rooExtend-Box: Plug-And-Play for Roon Extensions

Audio Gear Talk rooExtend
312

With rooExtend Airplay is lossless IF you send lossless data. So ALAC files on your device will play lossless.

Using lossless Spotify via Airplay it should be lossless for example.

Best DrCWO

313

short info:

Spotify lossless is working through RooPlay and Roon. Crazy thing is that I can run it through HQPlayer as well and play it as DSD1024 :slight_smile: . Or what i will do most for spotify as 32bit44.1kHz to my T+A.Thanks for this product DrCWO. Awesome

314

Great it works for you.

Have fun :grinning_face:
Best DrCWO

315

Is rooextend using airplay 1 mode?

Let’s summarise for the sake of simplicity:

AirPlay 1 app mode –> AirPlay 1 endpoint LOSSLESS

AirPlay 2 app mode –> AirPlay 1 endpoint LOSSLESS

AirPlay 1 app mode –> AirPlay 2 endpoint LOSSLESS

AirPlay 2 app mode –> AirPlay 2 endpoint LOSSY

Is rooextend using airplay 1 mode or is it roon themself?

Then there’s Roon, who only yesterday rolled out an update that’s been a long time in the oven. Its server software now supports AirPlay 1 and AirPlay 2 to ensure a) proper functional compatibility with stereo-paired HomePods and HomePod Minis – which need to see AirPlay 2 streams – whilst b) maintaining the lossless audio of AirPlay 1 transmission mode when talking to other AirPlay 2 endpoints.

Text is from dark.audio

316

Hn rooExtend Shairplay Sync (for Linux) is implemented using AirPlay1.
Hope that helps.

Best DrCWO

317

Hi Dr. CWO

My name is JOHN. I just purchased room core and is running it on a Mac mini M4 works great.

I have a Denon Heos system connected to my speakers. With several non-Roon ready satellite speakers and two AVR‘s.

There’s an extension called rheos that bridges between the roon core and the Heos speakers.

I have a local Computer Guy working on it as I am not tentacle savvy. He is trying to connect rheos using a Linux mint computer. He keeps getting errors.

The extension sees the speaker, but cannot play music through it.

I saw that you have a roo-extend- box plug and play.

If I purchased this box, would it be possible to use this rheos extension directly on it.

Have you had any experience with this extension and success?

GitHub offers the extension. And on Roon community there has been quite a bit of success.

I’m trying to find that success.

Can you help me with the best way to go?

I want to keep using Roon on Denon Heos system

Thank you

John Wheeler

318

Hi John,
welcome in the world of Roon :grinning_face:

I’m the developer of rooExtend which exists in two versions. One is a DIY for the Raspberry Pi the other is the Plug&Play rooExtend-Box.

Both share the same software base and therefor the same Roon Extensions as described on my DIY page. Also on the DIY-Page you find links to my Download Area. There the ARMv8 Image for the Raspberry Pi4 is also available. Copy it with BalenaEtcher to a 16GB SD-Card, put it in the Raspberry Pi and you will be fine. There is also a Manual and a Quick Installation Guide for you.

Until now I have not tried to integrate RHEOS as at the beginning of this project there was a lot of traffic with issues in its thread.

Also available with Roon ist the Roon Extension Manager from @Jan_Koudijs. @peter_richardson runs his RHEOS Thread here. Please ask him if RHEOS is already available in the Roon Extension Manager. if yes it can be easily installed within rooExtend. If not you have to setup a plain Raspberry Pi with Linux and install it there.

I guess @peter_richardson will be the right guy to ask and as far as I can see, he is very friendly and helpful.

Best DrCWO

319

I asked ChatGPT and RHEOS seems to be available in the Roon Extension Manager. This is what it wrote:

Yes — RHEOS is available in the Roon Extension Manager. It has been added to the official Extension Manager repository, and you can install and manage it directly from there rather than only via GitHub/docker manually.

What that means

  • The developer submitted the RHEOS extension to the Roon Extension Manager repository so it shows up in the Extension Manager UI under Device Control as “RHEOS”.

  • Once installed through the Extension Manager, you can download and start it with a couple of clicks (e.g., “Download” → “Start” in the Extension Manager) on Linux systems.

  • This makes installation much easier compared with manual steps — though some users still run it via Docker or node/npm as an alternative.

In short: Yes — RHEOS is available through Roon Extension Manager, so you don’t have to install it entirely manually; you can install and update it from inside the Extension Manager interface.

So you can start with a raspberry Pi and the rooExtend Image, enable the Extension Manager, install RHEOS in it and you’ll be fine.

Best DrCWO