ROCK on Raspberry Pi4?

Audio Gear Talk Raspberry Pi
1

Considering how powerful the RPi 4 is, would it not be possible to run a modified ROCK on it, or some other form of Roon core? Sure, some things like up-sampling to DSD512 or very advanced convolution filters would not work, but for more normal use-cases the RPi should be powerful enough.

Combine this with a RPi DAC HAT and a RPi LCD and you get a very neat stand-alone solution. Or a HAT like HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro to get a good SPDIF out to your DAC.

Here is some more info on RPi4: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-4-on-sale-now-from-35/

2

You mean the equivalent of a Squeezebox Touch? Yes, that would be nice if that were finally possible.

3

I strongly suspect that you’d need to use an M.2 SSD drive in an add-on HAT instead of the micro-SD card for starters. Then of course Roon Labs would need to make ROCK available in a version suitable for the RPi. I’m not holding my breath - and I would rather their development efforts be spent elsewhere…

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4

It has 2 USB3 connections, so a USB disk should also work (at least for storage and meta-data). Which drive thats used for booting should not matter much for Roon core performance.

The most common complaint about Roon is that a computer is needed to run it, and this would provide a cheaper alternative to a regular computer.

5

Roon’s database needs SSD for Core performance (unless you’ve only got a small library). Internal SSD transfer speeds are, I believe, over twice as fast (on X64 architectures) as what can be achieved using SSD attached via USB 3.0. So I suspect an RPi4 is still only good for small libraries. And it will still require Roon Labs to provide a version of Roon Server for arm…

6

As advanced as the Pi4 is for its architecture, it is nowhere close to having the power of a Core i3, the recommended minimum. Roon needs fast base core(s) rather than more cores for most operations.

7

Here we go again…not going to be workable…it’s been touted before.

8

currently, even roonbridge does not work properly on RPi 4B. I have opened tickets with both Roon and Raspberry Pi firmware groups.

Let’s hope a fix comes out soon.

9

@Shawn_Kernes
can you tell why it does not work as bridge? i thought that it did work with pi3. and i was waiting for the pi4 version hoping for a multichannel capability. as player, not as core…

10

Hey Guys, Would Rock on RP4 work as an endpoint only ?

If using HDMI, will it output Multichannel?

Thanks

11

Rock only runs on intel hardware

12

ROCK and endpoints are not the same thing, you can use Roon Bridge on a RP4, easiest with RoPiee but also possible with other configuration. Basically just install Roon bridge, and Roon will see it and you can play to it.

ROCK is a system for running Roon core, which often is separated from the endpoint.

13

Thanks Magnus.
Actually you can run Rock as en endpoint, when you install it first you can choose if you want it to behave as server or remote, the latter makes it an endpoint.
The reason why is it important : Rock endpoints support Multichannel through HDMI (which most endpoints do not
).
But as @wizardofoz mentionned, ROck is only compatible with intel hardware, so i have to invest in a cheap i3 if i want this option.

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