Could someone in the know / with technical knowledge please explain why the ‘Qute’s USB input can’t take a Roon bridge?
Like all Naim devices except the Naim DACv1 its for usb sticks/drives for file streaming only not USB Audio. Roon bridges are USB audio out or spdif, XLR etc and require a USB Audio 1/2 compatible DAC, or UPnP bridges network only as that’s how UPnP works.
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Best bet if you like the UQ2’s form factor might be the DAC V1 which has asynchronous USB.
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Just get a Roon endpoint with an S/PDIF output to drive the Qute. Not quite the full functionality of a full Roon endpoint (volume etc) but it gives you an option without replacing the Qute.
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That is what I’m working up to @james_n. First, thanks @CrystalGipsy for his helpful comments and explanations on this and the Roon forum, second I’m finally coming to grips with RPi, something I’ve been meaning to do since it was launched.
Like many things in life you have to ask the right questions before you can understand things properly. If I have no success with LMS, I will try HiFiberry, and if not satisfied I will revert to an Audiostore Mite.
I’m too impatient, but this journey is worth continuing … I hope!
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I guess there are some relatively simple solutions for a single Roon endpoint, but if you’re looking for a single solution for all of your 4 Qutes, your options might be more limited. Perhaps a UPnP bridge would do this?
I decided I couldn’t be bothered with all this, and went for current Naim streamers, but I guess buying 4 Atoms would be a step too far!
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Well … I don’t need to Roonify all the ‘Qutes just the those in the bedrooms. I thought a UPnP would only do one at a time …?
It would be good to get an Atom, perhaps when the oldest ‘Qute dies.
A UPnP server is normally visible to multiple streamers, so if Roon is converted to UPnP, I’m guessing that you would not be limited to a single client device. Whether this is actually possible in reality, I wouldn’t know.
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I wondered that. Could you connect the output of a Roon UPnP bridge to a switch along with the Qutes. On something like the Sonore device, the player appears as a Squeezebox to Roon, so would multiple devices appear or is this type of operation not supported?
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I’m not sure to be honest. If nothing else, once you have a UPnP stream, you could use Naim multiroom to send streams from one device to the others.
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A Roon UPNP bridge like lms-to-upnp will expose all UPNP devices on the network that you select and allow more than one to be used at once.
What they don’t do is allow perfectly synchronised multiroom playback. To achieve this you can as James suggests use the Naim app to add other devices within the Naim ecosystem.
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If your using the pi for spdif out then I would suggest to use Ropieee as the OS to flash on it. It’s built and optimised for Roon and does it really well with a simple webgui for setting it up. Also the dev is a regular on the Roon forum and supports it really well. It’s now used in a few commercial pi basesd streaming products for Roon.
You can even add a now playing screen to the pi using the official touchscreen or use the screen to control other endpoints as a remote. I would avoid HifiBerrys distro if I where you. But if your going down LMS first then PiCore player or dietpi are the choices. PiCore player is designed for LMS and more user friendly.
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Only if using sonore bridge is it limited to one device, the LMS plugin will do any UPnP device on the network and make it visible as a Squeezebox., Which Roon will see.
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I’m getting frustrated trying to install PiCore, but will persevere.
Really what’s the problem exactly? You just download the IMG and then use imaging burning software to make the sdcard, stick it in and wait until it installs. Doesnt take more than 5 mins usually. You using a Mac or Windows?
Crazy suggestion, but given that the Qute takes iPod / iPhone as USB input, and keeps playing whatever you select on the iDevice once it has started, so you could try that… I’m guessing and using my imagination here, but if you set an old iPhone as a Roon end point, you could try plugging that into USB, then launch a “legal” music source playing through the Qute, then just “over ride” the iPhone from (the same or a different) Roon controller to start a Roon stream playing. This is how people “hacked” the USB / iPhone interface for other services (like iRadio stations, or Spotify or whatever) back in the dark ages before they were built in.
Worth a shot if you have an iDevice ready to experiment with, and potentially very inexpensive and low fuss if you want to add older gen iDevices to each of your family of Qutes if it works…
Good luck if you give it a whirl!!
Regards alan
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I’m a Mac sort of chap.
For some reason the image did not boot.
Perhaps because there was other stuff on the SD?
Interesting … I’ve an iPod and my iPhone 6 is due to be replaced. Something to try anyway …
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How did you make the sd card? You can’t just copy to it . You need to use a formatter such as Balena Etcher this will write the image correctly so it will boot then install the OS on the card.
I have the etcher, but on this occasion I used Raspberry‘s own imager. I’m going to have another go tomorrow.
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