This thread, from November 19, indicates that the issue may be related to OperGL. According to this KB article, an Android device must support OpenGL ES 3.0 to run Roon.
Someone mentioned using an older version of the app, would that work? If so, where can I find previous APKs? I’d hate to have to upgrade my DAP just because of Roon… but I was really hoping to be able to use it instead.
You can’t use older versions of the app once out older ones no longer available as code changes a lot under the hood to deal with back end changes to servers etc. So they won’t work. Your out of luck, sorry.
No but things move on. Roon has a heavy graphical interface that’s rendered much like a game engine than a regular app so in this regard kit has to be able to deal with this. There will always be minimum specs to run it and this will change as and when Roon seems it necessary to achieve what they want. Some versions of os will be dropped as well you can’t support everything forever it’s not practical and holds things back.
DAPS are a funny thing and you take your risk buying any, they are generally on older os and not powerhouses like modern phones. I would not buy a DAP with purpose of running Roon on it as you will be disappointed as it does not respect what they do to bypass Androids audio limitations. it will resample to a fixed rate that Android tells it, so it won’t utilise the DAC to its full potential.