We have a new person interested in doing a Roon trial, but he needs a Roon bridge device to connect to his network using ethernet, then connect to his streaming device via ethernet. If he assembles a Raspberry Pi 4 and loads RopieeeXL, can he use a USB to ethernet adapter to connect to his streaming/DAC device? Is this as simple as plugging it in or is there more to it?
Thanks.
Is there a reason you would not connect to the DAC via USB ? RoPieee assumes a output via USB or a HAT, so it isn’t a proxy redirecting over Ethernet (unless I misunderstand your question).
His streaming device only has ethernet in and is not Roon ready. Is there a better way to do this? Is there another Roon bridge device that he should be looking at that will connect to his DAC using ethernet?
I don’t know. I assume that the steamer is also the amp, so no opportunity to use a HAT DAC to output RCA?
What protocols does the streamer accept?
He’s using this: “Bel Canto Red Stream.” That’s all I know. So, maybe he should ditch the Bel Canto and just use Raspberry Pi into his sound system. I’ll ask him about that.
Actually, "Bel Canto REFStream, docs here. It’s an UPnP/DLNA streamer, those are not too friendly towards Roon. This is only way to bridge UPnP/DLNA devices to Roon that I know of. No idea how well it works, although in general Sonore makes solid gear.
Given the outputs on the REFStream, I’d recommend a Pi2AES HAT for the Pi 4, which also has S/PDIF and AES outputs, and a direct connection from that to the DAC bypassing the now obsolete REFStream.
I run two Pi {3|4} + Pi2AES streamers that compare well with much pricier Roon streamers such as the Auralic Aries Femto and the Metrum Ambre.
Thanks for the input guys. I think he has decided to go with a Blusound Node 2i. I’m not exactly clear how he wants to proceed, so I am going to step out of this one.
Thanks again.
Yikes, even though the REFstream is a bit outdated, Bel Canto gear is in an entirely different tier, I hope he’s not disappointed.