In addition to Roon Ready, AirPlay, Sonos, Linn, Devialet AIR, Squeezebox, and other network audio products, the new features boosts the number of Roon-compatible devices into the thousands. With audio-only devices (like Google Home, Google Home Mini, Google Home Max, and Chromecast Audio) users can now enjoy gapless high-resolution music (up to 96kHz/24-bit) from a Roon player. On Chromecast devices with video (like Chromecast Gen 1, Gen 2, and Ultra), Roon displays album artwork, artist photos, and track information in addition to audio.
Roon also confirmed support for grouped playback on Chromecast devices via the Google Home app. Using the Google Home app, users can setup groups of devices, which then appear as additional audio devices in Roon alongside the hardware devices. So for example, users could group a few Chromecasts into a “Whole House” or “Living Room + Patio” zone, enable them as separate Zones in Roon, then play to them freely.
When using Google hardware, standard Chromecast controls also work. This means that Android devices display Play/Pause controls in user's notifications, and both Android and iOS devices offer transport controls via the Google Home app.
Following the recent introduction of Roon 1.5, which was the fifth major software update for the platform, other improvements in this latest update for Roon, in addition to Chromecast streaming, include improvements to some of the other protocols Roon supports, including Sonos playback, AirPlay 2 compatibility, LMS discovery, and Devialet AIR on Expert Pro.
Roon Labs also confirmed integration for the latest version of the MQA Core Decoder, improvements on the way Roon handles partial albums from TIDAL (so users can easily find complete albums from TIDAL tracks they’ve added), and introducing a long list of bug fixes.
www.roonlabs.com
