I just started using roon and am running from my computer. I have a NAS which I am thinking of setting up as the server for roon arc but for now I’m just getting my feet wet. I fell in love immediately. but that said, if Roon is open, no audio works anywhere else on my pc. If I close it, nothing works. I literally have to go to the command line to do a hard reset of my audio drivers. THis is pretty ridiculous. I want to be able to listen to music, and maybe pause it to check out a video or something. IS there a way around this?
@name_here, welcome to the Community. Do you have Roon set to “Exclusive mode” on your PC’s DAC interface? Or are you sending Roon to the PC’s System Output, with the DAC running off that interface in Roon? If the latter, you may want to change the System Output’s settings from “Exclusive mode” and see if that helps.
It seems like ASIO is causing it. When I connnect to my dac with ASIO, the device doesn’t output sound from any other source, even after closing roon or switching audio zones. Is there a way to make Roon give back control after connecting to an audio zone through ASIO?
Asio is definitely an exclusive mode. I tend to not use exclusive mode on Windows because it is so difficult for a program to release it (not just roon, any audio program). Exclusive mode does allow direct audio output to your DAC, and theoretically should be better than going through the Windows mixer. Though I still use the windows mixer and haven’t noticed a difference.
It’d be nice if Roon properly released ASIO mode when I paused a song so I could get the better quality connection from Roon, and still use my system audio for other stuff when It’s paused.
When i used shared audio like this (work laptop), I had my music play directly to my DAC and had the default windows audio being the laptop speakers. Therefore Teams messages, etc would still play through the laptop.
Now I use a roon core, connected to my DAC, so my work laptop default is still the laptop speakers, but no possibility of messing up the audio.
For my main system, I used to use musicbee/Tidal app and i think both of those I had to close to ensure it released the exclusive mode, so i could use my HTPC to stream videos.
I haven’t tested this, but if you click the button that shows the queue, then clear all, does Roon release exclusive mode?
Huh, clearing the queue didn’t release anything. Closed Roon and still seems to have a hold of it. Hard reset my sound drivers from the command prompt. Disabled and enabled the dac from the sound menu. Restarted Roon. Still happening. So it’s not even a guarantee that will fix it.
Strangely, disabling the ASIO audio zone from Roon completely allows the device to be used. Seems like something the devs should look into, because if I can disable the device and release control of the dac without even restarting roon, then I should be able to release control whenever I pause my music.
@name_here, Roon support monitors these threads, but usually during US business hours Monday-Friday. They will look at this as they proceed through their queue. I also have removed the Solution tag so this is not categorized as solved.
Does your DAC connect through the native Windows’ WASAPI driver? Is this an option for you?
When the Grace DAC is connected to your PC, then under Roon’s Settings → Audio, do you see the Grace DAC listed as an endpoint using either ASIO or WASAPI drivers, or do you also see your PC’s System Output as an option? If the System Output is an option, can you make your Grace DAC the audio output under Windows’ Settings menu?
As of my experience it usually takes five minutes until Roon releases the audio device (pause/stop playing) and even if you close all Roon software on the playback machine, the release may not happen instantly. Give it a minute or two.
Yes I’m using system output currently. It also has options to connect to the dav over wasapi OR asio as an audio zone. It’s only ASIO that causes the issues.
As to blackjack’s reply, that’s interesting - not highly useful as I have a batch script that resets the windows audio service so I won’t have to wait to hear audio from other sources. But really the thing is, roon seems to have the capability already to instantly release the audio device, because fully removing the audio zone seems to immediately release it. So if whatever roon is doing to release the audio device when you disable an audio zone could be done when you hit pause on an asio connection, then reconnect when you unpause, that would be ideal operation. I don’t see any reason that wouldn’t be possible
Ideal for you perhaps. Roon is designed as a multi-room/-zone audio player and so developers made sure that configured rooms/zones are/stay available for playback (avoid exclusive zones getting snagged away and blocked eventually by other processes immediately when Roon playback gets paused/stopped).
ASIO is “exclusive” by design and purpose. For your use case, I would avoid its use.
I did some testing with qobuz to see how it handles asio connections. I connected to my dac over asio and played some music. Then I quit qobuz. I was able to play audio over the dac.
I tried the same thing with Roon but it didn’t release the audio device.
If you disable the audio zone that was connected to the dac over asio, it actually releases it.
I totally understand your frustration here and we’ll do our best to explain the decision-making that went into what you’re encountering. What you see is a result of Roon building more capability on top of ASIO’s existing primary use-case: a single-software Exclusive audio driver that retains control of an endpoint despite software conflicts or network interruptions.
As @BlackJack mentioned, this is a feature, not a bug. ASIO is meant to serve a single program/output at a time. Some users thrive with ASIO because they have a dedicated Roon Core on a Windows machine feeding a complex multi-zone setup with which they don’t want any other Windows processes interfering.
Unfortunately, there’s no goldilocks perfect middle here. Other users have different use cases, and making the change you’re requesting would create conditions to generate support threads on the opposite side of the issue.
I recommend you use the driver that Grace Design provides for this device on Windows, which is XMOS. It’s available on their website here: Support Documents - Grace Design.
Also, you should be able to bypass the command line workaround by opening processes and killing RAATServer, which will be managing Roon’s interaction with the system drivers.