make too much sense, since a lot of the hardware that is being paid for is going to be made largely redundant in this setup. The ‘local’ storage would no longer be local with Roon, and result in a lot more data being sent around the network.
Which is good for me - talks me out of spending the money for a little bit longer…… 
sounds liek classic slim device architecture. 
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Just want to give this concept a thumbs up. 
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Does this mean Roon will send a stream over LAN?