I have a wild suggestion. Make the Vero 4K Roon-ready. Oppo managed to implement this on the UDP-203 and 205 with firmware upgrade. This would make the Vero 4K the cheapest Roon enabled audio-device in existence. I’m sure the Vero 4K hardware will handle this fine by implementing the RAAT (Roon Advanced Audio Transport) protocol.
This will definitely be good for business.
And it will make the Vero 4K a fully workable audio streamer device with no software updates required other than support for the Roon Advanced Audio Transport protocol. Roon handles all other aspects of the functionality with core and apps for all devices.
It is playing of music over the network; where you have one common library which can be used by multiple people (a family for example) on different devices with different outputs (you can also group a number of outputs to play the same music). You can control all outputs from any device (windows, macos, linux; android; ios). It is a very advanced airplay 2; but just the audiophile version.
I would like the Vero 4K to work as an audio device (output device) by supporting the RAAT protocol; everything else is already handled by Roon.
More information can be found here:
Edit:
It also got streaming integration with Tidal (and a few more is popping up eventually). So for me with Tidal subscription; I have a great mix between my content stored on NAS (or PC); and Tidal. It is the same. With a bunch of meta-data collected; and it can point you to similar music both in your local library and in Tidal library. I think Spotify though this would break their business; so they blocked it. But others bit-perfect options are coming.
By the way; the goal of Roon is bit-perfect playoff on any device.
Most of high-end devices are getting support for Roon (DAC and audio streamers). But no options for those that does not want to break the bank exists.
Edit:
Oppo UDP-203 is the cheap option And they are closing business soon.
And you can of course use your computer or phone as audio output. But the great thing is to connect this to your home theater system (HDMI/optical).
And by the way; some really pricy roon-core-boxes have been created, even though the people behind roon think it is a waste of time going wild on hardware. But as someone from them stated; if someone spends 50.000 USD on a DAC; try to explain to them that they should install something on their windows/macos/linux computer to get the best sound…
You are not going to compete with this segment; but make it possible for everyone to get their HT roon-ready. Vero 4K got no rotating fans; is small and can be hidden behind any device. You don’t even need a remote or any UX on the roon audio output device; Oppo shows a screen about artist and song and a small image when using the UDP-203 or 205 as roon output.
This is a great idea. I’m an enthusiastic Roon user since 1,5 years (lifetime membership) and bought a Vero a few weeks ago. Until now i haven’t thought about this playback possibility. For now i’m streaming to an Apple TV in my living room, which is connected to a Pioneer AV Receiver. But Apple TV is limited to 48 kHz and doesn’t support RAAT. Therefore it would be great, if the Vero could be used as Roon Bridge.
Now the good news. I’m listening to a Prince album (192 kHz, 24 bit) on my Vero streamed by Roon, while writing this lines It’s very easy to get Roon Bridge running on the Vero. I’ve downloaded “Roon Bridge (armv7hf)” in the section “Packages for manual installations” from the page below and extracted it on the Vero. “check.sh” stated surprisingly, that everything is ok and i didn’t have to install any additional packages. After running “start.sh”, the Vero showed up in the Roon Audio Setup and could be used as playback device.
Update:
Btw. just found and installed this Roon Addon for Kodi:
As things stand right now, to get true lossless, RAAT should be pointed to ALSA device 0. I suspect you have it pointing to device 1. I’d be interested to know if you can hear a difference, though!
I‘m not an Audiophile and 99,9% of my collection is lossy (MP3, AAC). So i‘m definitly the wrong guy to hear any difference. We need someone with a better ears and equipment to test this.
For me the key feature of Roon are the meta data. I‘m able to browse my music collection in a completely new way. Maybe the following video helps to understand this.
Well there seems obvious some more data available than currently via Kodi (and addons) while I would say most likely 99% of users would not care about information like “guitarist” or “balance engineer” of an album
It’s more complicated than that. In fact it’s strange Roon has managed to find three devices while kodi can only find two. Not very helpful of Roon to not even say ‘device 1’ etc, but I would lay money the first one in the list is the one you want.
Excellent. You are using the best device but I wonder if you would mind repeating that for the second device on the list, (ie enable it and try to play something) just to get the list of supported formats? RAAT seems to do a more thorough job probing than kodi or alsa-utils. It should report DEV=1. We are working on improvements to the audio output. Note, if you do try to play to that second device you may get distorted sound from your speakers, so turn the volume down
And they are closing business soon.
It’s very easy to get Roon Bridge running on the Vero. I’ve downloaded “Roon Bridge (armv7hf)” in the section “Packages for manual installations” from the page below and extracted it on the Vero. “check.sh” stated surprisingly, that everything is ok and i didn’t have to install any additional packages. After running “start.sh”, the Vero showed up in the Roon Audio Setup and could be used as playback device.
