rooPlay - From LP, CD and iPhone to Roon

Audio Gear Talk rooExtend
1

Dear Rooners,

this is a great day for me as finally the long announced rooPlay is ready.

With rooPlay you now can stream external inputs from various sources through Roon and use its DSPs. I’m so happy that I can now finally stream audio from my turntable to Roon via my phono preamp and my RME ADI-2 Pro, allowing me to use the digital room correction I have set up even when playing LPs.

rooPlay_Grafik
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Besides this rooPlay offers a bunch of additional very smart features so you can …

  • play music from your iPhone directly through Roon.
  • play LPs through Roon.
  • record from LP or other analog or digital sources to a USB-stick in FLAC up to 24/192.
  • play music CDs through Roon.
  • Play various audio test signals offered by rooPlay.
  • Connect USB DACs using them as Roon and HQ-Player playback devices.

For some of these features you need additional hardware for example an audio interface for LP playback. A budget solution for this would be the Behringer UFO202. It provides 16/48 and has a phono preamp included all for less than 40$. For better quality just use another class compatible audio interface like the RME ADI-2 Pro FS.

For CD playback you need an additional USB CD-ROM drive. All of them should work fine, but I prefer the Apple Super Drive for its good design. Inserting a CD will automatically start playback. During playback you can skip forward and back with the Nuimo, the SpaceMouse, the Surface Dial or by selecting the corresponding items in the rooPlay setting. Stopping playback ejects the CD.

Streaming via iPhone is also an option. Just select rooExtend in the Airplay dialog and play Music. The Roon playback will start automatically and stay active until you send a stop command to Roon. This allows you to stream any audio content you can access on your iPhone (e.g., Spotify) via Roon.

Besides this, I also added some audio test files that can be played via rooPlay. Most useful in my eyes is the “Channel Check” track to check if your speakers are correctly connected.

All this is possible as rooPlay has a built-in radio station that streams lossless FLAC up to 24/192 to Roon. This has two implications:

It is mandatory that you set up the rooPlay radio station in your “My Live Radio”. Without this rooPlay won’t work! You find how this is done in the Quick installation Guide in the download area.

Playback is delayed by 10s. This means when you start a CD or iPhone playback, you must wait 10 seconds for the track to get to your ears, as Roon has to fill up its internal buffers first.

Besides the new rooPlay Roon Extension you now can connect a TV to the HDMI-output of the Raspberry Pi and see the beautiful Roon Display artwork. For this connect to the display called “Chrome” inside Roon.

Additionally, on the HTML-page of rooExtend you now can change the hostname of your rooExtend instance. This was asked for by users running multiple rooExtend instances in their house. Also, at the very end of this page you find two buttons to access the Logs and some audio debugging information mainly for me to help you in case of issues.

In this thread we like to encourage you to drop your questions and comments regarding rooPlay. Feel free to ask and tell me your success story. I will be here to support you.

Best DrCWO

13 Likes
2

Hi,

Thank you for rooPlay. I was wondering if you can use a HAT with an ADC instead of an external USB one?

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Currently I don’t support HATs but I offer the rooExtend credentials by PM for educated people willing to configure things by their own.

My approach is to offer a plug and play solution for everyone where installation (also screwing a Pi in a the FLIRC case) is that simple, that most people can do it. For music lovers that already have trouble burning a SD card with balenaEtcher HATs and editing config files is far beyond what they like to do. Hope you understand.

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4

No wifi on RooPlay?

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WiFi is not recommended at all but I have not blocked it. Try and with a good WiFi you may be a winner :sunglasses:

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6

Working so far ok. I plugged in my apple super drive to test it too. Thanks for leaving the wifi on for it.

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I must to report an issue :disappointed_relieved:

The v2.3.0 image does no more start on Raspberry Pi Zero W.

Sorry for that as I haven’t tested it as I believed I changed nothing there.

I will soon get into it.
Best DrCWO

2 Likes
8

Very impressive and useful set of extensions for Roon. Just got the license today. Set up was easy with the video tutorial. Very nice to play CD’s and Vinyl with Acourate Convolution filters. Adds real value to my Music set up at home.

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For exactly this use case I made it :+1: :+1: :grinning:

What ADC did you use?

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For the test I used the newest Focusrite Scarlett. But I have my eye on the RME later this year.

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I happily recommend RME ADI-2 pro FS :+1:
I run it in multichannel with XO and DRC in the Roon FIR DSP. If I were you, I would wait for the new SE release of the ADI-2. It will all four channels at the pack panel as balanced signals. With the current ADI-2 Pro I grab them from the front panel and added an amplifier that creates the balanced outputs for my woofers.
You can run the ADI-2 as ADC and DAC in parallel that’s what I do.

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Right now I uploaded a fixed image v.2.3.1 that will be fine for the Pi Zero W again.
Sorry for the inconvenience…

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Yes, this is exactly what I do. Hope they release it soon.

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Do you have a list of tested USB ADCs or should anything work provided that it has a USB output to connect to the Pi?

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Any USB audio interface should work as far as it supports Audio Class 2.
I tested with Behringer UFO202, a Swissonic model and ADI-2 pro FS.

Best DrCWO

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Hello DrCWO, provides this version of rooExtend also for over the air updates, so that the downloading and installing of new SD card images is not necessary more in future? I think you announced this improvement for the next rooExtend version in one of your posts in one of your other threads some time ago.
In your email you mentioned a lot of further improvements, besides rooPlay and rooControl. It somewhere information available what these improvements are?
Best O-W

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It also supports trigger output which is a big plus that I am waiting for

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v3.0.0 will have it. I plan to work on it during the next weeks. End of Sept it will be ready. Will make things for me and you much easier :+1:t2:
It will also include the Application Manager from @Jan_Koudijs that can be enabled.
But no light without shadow. V3.0.0 will have a modern 64Bit Kernel. So probably no more support for Pis not supporting this.
If this is done I will start with rooHead…

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with this new version my nuimo just displays the bluetooth icon and wont work even though roon says it is connected

Screenshot 2022-08-11 at 20.06.18
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What format does it record on to USB stick as from reading about it it’s talks about DSD, whereas you seem to mention flac?

.sjb