Why does roon not support any and all streamers?

Most devices out there implement the USB audio protocol, which is an official USB standard. There are a few devices that don’t and require drivers and/or custom support.

There is universality in USB and it is decent.

Can’t the same be achieved over ethernet?

No because the standards in use do not have the same levels of consistency as USB audio. RAAT creates the right conditions but you need to encourage others to include it. Perhaps the point to remember is even if Roon were to adopt a UPnP option there is no guarantee it would work well with other UPnP gear and supporting that would then be a nightmare.

There is a standard for streaming audio over IP – AES67 – which has gained a lot of traction in the pro audio world (and has been included in both the competing Dante and Ravenna protocols), but there’s pretty much nothing in the consumer world apart from the (RoonReady) Merging+NADAC.

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So with AES67 do today’s standard streamers need anything for them to work other than a player (roon for example) to output via AES67/IP?

@cereal_killer What do you mean by “standard streamer”?

Example being my two current streaming amps, a Devialet 220 pro and an Audionet DNA 1.

I hope you did not buy the Audionet amp because it has an ethernet connector and hoping it would work with Roon.
And I do not think RAAT has anything to do with USB. Asynchronous audio over USB is a standard within the USB specification. RAAT is an ethernet protocol.
You may be able to use the 220Pro with the Audionet apps as this is UPnP. If you have the CI installed in the 220Pro that is… the UPnP code is running on the CI.
AES67 is very good, but for some reason it is isolated in the pro segment. I believe Devialet had thoughts about implementing one of the pro protocols for Audio over IP as they showed a image of the CI board with an Audinate (makers of the Dante AoIP protocol) chip mounted. In the end the CI came with this chip omitted and Devialet displayed a dongle with ethernet in and TOSLINK out in stead, the “Dante dongle”

TBH I’m not that fussed about ethernet input as i seem to prefer USB (which roonremote says it is RAAT, click on the purple star) I tired USB and ethernet on the Devialet 220 Pro, again USB won.
I knew roon wouldn’t work over ethernet on the Audionet DNA 1… there’s been some chat on hear about it in the past. But USB Audio 2.0 (ALSA) is fully supported and works beautifully.
I have been looking into the Antipodes EX music server which also seems to prefer its USB Audio 2.0 output so could be the perfect partner for the Audionet DAN 1.

I’ve also been reading that Aurender have incorporated Ravenna into there latest updates:

February 2018 - Aurender go Ravenna - Aurender’s X100 Music Server will show at the Hamburger Hifi Tage connected directly to a Ravenna AoIP network to demo the advantages of Ethernet data distribution without USB’s length restrictions. Merging Technologies’ Ravenna protocol supports up to DSD256 and 32/384 PCM. This update will feature on Aurender’s A10, N10, N100 (N100C, N100H), X100L (X100S) and W20.

I take it they don’t support roon, yet?

Yes, Ravenna, Dante or AES67 would be good. There may be licensing involved but there is no doubt a standard AoIP protocol would make life easier for many of us. There is a but though… these protocols are strictly gigabit (or higher) ethernet, no wifi. Domestic users have too much wifi and would naturally expect AoIP to work. It wouldn’t. RAAT has the advantage of (being written to) working fairly stable over wifi which makes it very well suited to the consumer market.

Looks like Aurender have put themselves ahead of the game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenna_(networking)
https://www.ravenna-network.com/

The one significant downside of Ravenna (and presumably the other AES67 protocols) from a consumer perspective is that you need a managed switch (or switches) to prevent flooding of your home network with multicast traffic. That’s beyond most people.

Aurender seem to have cracked it!! There new firmware has incorporated Ravenna successfully.

I think Joel’s point was that using Ravenna or alternatives requires networking skills that most people will not have, regardless of whether the hardware supports it. RAAT works pretty well with a lot of products without that and newer hardware is getting the protocol as manufacturers see the benefit. If not, it works very well through low powered end points like a raspberry pi.

Having just read the Ravenna network guide documentation, I’d say it’s beyond a lot of people even if they bought a managed switch…,

You guys seem to be forgetting… Aurender already have Ravenna integrated into there players, IF they have done so i can guarantee they 'd have resolved any and all end user issues. There servers are some of the best high-end products out there.

yes, you need your Devialet or Audionet device to support AES67 – it wont work out of the box unless they support it.

You still need your audio endpoints to support Ravenna if you want this to work.

OK - Cool, it’ll be interesting to see what,why and how Aurender are gonna roll out Revenna compatibility with.

The end user issues are not of their making or under their control. Your ‘guarantee’ does not address the issues of how they resolve end user home network problems. The ‘quality’ of their servers is irrelevant in this context.

Sorry but Aurender would not put something out that the end user will have network issue with. But i will investigate what they’ve done and how.