That’s what I initially suspected. I have seen a demonstration where Zidoo UHD8000 managed to play Atmos tracks from Tidal (and I want the Zidoo for movies anyway). I guess I just connect the Zidoo to my AVR as suggested in the guide from Jim above. But I also want a hassle-free Roon solution for my music - ideally playing all music, including Atmos tracks, by using the Roon software, which is why I was thinking of Roon Nucleus One. So where do I ideally connect the Nucleus? Shall I just let it be on its own plugged in to my ethernet network and nothing else? Will this work?
Not sure I follow. The nucleus needs to be on your network and connected to your AVR via HDMI to get multichannel out of it. It will however downsample all DSD Multichannel to PCM so the N1 might not have the juice as this is DSP heavy action. Tidal via Roon will be stereo only.
Use the Zidoo for multichannel playback via its own software , connect the Nucleus to the Zidoos USB in and use for stereo music.
Is there any device that would allow using Roon software to play Tidal Atmos tracks (along with normal tracks)?
No as I have said Roon doesn’t support Dolby Atmos from Tidal or any source for that matter.
Thanks, so Roon as such (irrespective of a platform) does not support Dolby Atmos - got it. Is there any particular reason why you recommend connecting Nucleus to Zidoo via USB?
So you use one connection to AVR from the Zidoo. Or you will need to connect the Nucleus separately via HDMI as well. The Zidooo doesn’t support Roons network protocol. Up to you.
Can you please expand a little on the implications of Zidoo not supporting Roons network protocol? What does that mean in practice?
Looks like i got the info wrong. The UHD8000 is actually Roon Ready, it didnt show this on their website when I looked, but Roons site says it is So ignore what I said about USB just hook up it up to your network and Roon will be able to play music to it over the network.
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What I see: the UHD8000 supports Dolby Atmos passthrough with Apple Music and Tidal (not with Amazon).
The problem with Roon:
Roon supports itself only PCM and DSD (you can also transfer dts or DD in flac or wav, if you don’t use Muse) and this until eight channels.
So you must have something on your Zidoo for decoding Dolby Atmos before Roon will use it (also the UHD8000 will not play ripped Dolby Atmos files from the disc or network).
I don’t see such a decoder for Android.
Then the next problem will be the eight channel limit in Roon → encoded 11 channels (or more) are not working btw. you’ll get an 6- or 8-channel downmix.
So the only option with Tidal and Dolby Atoms will to use the Tidal (connect) app on the Zidoo.
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I hope Roon will in time add support for Dolby Atmos music. It has been encouraging to see for example Denon adding Tidal Connect function supporting HiRes FLAC playback to its older AVRs that only used to have HEOS. Perhaps we will see more support for Dolby Atmos music as well in the future.
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