Raspberry Pi Support [Released in Roon 1.2]

Hi, as an owner of a Raspberry Pi 2 and a Digi+ board from HifiBerry, I would love to know what are your plans to support this. I know there is a lot of info scattered around on the forums but I thought it would be nice to open a thread for this platform as well.

After running years of test using computers, I was really happy to be able to get rid of that and get better audio quality out, just using this amazing little device.

  1. First, I would like to be able to use my rune audio setup as an airport device on Roon. (I believe this is coming on the next build, right?)
  2. Secondly, I would love to have a proper streaming endpoint option coming from you. I don´t know much about roondevices, but that seems great as an endpoint.
  3. It would be amazing to have a “core” option, headless, without any UI, just to get rid of the computer once and for all. I hate all this machinery, and noises that comes from it, on my living room.

Discuss.

PS: Thanks for an amazing experience. That´s what Roon is. Interface is too little to describe what you guys did.

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First, I would like to be able to use my rune audio setup as an airport device on Roon. (I believe this is coming on the next build, right?)

We’ve improved compatibility with Shairport-Sync and probably Shairport, too–I am unsure what those guys are using internally to implement AirPlay, but it might work better with the next build.

Secondly, I would love to have a proper streaming endpoint option coming from you. I don´t know much about roondevices, but that seems great as an endpoint.

RoonSpeakers is in the works, both for Raspberry Pi type users and with hardware partners. It’s probably a few months out, but it’s being worked on. Raspberry Pi 2 is one of the first platforms we will target for that stuff.

It would be amazing to have a “core” option, headless, without any UI, just to get rid of the computer once and for all. I hate all this machinery, and noises that comes from it, on my living room.

Lets see what the Raspberry Pi 3 looks like and re-evaluate–I have a Raspberry Pi 2 on my desk here, and it’s not powerful enough to provide a good experience running the core software. The CPU is getting closer to adequate, but storage performance is still abhorrent. That’s a huge thing for Roon, since database management is the most performance constrained part of the app–We would want something more like an SSD and less like an SD-card to be part of the standard equipment. We would also prefer something with fewer/faster cores to something with many/slower cores. You can read more about hardware/performance issues in depth here.

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Thanks a lot for your kinds replies, brian. I never thought about the speed needed for the database management, good to know. I just want to get rid of those clunky big machinery we call personal computers.

That would be great! Especially if you’d enable it to use I2S. I have a raspberry pi over I2S on a nice dac and that sounds much better than over USB to the same dac!

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@rovinggecko, how does the I2S on the R Pi work? Is the I2S just another ALSA output?

@danny, not a coder of this stuff (I just use the picorepayer image for the rpi (or the volumio one)), but looking at https://www.hifiberry.com/first-steps/ which is a nice audio add on board for the rpi that uses i2s (I just use a slightly better DAC :wink:) indeed it uses alsa as the base, but does require some extra modules in order to enable.

And you need to solder on the gpio header to be able to hook it up.

I’m using a HiFiBerry Digi - perfectly stable up to 96KHz (I’ve not tried it above that). It’s supported by the current Raspbian (currently I’m using a Volumio build).

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I use a Hifiberry Digi+ (no need for a solder) connected its isolated (galvanic) coax to my DAC. I used up to 192/24 without any problems and with a quite good quality, better than Audirvana 2 on my macbook.

will RoonSpeakers be based on existing Pi Linux/ALSA solutions? The C-Media CM6631A usb controller is found in dacs from Emotiva, Schiit, and others… and it has horrible support for hi-res audio. It was supposedly fixed in proper Linux/ALSA releases, but it never seems to have trickled down to the Raspberry pi builds.

It results in a horrible clicking and static noise for anything higher than 16/44.1 …

So I’m just curious if I’ll be able to finally use the RPi’s for audio (I have a Schiit Gungnir) or if it’s a lost cause.

If the idea is to use RoonSpeakers to convey audio to a Raspberry Pi and then plug in the DAC via USB, the DAC is going to need working drivers in order to operate properly. RoonSpeakers is a network protocol, not a new way of speaking over a USB connection.

The rules change a little bit for DACs with ethernet ports built in, since they could conceivably support RoonSpeakers directly and sidestep the need for USB, but that does not seem to be your situation with the Gungnir.

so you won’t be releasing a fully baked Pi img that includes OS, Roon specific software, etc? No drivers are specifically needed for the DAC’s I mentioned, but ALSA support sucks for them. ALSA isn’t the only option, so I’m curious what you guys will be doing to make the pi a suitable endpoint without any real fidget factor involved.

It’s too early for me to commit on those details.

We might do a software package that sits on top of popular RPi OS’s, or we might do an image. Or maybe both. Maybe even source code. Haven’t decided yet.

We view the RPi as a platform for DIY’ers and tinkerers–I’m not sure that our goal is to be 100% turnkey on that platform. We are working with many manufacturers on bringing a turnkey RoonSpeakers integration natively in their firmware.

ALSA is the first thing we will support. What of the “other options” do you use to speak to the Gugnir currently from linux? We can certainly look into them.

which is why I’ve abandoned the pi as platform. too much tinkering is required. when you mentioned pi support i was hoping you guys were planning to make it completely turnkey and bullet proof.

no worries if you don’t, i’m sure I’ll give it a shot if/when you release something for that platform.

i don’t recall. I had isolated the issue to ALSA and saw that there were alternatives out there for linux sound, but the effort required to make it work on pi exceeded my limited linux knowledge. i went back to using an old macbook pro.

thanks for the insight!

i did a quick google search… OSS is one popular alternative, but I reiterate that I haven’t the slightest idea if it has better support for the C-Media chips or how to implement on the pi.

http://www.opensound.com/oss.html

Supporting ALSA automatically means you’re supporting OSS. Starting elsewhere would be wasted resource.

Yes, agreed.

Hi Brian,

A note here about your earlier statement: “We view the RPi as a platform for DIY’ers and tinkerers–I’m not sure that our goal is to be 100% turnkey on that platform.”

While that seems to be an accurate summary of the current user base, classifying RPi as only for DIY’ers and tinkerers is short-sided. Such a view overlooks the potentially large demand for RPi / Roon in the future from main street people. There is a major market for multi-zone, syncable streamers or streamer/DAC’s that cost $200 or less. RPi gives Roon the opportunity to nail this market and sign-up many $120 PER YEAR Roon subscribers in the process (the combination of your TOP user interface w/ cost-competitive hardware should be a knock-out). Roon has a major advantage over other RPi software players (businesses) to date. Roon has a great economic model tied to RPi software that others have never had. If Roon invests resources into making RPi easy to set-up and stable, Roon should receive significant profit from its investment.

Diving one-step deeper, Roon is in position to bring in far more revenue than any other RPi software player to date, and with those resources, I would expect Roon could come up with a Roon/CPU (Roon running on a MAC or PC) > RPi Streamer/DAC software solution that is easy enough to install to grab main street users. If Roon creates the software build, others will flood the market with cost-competitive, quality hardware (RPi Streamer/DAC’s for $200 and RPi Streamers for $100). Those price points are game changers when coupled with software that an average Joe can install/run.

Without RPi, the market has made quite clear the entry point for the Streamer/DAC unit will stay at $400 per unit. The Squeezebox Touch, Sonos and the forthcoming Aries Mini are all at $400 per unit. That makes the multi-unit/multi-zone price point too expensive for the majority of the average joe market. Years ago, I set-up three different friends with a Squeezebox Touch. They all still use it and see it as far better than any prior system they had. Unfortunately, they all have a need for adding additional units for additional zones but aren’t willing to spend $400 for a used unit w/ no warranty. Further, while they all find the Squeezebox UI/apps better than anything previously, they all find it clunky and frustrating in some respects. Provide this market with a $200 per unit Streamer/DAC and Roon or $100 Streamer and Roon (connect to AudioEngine or KEF powered DAC embedded speakers and you have many happy joes), and Roon should see an explosion in main street subscribers.

Maybe AudioQuest is secretly designing a $200 Roon capable Streamer/DAC (certainly would fit with their current hardware model - high volume hardware sales + upsell Audioquest cabling + strengthen brand). Even if they are, it would still benefit Roon to come up with user-friendly RPi software and blow the hardware market wide-open.

I LOVE what Roon is doing for music playback (i.e. enjoyment) and am very impressed with the effort invested in these forums. Thank you and keep up the great work!

Aloha, -Mark

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I would love to see Roon Speakers support in Raspberry Pi. There are a number of popular OS’s specifically designed for audio playback, with perhaps Volumio (see https://volumio.org) being the most popular (formerly known as RaspyFi). A number of these including Volumio use MPD (see http://www.musicpd.org/) for playback. I would love to see Roon support MPD endpoints natively in the same way it recognizes AirPlay, or short of that writing a little middleware daemon to bridge the “Roon Speakers” protocol to MPD similar to what upmpd did for UPnP (love it or hate it there are lots of these devices out there). If you were to publish it as open source, I’m sure the Volumio folks would be happy to bundle it in.

Hi

Whilst I do tinker and DIY the RPI for me is just a simple and cheap way to achieve a goal, ie not to have to tie up a computer to drive my MDAC. It’s just a dumb headless endpoint for me to remote stream to, controlled by my iPad.

This is one area I don’t want to play with much, don’t want to learn Linux etc. As such This is one reason I would encourage you to release an image for the RPI. People can load it onto an sd card and go. This is what I did with volumio and I was up and running in about 20 minutes.

The other reason I would encourage you to release an image is that it will ensure people have a properly working / performing product. less variables and hopefully less problems for people and better reputation for Roon.

Point is, in my circumstance I require to stream to simple endpoints. I certainly don’t want to have to shell out hundreds of dollars for streamers that natively support roon (whenever they are going to arrive) just so I can use this software

Seconded and if it could use the HiFi Berry Digi+ natively it would be even better !!!