Hi I have an original Roon Nucleus, my system uses a Bonn N8 switch also using a Sonore opticalRendu and a Mytek Brooklyn Dac+. I use a Samsung tablet with the Roon app.
I few days ago I had a quick power outage at my home. Well now I can longer control the music volume from my Roon app it is staying in the fixed position on the app no matter what I do.
If you look at the photos under the Mytek I have tried both fixed and device volume, neither allows the Roon app to control the volume it always shows fixed no matter what I do.
I even reinstalled the app on my tablet, still the same. Any suggestion would help as want to get back to controlling the volume via the app.
I did a backup as well as delete all the endpoint files in my Roon/Database/Registry/Core. However the issue of Roon staying in the fixed volume position persists.
This has so far been difficult for our team to replicate internally, which suggests the sudden power loss might be a factor. From the read of it, the outage left the Brooklyn DAC+'s internal volume register in an indeterminate state. When it came back up, the value it initialized to no longer matched what Roon had cached as the last-known volume position. The two sides are now in disagreement: Roon renders the slider where it thinks volume is, the DAC isn’t responding to changes in the expected way, and the UI appears stuck.
Renegotiating device discovery doesn’t seem to have resolved this, so let’s try a few more heavy-handed steps (if you haven’t already).
First, try a full cold reboot of the Brooklyn. Not standby/wake, but a full power-off with enough time for the unit to completely discharge (30-60 seconds should be sufficient). This should allow the DAC’s firmware a clean path to reinitialize that register correctly. Once it’s back up, check whether volume control has been restored. I
Please also try to manipulate the physical volume control on the Mytek.
We’ll watch for your response and proceed from there. Thank you.
I appreciate your follow-up. I did try the cold start of the Mytek Dac as you suggested. Sadly no luck. Then for the heck of it I asked Chatgpt. Here is what it replied, which did reset Roon to allow me to have volume control. The only issue now is the output of the volume is low. Please review the following.
From a fresh Roon Server diagnostic report, we can see that before the power outage:
The opticalRendu was reporting volume as software dB type (“type”:“db”, range -80 to 0 dB). It connected, initialized at 0 dB, and Roon immediately sent update_volume: -69 meaning you were listening at a relatively attenuated level, with the full 0 dB headroom available.
After the power outage:
The opticalRendu is now reporting volume as ALSA hardware type (“type”:“number”, range 0 to 100). The volume is being set around 20–26 on a 0–100 scale. On this scale, 20–25 is genuinely low, roughly 20–25% of the ALSA USB mixer’s maximum. This is the “USB Mixer” on the Brooklyn DAC+, which is a hardware control, not software dB gain.
The power outage likely corrupted or reset the opticalRendu’s configuration. It switched from using Roon’s software volume (dB) to using the ALSA USB hardware mixer on the Brooklyn DAC+. These behave very differently, the ALSA mixer at value 22 out of 100 is genuinely quiet, whereas the old software volume at -66 dB out of 0 dB was a deliberate attenuation that you could increase.
The opticalRendu’s SonicOrbiter software should control what volume type it advertises to Roon. Log in to the opticalRendu web interface (its IP is 192.168.254.148) and check the audio settings. Is there any option for volume control?
If so, set it to software volume rather than hardware/ALSA volume. This will restore the dB-based control Roon was using before.
It looks like you already have device volume set in Roon, so thats good.
Feel free to show a signal path screenshot after the above if you’re still having issues.
I was hoping for a response to my recent replies. Today I will by-pass the Sonore system completely and just run Roon directly to the Mytek, to see if then the volume control will be controlled by Roon. This will possibly tell if the issue is in the Sonore system.itself.
I went ahead and hooked up the Nucleus directly to the Mytek Dac+. Roon works exactly as it should as volume control on Roon now adjust the volume. The Sonore tech now wants me to " Copy all the settings from the working nucleus with the USB device connected to it over to the nucleus when it’s streaming to the Rendu". “If you have it working directly on the nucleus, then you should look at the settings/audio on the nucleus for the USB device and copy all of the settings, including the advanced settings” Here are the setting with just the Nucleus connected to the Mytek Dac+.
Thanks for the updates! It’s now clear, the single most important data point is when you’ve connected the Nucleus directly to the Mytek over USB, and volume control worked perfectly. That’s the smoking gun. It rules out Roon, the Nucleus, the tablet/app, and the Mytek itself. The fault lives in the opticalRendu (SonicOrbiter) path, specifically how the Rendu is now exposing the DAC’s volume to Roon.
The root of the issue remains the same : The Rendu flipped from Roon software volume to the Brooklyn’s ALSA USB hardware mixer. The fix is in the Rendu’s settings, not in Roon.
So, the Sonore tech’s advice (“copy all settings from the working Nucleus-direct config to the Rendu config”) is partly right. The Roon-side endpoint settings (Device Volume, etc.) are worth matching, but the real variable, whether the endpoint advertises software dB or ALSA hardware volume, is controlled by SonicOrbiter on the Rendu, not by Roon’s UI. Copying Roon settings won’t change what the Rendu advertises.
Concretely, here are the next steps I’d try:
In the opticalRendu web interface , find the DAC Diagnostics / app settings and switch the volume control back to software volume rather than the ALSA/hardware USB mixer. If the outage reset SonicOrbiter, a Rendu config reset or SonicOrbiter reinstall (which Sonore can walk you through) should re-establish the original software-dB behavior.
Afterwards, In Roon, confirm the Rendu endpoint is set to Device Volume (not Fixed). This alone won't fix it if the Rendu is still advertising hardware volume.
Some things just don’t add up. I did as you suggested and went to Sonicorbiter and changed the settings from hardware to software. When I did that while it did allow Roon to control the volume again, for some reason when playing different selections of music the Mytek would only show 16/44 readings no mater what I played even though the selections were of different readings.
I then went back to Sonicoribiter and set the Rendu back to hardware. Today when playing music again for some reason now everything works as it should. Volume control on Roon, Mytek shows all settings, etc It’s like the system has a mind of it own. I’m not complaining just baffled and glad it is now all again working.
We have not heard back from you, so we will go ahead and close this thread due to inactivity. If you need further assistance, please submit a reopen support request via the technical support help form link and specify that the issue be reopened. Thank you.
