TOPIC:

mikeburnsnz wrote:

The SHD was advertised for use with ROON. .

Was it? I honestly am not sure if they actually advertised it as such.

Either way my SHD clearly shows up as 'Uncertified' - so it is certainly on the outer.

Not sure on the rules of copyright on so won't quote from Roon forum - but I did ask the question on where the Roon Ready devices that ran Dirac were as I am not aware of any - and NAD M10 and SHD seem to be two that have 'promised' but not delivered. Raises the question of some other turf war.

Anyway - the Roon Support guys cut my post into its own thread, and labelled it 'Roon Ready vs Dirac' I do hope that wasn't a freudian slip!

Saw that thread, I hear you. I'm not totally sure its a Dirac thing, I don't know how those really overlap except you can do some DSP in Roon, but room correction isn't necessarily automated by any means like it is in Dirac. (I know you can do some simple correction using REW and exporting filters, etc.)

My whole problem is how Roon clearly has a problem with certain manufacturers, but the outcome of this choice hurts Roon's paying customers. Either they didn't think this through, or they they put some other goal over the customer experience. The goal should be to let people listen to great music with a great experience, but now I will have a year contract a paid for but cannot use.

I hate taking sides, but that was just a poorly thought out move on Roon's part, IMO.

lmerino wrote:

I'm not totally sure its a Dirac thing.

I would like to think not - but have to ask the question. Based on the 'expectations' loosely discussed around SHD and M10 there certainly seems to be some friction, or 'sand in the gearbox' as one of my colleagues would put it. Hopefully we can get some clarity as it is a pity for both sides - SHD and Roon are good complements and I will be disappointed if that has to change and we all have to make a choice.

At minimum would be good to get some confirmation of 'intent' from either / both sides that this is either happening, or an insoluble stalemate. The silence is deafening.

Dear All,

We'd be happy to share more information to re-assure everybody on the situation. Some of this information might be a bit technical and behind the scenes information, but then again, it's a good way to share what it takes to build a product.. I'm sure there will remain further questions but let's start with that "short" summary:

- SHD is a Streamer + DSP (miniDSP toolbox) + Room Correction (Dirac Live). These are 3 elements, 3 firmware and a 4th element to the equation when you add Roon support. They talk to each others to some extend but understand that these are different "Worlds".

- Roon is a licensed streaming solution that comes with a Certification program to achieve "Roon Ready" qualification . It involves sending some equipment to Roonlabs team that will then run a battery of test to "certify" the device. This is the active list of "Certified devices" kb.roonlabs.com/Partner_Devices_Matrix
Note: Providing you have some basic functionality, one device can still be discovered inside Roon as "uncertified" and stream audio. Think of it of a loophole that had some impact on Roon's ability to say it's not their fault if there are streaming issues. For that reason, they decided to turn off the ability to have a device listed as "uncertified" getting "enabled" and stream audio. It's a tough move as nobody will be happy.. In the end, I think that it will eventually lead to better experience for all customers.

- miniDSP started on the implementation of Roon last year. It involved coding for both the ARM + XMOS + DSP. Unit went for certification, passed all streaming tests with flying colors but came back with 2 major modifications that did put the final cert on hold:
a)Better latency management based on various sample rates and DSP path enabled. A useful feature for Roon's sync features
b)Real time Feedback on the active DSP chain back to Roon.

Let's go through them so you understand well:
a) Latency management: As you go through various sample rates or various DSP configs, the latency might change. In a basic DAC streamer without a DSP (i.e. Most of Roon Ready devices), it's not really an issue. On a DSP based solution with room correction and the ability to add delay to some outputs, that required some more modification at the DSP level (inside the SHARC code) to handle real time latency adjustment as you toggle presets, various Dirac build, etc.. It took a bit of time to code it, test it and as usual make sure we don't break something..

b) Real time DSP state feedback: This one is tricky one that required a lot more work. Basically we have more than 400 DSP addresses and initially the requirement was to provide realtime feedback on most of them... Unfortunately, in the world of embedded firmware (software running on chipsets), it's not like software on a pc.. You're dealing with some limitations on the architecture that may have no planned for it... In this case, it was very resource intensive to completely rework the whole firmware architecture for full feedback from the DSP to both the XMOS and ARM.. That's the main reason for the hold off to be honest.. In the last few weeks, we're grateful for the help from Roon team to propose an alternative to solve this.

Why we released a beta? Did we trick our customers?
- Some of you might think it was a terrible idea but we thought that as agile product dev comes, we'd want to get feedback on the streaming goes in a large setting (i.e. not few users). With the streaming part passing all tests, we felt confident and released the firmware for Roon as "beta". That allowed us to get confirmation from our community that indeed, the SHD was behaving very well for streaming/volume control/etc from Roon. We could be wrong but didn't hear back from you about some issues! Isn't it a great news we should be happy about? Cheer to all of you who've been testing this feature and giving us great feedback that everything worked as it should.. I bet you've been wondering why the device still isn't certified..

- Anyway, our plan was always two fold. a)Beta release b)Full release for certification. We didn't try to trick anyone (inc Roon labs), we didn't advertise a Roon Ready logo, we were actually quite clear that it was in Beta mode at this stage.. In between, we've got to admit that like every engineering team, our resources are limited, Covid19 got in between to put our world upside down and we just got busy trying to fit other tasks in between to please everybody. Bottom line, we fall on our sword for not solving this faster but to be honest, if Roonlabs didn't work with us to simplify the feedback, it would be really hard... In the end, all ends well!

Where we're at now:
- Great news is that we have a plan of action. From both our standpoint (miniDSP + Roonlabs), please understand that we want to solve this and no we're not ignoring customers, we not dodging the issue, we're not an "enemy" of Roon.. So "please" let's not try to think too much, life is a lot simpler behind the scenes.. With this latest change, we do have a path where we can indeed finalize the certification and are working together with Roon to make this happen. No exact timeline but it's indeed our top priority so there is no downtime.

A very important detail:
- Now there is a lot of confusion on this topic so let's try to make it clear to all:
- Roonlabs stated in few posts now that "If you are currently playing to ANY device successfully, you WILL NOT LOSE ACCESS TO THAT DEVICE ON SEPTEMBER 21."

This is very important to most of you who are a)Enjoying Roon as is b)Were thinking to add Roon license. If you do not change your system, you have nothing to worry about... Only if you "remove" a device will you start to be in the case that you can't "re-enable" your roon device.

Good news is that soon, this issue will be moot asap we release an update and we'll all stop worrying and get back to enjoying what we're all about, Audio!

Hoping this clarifies. Have a great day, stay safe!

The miniDSP DevTeam

Thank you dev team for the open and honest reply - that is exactly what IMHO we needed.
I understand complexity, that we live in the real world, and you have limited resources around sophisticated devices. That we can handle.
What is harder to handle is the question of 'rogue operators' versus ' partnership with Roon to solve'.
You have addressed that later point - and thank you for that!

@gibbo9000

Thanks for your understanding. You bring up a great question as it's a bit of a grey area..
We can confirm that we indeed see ourselves as partner to Roonlabs and look forward to closing this chapter. To be honest, most of the work is already done so in terms of investment, we're already deeply committed into it on both sides at this stage. If we weren't serious about it, we would have started or pulled the plug. We were just trying to figure out a solution to the above limitation on DSP feedback. Stay tuned for updates.

Thanks again for your patience,

DevTeam

Many Thanks for the clarification.
But allow me to still be a little bit worry about the statement ...

This is very important to most of you who are a)Enjoying Roon as is b)Were thinking to add Roon license. If you do not change your system, you have nothing to worry about... Only if you "remove" a device will you start to be in the case that you can't "re-enable" your roon device.

If i need to reset my router, change IPs or similar i loose the connectivity ... and don't know for how long.

The other thing that bothers me in the whole situation is - i find the implementation of roon pretty much perfect for the needs of the SHD (studio). You make great product and is IMHO very unfair from a roon side, to push you for more even when the customer dont really need it. Those time invested in coding to please roon could be invested in something more useful. Still, good to hear they show some common sense and propose an alternatives, but for me that is not the right way and they should be more flexible ...

sorry, double post

I guess the piece that doesn't quite add up, or you would hope there is good faith wriggle room, is miniDSP not using the 'Roon Ready' claim. If there are positive discussions and intent you would hope Roon would remove the SHD from the 'uncertified list' that is causing grief for users.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply, it goes a very long way in keeping brand trust. As far as I know, you never advertised "roon ready" nor was it the reason for my purchase of the SHD... which has been an AMAZING unit!

Unfortunately when I saw that Roon was functioning on the unit, I did purchase a year subscription, not thinking that Roonlabs would consciously just pull the switch and shut it off, especially as a tactic that is (as they have clearly stated) aimed at manufacturers, but hurts (paying) customers. IMO, I understand what they want, but they have simply gone about this all wrong. They have really tainted my trust with their business thinking and what priorities they put first... shutting off paying customers music should NOT be part of the choices of a company whose mission is to deliver the best musical experience to customers. It's just backwards

Thanks

Rusev wrote:

If i need to reset my router, change IPs or similar i loose the connectivity ... and don't know for how long.

Very good question. It actually only applies if you're are going to Roon server and litterally, remove the SHD as a device. It's not about changing IP/connectivity. It's about deviced that are "Enabled" as part of your list.

Please also note the new announcement from Roon in the mean time: community.roonlabs.com/t/a-fix-for-uncer...ready-devices/120426

Note that we're still working on this and seeing if we can meet it within the tight deadline of 10days.. Unsure at this stage I'm afraid but we're doing our best and it's not all dependant on us since we'll need Roonlabs to find a slot to test these new features they asked for.. These are simple to test so should be quick.. If anything happens, the above workaround will give us few extra days to get that finalized.

DevTeam

lmerino wrote:

Thank you for the thoughtful reply, it goes a very long way in keeping brand trust. As far as I know, you never advertised "roon ready" nor was it the reason for my purchase of the SHD... which has been an AMAZING unit!

Unfortunately when I saw that Roon was functioning on the unit, I did purchase a year subscription, not thinking that Roonlabs would consciously just pull the switch and shut it off, especially as a tactic that is (as they have clearly stated) aimed at manufacturers, but hurts (paying) customers. IMO, I understand what they want, but they have simply gone about this all wrong. They have really tainted my trust with their business thinking and what priorities they put first... shutting off paying customers music should NOT be part of the choices of a company whose mission is to deliver the best musical experience to customers. It's just backwards

Thanks

@ lmerino

Thanks much for your kind comments and we hope to make sure that there isn't downtime so there isn't any issues to worry about. Hopefully we can solve this asap so there is no loss of trust for anybody... As mentioned above, we do have a plan of action now. Something we didn't have in the past without throwing the whole firmware upside down... Thanks again for all your patience!

DevTeam

Ugh - this is a bad move on Roon’s part as I suspect most people using it are using unapproved hardware. I’m using it with 4 Sonos units, for example... although in that case, I thought that Sonos didn’t give them the time of day so Roon, themselves, implemented the support for it... so not sure where that is going to go...

I was about to update to a SHD, but no way that I can get one here and running by the 21st. Looks like I’m now stuck in limbo until MiniDSP has that firmware update ready. Can’t buy a SHD until then as I use Roon exclusively.

Thanks to devteam for getting roon cerification back on track. Nothing like the threat of device disconnect and a whole bunch of unhappy customers to concentrate minds... It's unfortunate that it took a year to do it.

There's kind of a lesson here. I was looking to get the SHD for use as a preamp, streamer (with Roon), and room correction, but roon wasn't ready, so I didn't. And it stayed not ready for a long time - the lesson is not to get something if a feature you are relying on is not ready, or certified, or in beta. Said feature may never appear, or work properly, as I have discovered in the past more than once. It is clear in this instance from the big devteam post that the SHD had a real possibility of not ever getting Roon certification if the roon team had not relaxed their DSP feedback requirement.

I get the interest in this product. It is unique - the combination of flexible DSP, Dirac Live, Roon, file streaming, high quality hardware, and full 96kHz 24 bit (or is it 32?) data path puts it into a class of product that has as its only competition, pieces that cost 4-5 times as much. This is a product that can expand MiniDSP customer base way beyond its DIY roots. The only thing that seems to be missing is an amp control line and a good standby mode. I hope that's being worked on.

But for now, Congratulations devteam. I wish you well, and look forward to seeing MiniDSP in the list of Roonlab partners!