So, this is not about the many fixed installation Bridge (or Remote) solutions. I have spent hours looking for what there is to drive a pair of headphones driven from a portable dac/amp, that is fed a Roon sourced stream over USB from a portable device running a Roon Bridge, headless.
I found two workable options that are battery powered that will stream Roon sourced music to my Mojo, and maintain HD (above RedBook) bitrates.
A Chord Poly driving my Mojo. $750
An InFocus branded Kangaroo mini-PC also feeding my Mojo. $230. (comes with processor, ram, storage, and Win 10 Home at that price)
The Kangaroo was what I went with as its 1/3 the price of the Poly, and itās a full PC that can probably do a lot of what the Poly can.
Please share other options you know of. If the device doesnāt have a Li battery, but can be powered by a 5V 2A battery pack, thatās fine too.
I did not include streaming from an Android phone / my Note 8 phone, using the Roon Remote to the Mojo over OTG cable, because the Roon software must stay in the foreground else the stream goes to choppy crap. Not being able to switch to another app on the phone while listening to music is not an option. Plus, the phone canāt be charged while acting as a streaming source. Also ng.
Raspberry Pi, PiJuice hat, PiJuice compatible case and additional battery if you want. Load up Ropieee and you have a dedicated device running optimally.
Looks interesting, but sadly seems to be discontinued ā¦ at least in the UK. But this seems rather bulky. What about a DAP? Presently I use my iPhone/ iPad (without DAC although Iām seriously considering the Mojo) and donāt have the problems youāve experienced with Android devices I donāt see why charging whilst playing is an issue.
Iām using an iPod Touch (6th Gen). With this Apple adapter you can charge the iPod Touch (or iPhone or iPad) with a 5V powerbank, for hours of fun listening. Or get an hour or 2 off the iPodās internal battery alone.
An Allo USBridge also worked well for me as a wireless Roon endpoint and can be powered with a 5V powerbank. You just need a USB to 2.5mm DC plug cable like this to power it. Just make sure the USB powerbank can output 2Amps or more, like this one. This is a high capacity powerbank and will give your 12+ hours of continuous listening. When you buy the USBridge from Allo you can also buy one of their tested and approved WiFi adapters for cheap.
You can also get the newest Raspberry Pi3 B+ with better built-in WiFi now and power it with the same 5V powerbank as above and feed your Mojo via USB. Just load RoPieee or DietPi or Mood OS with RoonBridge onto the Pi3 and youāre off and running. I havenāt tested the Pi3 B+'s WiFi but itās supposed to be an improvement over the previous Pi3 B. This is probably the cheapest solution and should work well , but itās the only solution I havenāt tried myself so canāt confirm. Cheap to try though. I may try myself just for sh!t$ and giggles lol
Of all 3 options the iOS device probably has the better WiFi connection reliability, if youāre home WiFi is robust. Thatās pretty important. No point going with a cheaper solution to have dropouts.
I got it on Amazon. I seems current here. Its harder to find the non-OS version here in the US than the infocus one that comes with the OS.
This bulk doesnāt bother me. Tho itās certainly no Poly! The limited battery time and likelyhood to lose wireless on battery is more the problem. (Hope the new driver resolves that). It does take power from a mini USB plug too, which is awesome. USB cables (for power and data) with a right angle plug forthcoming.
Thanx for the options. I will pursue the Pi avenue. But the Allo option which is that all wrapped-up in a kit is so affordable, I may do that 1st. Does seem to have more bulk than the Kangaroo as a streamer?
Regarding the iPod option with ācameraā adapter (in quotes as that does so much more) ā¦ can it be loaded with the Roon Remote or Bridge software? Thatās a critical part of all this, to integrate my portable setup in home with the Roon experience, get āmy musicā radio, and most importantly DSP for my custom parametric EQs made specific for each headhone or the Audeze iSine 20 DSP when I use that (which is almost all the time now), which does a better job than any EQ.
Iām set with a DAP Iām pretty happy with, the Opus #1 when on the go away from the Roon setup; but my eq curves canāt match the Audeze dsps. But I do keep eyeing the A&K Kann too.
A DAP like these that is āRoon Readyā and would maintain high bitrate would be the ideal. Im pretty sure Roon can be loaded on some Android based DAPs. But that will not make use of the enhanced dac of those players, and only convert at the limited android osās capability.
I read this written by some selling his Allo on Head-fi:
The USBRidge board is a separate usb board which is attached via GPIO pins under the unit which runs its own ācleanā power. It is like strapping a better (for this use case) raspberry pi to an ifi iUSB/Regen/Schiit Wyrd or other similar device
To anyone in the know, does that stack with the Pi juice HAT, or replace it? Or am I mixing apples with oranges? I do have Schiit Wyrds and knowing what they do I think I am mixing up what the two do.
Seems then the Allo would have ācleanerā USB spdif out with less to no USB power/noise spikes? Whatchya think?
Hi Steve, yep it must be a running joke inside Apple - they would also know itās much more than a camera adapter.
You canāt add apps to this adapter. But just running the Roon app on the iOS device is enough to turn it into a Roon Endpoint.
The only catch is that when music stops playing, this endpoint drops connection/visibility from your Roon Core. So you need to unlock your iOS screen and open the Roon app and then it will be visible again as an endpoint (probably an iOS battery saving requirement that Roon canāt disable at the moment). As long as music is playing and not stopped or paused, it will play on forever, till battery power dies.
The easy fix is to enable radio in Roon or enable the ārepeat buttonā if youāre playing a Tidal album that isnāt in your library yet (since Roon radio wonāt work in this latter case). Hitting the repeat button solves the issue completely for me. Itās not the end of the world if any album starts over again, just to keep the iOS device permanently connected.
Your best bet is to contact Allo themselves. I think if you power the USBridge it runs the Pi too but you need to ask them if the battery option will work.
This above, the marketing of the Allo USBridge, and this detailed review ā¦ https://darko.audio/2018/02/step-up-from-a-raspberry-pi-with-allo-digitals-usbridge
ā¦that compares and contrasts RPi as a streamer with and without the USBridge, all in all was enough to convince me this should be my first step into the world of RPi. I actually like the older clear case, so bought an older style one that is available on Amazon.
TBD if Iāll experiment with customizing it to add a PiJuice HAT (I assume I have to remove the top or cut out most of the center of it?) or just use my big power banks with the cables you outlined. At first, Iāll play with it fixed and wired regardless of what direction I go in to achieve āportableā use. TBD if the form factor with Mojo and battery is even āhand-holdableā, vs. the Kangaroo which is.
Ah, I thought it was a derivative that was still a āRasberry Piā. Iāve seen āSparkyā mentioned a lot. But never looked into its origins to discover where and how they differ. Iāll say it again: Thank You.
Sean2016, hope you see this and can answer. Iād like to revisit the iPod Touch option. Does the ācameraā adapter (it never gets old, lol) support streaming of HD? 24-bit @ 96K or 192K? Thanx.
Hi @Steve_Mato , even better, it supports 32 bit PCM768kHz and DSD256 for me, not a problem at all.
Not that I have music at PCM768kHz obviously but Iāve tried Roon up-sampling just as a test of my WiFi network reliability. And I canāt guarantee how everyone elseās home (WiFi) obviously.
If you know someone with an iPad or iPhone and camera adapter, you can borrow it and try yourself risk free to see if your WiFi can handle 192kHz or even 768kHz.
But the camera adapter wonāt be the bottlekneck.
You may even be able to buy risk free from Amazon or similar to try yourself.
Thank you. Glad I was wrong on that. A friend of mine may have bought one but he never got it working with the Fiio amp I gave him. Heās now over the moon with the Audeze iSine 10 w/cipher cable I coaxed him to buy and doesnāt need it. Iāll buy it from him. Very kewl!
Thanx.
