I just recently set up rooExtend on a new Rasberry pi 4 B with an MS surface dial. Thanks to your software, it was very easy to do.
Unfortunately, what I hadn’t considered was the fact that my streamer (Sonore Signature Rendu SE) has no provision for volume. In my setup, the volume is controlled from a PS Audio BHK preamp. Which only has IR Control. The only option I can see to get volume/mute working appears to be Deep Harmony, which looks to be beyond my knowledge to set up and uses a Harmony basestation (no longer made) to send out IR codes. Are there any alternatives that would give me volume/mute control within rooExtend ?
In Roon use DSP volume. I evaluated an published my findings here.
You can be sure to have no quality loss using it. I did it myself before I made rooADI to adjust the device volume of my AD-2/4 Pro from Roon.
The preamp must be set to the maximum volume that can be tolerated when the DSP volume is set to 0 dB.
@DrCWO has plans for just what you need. I think it will be called RooIR - have a search on the Roon forums for that. Not sure where it sits on his development schedule, but I’m waiting for it, too.
(I’m currently using Deep Harmony for IR vol control - and it works, but is not completely smooth.)
Thanks for the reply, but I cannot find any settings for DSP volume.
If I click on the speaker icon in the now playing screen, there is no option shown. The options shown from left to right are:
Sleep timer, MUSE, Transfer zone, Zone settings.
In device settings I have a choice of Device volume, Fixed volume or rooControl: Volume
Nevertheless I think there is a solution for your issue. Reading here the Sonore Signature Rendu SE is a streamer only offering USB output. The Raspberry Pi you use for rooExtend has the original Roon Bridge included
So you can plug the USB cable of your DAC (I don’t know which one you use) directly in the Raspberry Pi. After this it will show up in the Roon Settings/Audio and can be enabled there. The implementation of Roon Bridge in rooExtend offers DSP volume
Next you can find out if the audio quality degrades using the Pi. If you have a state-of-the-art DAC, this shouldn’t be the case
Best DrCWO
B.T.W.
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Hi DrCWO, I’ve tried the RooExtend Rpi with usb direct to my dac. I did get DSP volume control, but sound wise in my system and with my dac (PS Audio Directstream 2) it didn’t sound as good. I certainly wouldn’t want to leave it that way. So for now, I’ll have to leave it as it is. At least I can pause play if the phone rings!. Hopefully rooIR when it’s finished will have an IR output to control my preamp volume.
I’m hoping at some point in the near future you will have time to work on rooIR and complete it.
In the meantime I’m looking at workarounds for my system.
Just looking at rooControl - the on and off control works - I see a voltage at GPIO 5 wrt ground .
RooControl: Volume GPIO 17 & 27 - what output should I see here?
I’ve measured both wrt ground with a handheld oscilloscope but see no output while rotating the Surface Dial.
I’m sure there’s a market for it. At the moment the only way to integrate IR controls into rooExtend appears to be Deep Harmony. It’s very comprehensive, but to me it seems to have a very steep learning curve. It’s not something I want to tackle, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
