What B&O speakers are you / will you be playing out of in your various rooms?

If its a bunch of single point speakers, like the BS2 / A9 etc, then I wouldn't bother with getting a dedicated Roon ready hardware to make them RAAT capable.  Any advantages of RAAT aren't that significant on those types of speakers, in my humble.

As for the multi room experience, why bother using the B&O app / Halo at all? Doesn't really make sense with a Roon setup to me.  You won't get any metadata, nor content selection ability - just an ability to join other rooms to something you've started using the Roon app.

In which case, and if you're using a bunch of single point speakers, you can do all of that using the Roon app (be it via AP or CC).  

Jumping between the Roon app and then to the B&O app / Halo seems a fractured experience to me.

steve1977 wrote:

Oh, i got it. Roon receiver will have superior audio quality over airplay.

 

 

Chromecast isn’t an option as i’d like to be able to use NL. While technically, i could do this via CCA with line-in, i prefer not to use a discontinued product (i’m selling the four i have).

 

 

To get the higher quality, i’d need to connect a roon receiver to the line-in of a NL product, which i can then extend to the rest of the place. Downside is that it would add an extra device and cables. And it would limit me to starting the stream on only one device.

 

 

And in either case, i couldn’t see metadata in the halo or true b&o app. It would either just say airplay or line-in.

 

 

it’s a pity the roon developers ruled out dlna support, which would allow to display album and artist name on b&o devices.

 

 

I’m in my second trial week. Will need to decide in a few days whether to go for it or stick to plex...

Sandyb wrote:

Any advantages of RAAT aren't that significant on those types of speakers, in my humble.

Sandyb wrote:

just an ability to join other rooms to something you've started using the Roon app.

Sandyb wrote:

Jumping between the Roon app and then to the B&O app / Halo seems a fractured experience to me.

https://youtu.be/ZVm_tCoxqyg

Above, I think, is something quite informative regarding the capabilities of Roon. In the first third of the video he shows different Roon Ready endpoint devices and explains a bit ... He also shows the Raspberry Pi, a small unit, with the help of which you can easily get away with 100 € to make another device or a speaker Roon ready.
The other two thirds of the movie are about how to build a NUC server that runs Roon Rock OS - not interesting if you want to buy a Nucleus.
But apart from that a great thing, I built one and am highly satisfied since two years.
Like the Nucleus it does support EQ Convolution files and DSD upsampling to multiple zones, playing around the house at the same time, the same or different music files for the whole family.

Carolpa wrote:

Sandyb wrote:

Any advantages of RAAT aren't that significant on those types of speakers, in my humble.

RAAT is not supported. So you will get PCM to the B&o devices just as other streams.

Sandyb wrote:

just an ability to join other rooms to something you've started using the Roon app.

true, but then use CC, otherwise why have a discussion about sound quality/RAAT?

Sandyb wrote:

Jumping between the Roon app and then to the B&O app / Halo seems a fractured experience to me.

Actually I am used to B&o multiroom alot and prefer it above the other possibilities. So I combine it with Audirvana as a source to my A6 (technically one can switch the player in Audirvana, but I got used to this setup). This streaming source for me is the same as a source from a BLC (such as a BG4002 or BS9000 or Beosystem 7000)

Yes, all of which I'm aware of, but I was merely responding to Steve's q which hinted at using Roon but also B&O NL.

In answering I didn't know what his B&O speaker setup is firstly, and moreover just to point out that things like the B&O app or Halo will just be bit part players in the overall experience if you're starting with Roon.

And given that at the moment he has single point speakers, Roon can work fine with them via CC or AP, both streaming to them and handling multi room. So while on the one hand you lose the physical touch to join ability, you do gain everything being done in one place, and that place (Roon) being your all encompassing music manager / experience controller. And I'm not sure that for the majority that adding Roon ready hardware into the back of one of the single point speakers is worth it, just to avoid using CC or AP.

These single point speakers are after all limited to me.  If you have them, sure use the best protocol that it can handle (why not I'd say?), so I do use Roon to CC to my BS9 / A9 rather than AP to them. And they do sound nicer to a point. 

But maybe thats just my personal preference - if all I had was a bunch of single point speakers, I'd be content using Roon to manage my music experience on those using AP / CC, and wouldn't start changing the aesthetic by tacking on Roon ready hardware just to avoid CC / AP.  If you use Roon for a bigger setup with 5s / 50s / 90s etc, then fine I'd explore RR devices to feed them.

Sandyb wrote:

I only went the Roon route once I bought 50’s. I have Roon feeding a Roon ready streamer / DAC into the 50’s directly . That’s a 50’s only listening scenario

The streamer also feeds digital to my BV, so Roon can be shared via NL that way

I have one streamer - well in fact its a streamer / DAC.

It has digital outputs, which I connect to my BV. In this case its just acting as a streaming transport.

It also has analogue outputs, which I connect direct to my 50s. In this case I'm using its DAC, as well as its streaming transport capabilities.

This second use case sounds a good deal nicer - the Linn unit I have has their better DAC. so no surprise there.

Most of the time when I trigger Roon, because my BV is off, the 50s pick the analogue signal from the streamer/DAC.  This is not multi room-able, as a direct connection to the 50s exists outside the NL ecosystem. 

If I turn on my BV, the 50s switch over - Roon then becomes distributable via NL.    I do this from time to time to get multi room Roon. At other times, I just use a Roon CC group comprising of my BS2 (kitchen) and A9 (bedroom) as a multi room group.

Anyway, most of the time I'm not multi rooming - so its usually start something on Roon, and the 50s fire up and pick the analogue signal it gets from the Linn.

steve1977 wrote:

Sandyb wrote:

 

I only went the Roon route once I bought 50’s. I have Roon feeding a Roon ready streamer / DAC into the 50’s directly . That’s a 50’s only listening scenario

 

 

The streamer also feeds digital to my BV, so Roon can be shared via NL that way

 

 

 

You have two streamers? Or how do you feed your BV and BL50?

 

 

Any reason why you feed your BL50 directly rather than through the BV?

 

 

As said, i’m thinking to buy a new BV and connect BL50 or upcoming smaller BL. I’m thinking to have them as rears. And then set up the BV to play audio only through the BL50. And video through tv speakers (set up as center / left / right) and bl50 rears.

I love Roon, too.

I only buy Roon Ready devices. Because the low rate streaming of Airplay and the multiroom deficiencies of Chromecast is nothing for high end sound and a good user experience in my eyes.

That lead to the consequence, that I do not buy any B&O products anymore. But perhaps one day B&O will find out that app development is not their competence at all and will offer Roon Ready devices.