Roon List of Roon-Exclusive Functions for WiiM Pro/Plus/App

[s3igell]

Has anyone seen a list of Functions which Roon coopts as "Roon-Exclusive" when playing Wii? Pro/Plus as Roon Endpoints??

I've noted a few:

• Multi-Room Groups - must use Roon Groups not WiiM Multi-Room
• Group Synchronization - Roon claims RAAT Implementation (but no further explanation) yet I had to Stop Roon, Remove from Group, and re-test WiiM Auto-Sync, then re-Group and Play - to clear a ~200ms delay between a Roon Group consisting of 2x WiiM Pro Plus

What else changes from WiiM-standard Implementation when used as Roon Endpoints??

 

[Brantome]

Without being a Roon user, I would imagine that you forget any constructs that Roon endpoints might have in their ‘native’ environments and surrender them totally to Roon control as RAAT compatible endpoints in terms of grouping, synchronisation etc. After all, you should be able to mix and match Roon Ready devices no mattter what manufacturer they come from, otherwise what’s the point?

 

[criticowl]

I'm also trying to figure out how the WiiM sync settings interacts with RAAT streams playing on the device. I thought maybe I needed to have all 5 of my WiiM Pro endpoints sync'd in the WiiM Home app for RAAT to be in sync, but it seems that actually just makes things worse. I've yet to get perfect sync between all my rooms to last for any length of time. Even RAAT seems to drift over time and requires a pause/start to resync, but the WiiM Home app only gets sync between all of them to work if I manually adjust it, but then it doesn't last for more than an hour.

I'm getting pretty frustrated because my entire reason for getting 5x WiiM units was to have Roon play music in all the rooms in sync, which is is mostly doing, except it means I can't use the WiiM home app to every play anything, unless I want to go manually setup sync first. Overall, this is not a tenable solution and I might just give up on WiiM and replace all the end-points with Raspberry Pi units that just listen to a RTSP station running on the local network.

 

[Harry702]

Hey! If you're using WiiM Pro/Plus as Roon endpoints, you'll notice changes, like no native Multi-Room WiiM sync support. Roon forces its RAAT groups, which can cause delays. Updating WiiM firmware might help fix some of these issues.

Sometimes manually breaking and re-grouping in Roon fixes sync issues, but yeah, it can be annoying.

 

[castalla]

I wonder how many users in the real world actually use all this multiroom stuff ?

 

[Burnside]

I wonder how many users in the real world actually use all this multiroom stuff ?

I often wonder too, and whether there’s a regional difference given the different styles and size of homes? The requirement for hi res greater than 24/48 for multi room playback sometimes puzzles me too…

 

[castalla]

I often wonder too, and whether there’s a regional difference given the different styles and size of homes? The requirement for hi res greater than 24/48 for multi room playback sometimes puzzles me too…

It's probably a Texas thing

 

[hgo58]

Even I do only have one room with WiiM devices I do have two of them (Ultra and Pro) linked. The Ultra is the one connected to my active speakers, turntable and CD, while the Pro serves as connection to a tape recorder (Line In and Out) and to a MD (mini disk) recorder (Optical In and Out). Maybe not the usual way to utilize the linking but very practical.

 

[jeffme]

I wonder how many users in the real world actually use all this multiroom stuff ?

Well... those who do, count on it a lot! My wife and I are music lovers who often listen to different music at the same time, and live in an apartment, so we're worried about excessive noise for our neighbors. We have 8 different zones, including 2 separate zones with quality speaker setups. So, we'd hate to sacrifice sound quality just b/c we have a group set up. Across the board, we can't wait for hi-res multizone, persistent groups, and better pro/pro+ / subwoofer integration.

On that last point, the current recommended / suggested integration is to add a second WiiM device to the sub(s) and then put them into a group with the main speakers. So, there's a use case for hi-res multiroom, even if you might not need high res LF.

And, there are enough users to convince WiiM to partner with Origin Acoustics to create a Custom Integrator (CI) series.

So... maybe the answer is... "enough"?

 

[Griff]

I wonder how many users in the real world actually use all this multiroom stuff ?

We have a Wiim/Linkplay device in every room. Obviously not every device streaming at once but often 4 at a time, usually while doing house stuff. If I had to pick I would say multiroom is
actually the most essential part of the whole ecosystem for me.

 

[criticowl]

Again, multiroom music in sync is the only reason I bought the WiiM units and if they don't deliver on it, then I'll be getting rid of all of them any no longer recommending them to friends or clients. It is also the reason I got Roon because I was under the belief that Roon + WiiM was the closest way to get old school Sonos performance. You know back with Sonos speakers actually worked well and played magically in sync. I should point out that being a DJ that started on vinyl, I'm a lot more adept at noticing things out of sync as well. Typically, I notice around 8ms out of sync is enough for me to notice and at 10ms I'm really bothered by it.

 

[slartibartfast]

Again, multiroom music in sync is the only reason I bought the WiiM units and if they don't deliver on it, then I'll be getting rid of all of them any no longer recommending them to friends or clients. It is also the reason I got Roon because I was under the belief that Roon + WiiM was the closest way to get old school Sonos performance. You know back with Sonos speakers actually worked well and played magically in sync. I should point out that being a DJ that started on vinyl, I'm a lot more adept at noticing things out of sync as well. Typically, I notice around 8ms out of sync is enough for me to notice and at 10ms I'm really bothered by it.

You could always try LMS as a substitute for Room. It also has the ability to synchronise devices.

 

[s3igell]

Again, multiroom music in sync is the only reason I bought the WiiM units and if they don't deliver on it, then I'll be getting rid of all of them any no longer recommending them to friends or clients. It is also the reason I got Roon because I was under the belief that Roon + WiiM was the closest way to get old school Sonos performance. You know back with Sonos speakers actually worked well and played magically in sync. I should point out that being a DJ that started on vinyl, I'm a lot more adept at noticing things out of sync as well. Typically, I notice around 8ms out of sync is enough for me to notice and at 10ms I'm really bothered by it.

Drop Roon out of your MRM setup, as it defeats WiiM MRM (the later is managed by Hardware Audio Measurements, while the few details found on Roon MRM indicate it is done by measuring Network Latency).
I've got WiiM in 3 distinct "zones" of my home, and can stand at the "crossover point" between zones and hear a system in one ear - perfectly in-sync.

 

[criticowl]

Drop Roon out of your MRM setup, as it defeats WiiM MRM (the later is managed by Hardware Audio Measurements, while the few details found on Roon MRM indicate it is done by measuring Network Latency).
I've got WiiM in 3 distinct "zones" of my home, and can stand at the "crossover point" between zones and hear a system in one ear - perfectly in-sync.

For how long? I've never had WiiM stay in sync for longer than 10 minutes. Roon on the other hand stays in sync for half a day, then just needs a pause and restart to be in sync again. I have all my WiiM units set to "manual sync - 0ms" except for one unit that plays through a PC then back out the PC's speakers. That I had to put a 9ms advance on it, but that mostly fixed it.

Anything played through the WiiM app though is totally unreliable, including using the inputs on the WiiM devices. I'd love to be able to play off my DJ decks to all the rooms and have it be in sync. This does NOT work with WiiM, again, it goes out of sync very quickly, even if you use the "auto" or spend a bunch of time manually changing the sync timings. It is clear that the WiiM app doesn't continuously check for sync and is NOT measuring latency or jitter. I shouldn't have to setup QoS just to have music in sync on a retail consumer product!

 

[WiiM Support]

For how long? I've never had WiiM stay in sync for longer than 10 minutes. Roon on the other hand stays in sync for half a day, then just needs a pause and restart to be in sync again. I have all my WiiM units set to "manual sync - 0ms" except for one unit that plays through a PC then back out the PC's speakers. That I had to put a 9ms advance on it, but that mostly fixed it.

Anything played through the WiiM app though is totally unreliable, including using the inputs on the WiiM devices. I'd love to be able to play off my DJ decks to all the rooms and have it be in sync. This does NOT work with WiiM, again, it goes out of sync very quickly, even if you use the "auto" or spend a bunch of time manually changing the sync timings. It is clear that the WiiM app doesn't continuously check for sync and is NOT measuring latency or jitter. I shouldn't have to setup QoS just to have music in sync on a retail consumer product!

Hi criticowl,

That’s quite unusual. Could you please send us feedback from the WiiM Home App so we can investigate the synchronization issue for you? Thank you for your patience!

 

[holsen]

I wonder how many users in the real world actually use all this multiroom stuff ?

I use it all the time. I've got Sonos, now controlled via roon, in my office, living room and backyard patio. I Very Often have all three going in sync with one another as I roam between backyard BBQ and Living Room / Kitchen all playing the same tunes.

 

[holsen]

I too, just picked up 2 WiiM pieces, and Ultra and a Pro, both connected to external DAC to Amp - they are both recognized in ROON but I cannot get them in sync. I've grouped, ungrouped, regrouped - to no avail. Anybody figure out what I'm missing?

 

[criticowl]

After playing with my WiiM Pros and Pro Plus and Roon for a while, I've finally figured out how to get them to sync.

First off, just don't ever play music through the WiiM app. It's garbage and never stays in sync. I only use my WiiM devices as Roon RAAT end-points. Well... and I use them as chromcast end-points for my smart home system (home assistant) to make announcements but never for music.

Second, the "sync" option is not really a sync at all. It is a delay to compensate for processing latency INSIDE the units. Each output mode (Optical (TOSLINK), RCA digital (SPDIF), and Line-Out all have different delays. If you've enabled any of the features like fades-in/out or room correction, that changes the delay and might also be affecting bit accuracy. I haven't tested it enough but know that having it all off makes Roon bit perfect. Btw, the "sampling rate latency" which showed up recently seems to be for handling latency in connected (outside) devices. I've left it all at 0 with my manual sync. If you change the length of any of your cables significantly or change any components in your signal path, you'll need to manually change this "sync" (delay) setting.

Process:
1. Don't use auto-sync, it doesn't work at all.
2. Play a test track that has something you can listen to for manually syncing. I made a track that has bass beats on each beat and claps on 1 and 3.
3. Start playing the track in Roon with the speakers you want grouped together in Roon. Never group speakers in WiiM.
4. Use the manual "sync" to adjust the delay forward and back for each device. Try and delay things as you can't really push much further forward then 20ms because the buffer is small (in my experience). If you have one device that is always really slow, delay all the other devices, rather than try and push the slow device forward.
5. Once you have things dialed in, save the values someplace in case they get set back to 0 during an update (found out the hard way)
6. Now when you play through Roon RAAT, it will automatically adjust for network latency, WiiM will be manually set to deal with hardware latency.
7. Things will now be in sync for long periods of time. If they become out of sync, just pause Roon, then start it again. I typically only have to do that if I've been continuously playing for longer than 8 hours these days.

Now that I've explained how I make it "work", you might be interested to know that I'm installing ceiling speakers wired back to a multi-channel amp with multiple inputs and input matrix ability. I've given up on multi-room using network technologies and going back to the tried and true hard wired speakers with a multi-channel amp. I've also started installing these systems for restaurants and bars again. It allows you to still play music to a room/area with Roon/PlexAmp/WiiM with a WiiM per room/area, but when you want to play multiple rooms, the matrix connects them together and plays from a single source (input). Software doesn't seem to beat hardware, ever. Maybe if someone makes a PoE powered RAAT end-point with a 50 watt amp built-in, I'd start putting those attached to ceiling mounted speakers and give it another go, but so far no one is making them and I don't have the time to build and market them unless there is about 1000 people that want a few units.

 

[criticowl]

Oh, I also should add that I have all my audio devices on their own VLAN, with broadcast traffic selectively forwarded to devices on the office and home networks. This allows me to control Roon and the WiiM devices with my PCs and mobile devices without compromising the security of the network. I also block all the traffic from the devices trying to reach Google and WiiM (or any of the Internet). I only allow the traffic through to WiiM for firmware updates, but I wish they would allow you to download the firmware from their website and update it without an Internet connection. Seems companies today will do anything to make devices "easier" to use at a cost to your privacy or security. Each device is a mini-linux server and could totally become used as a tool to attack your network or things out on the Internet. I never trust that manufactures take security seriously and are on top of recent vulnerabilities. Things like OpenSSL are integrated into so many products and rarely get patched on these small hardware devices.

 

[holsen]

Oh, I also should add that I have all my audio devices on their own VLAN, with broadcast traffic selectively forwarded to devices on the office and home networks. This allows me to control Roon and the WiiM devices with my PCs and mobile devices without compromising the security of the network. I also block all the traffic from the devices trying to reach Google and WiiM (or any of the Internet). I only allow the traffic through to WiiM for firmware updates, but I wish they would allow you to download the firmware from their website and update it without an Internet connection. Seems companies today will do anything to make devices "easier" to use at a cost to your privacy or security. Each device is a mini-linux server and could totally become used as a tool to attack your network or things out on the Internet. I never trust that manufactures take security seriously and are on top of recent vulnerabilities. Things like OpenSSL are integrated into so many products and rarely get patched on these small hardware devices.

After playing with my WiiM Pros and Pro Plus and Roon for a while, I've finally figured out how to get them to sync.

First off, just don't ever play music through the WiiM app. It's garbage and never stays in sync. I only use my WiiM devices as Roon RAAT end-points. Well... and I use them as chromcast end-points for my smart home system (home assistant) to make announcements but never for music.

Second, the "sync" option is not really a sync at all. It is a delay to compensate for processing latency INSIDE the units. Each output mode (Optical (TOSLINK), RCA digital (SPDIF), and Line-Out all have different delays. If you've enabled any of the features like fades-in/out or room correction, that changes the delay and might also be affecting bit accuracy. I haven't tested it enough but know that having it all off makes Roon bit perfect. Btw, the "sampling rate latency" which showed up recently seems to be for handling latency in connected (outside) devices. I've left it all at 0 with my manual sync. If you change the length of any of your cables significantly or change any components in your signal path, you'll need to manually change this "sync" (delay) setting.

Process:
1. Don't use auto-sync, it doesn't work at all.
2. Play a test track that has something you can listen to for manually syncing. I made a track that has bass beats on each beat and claps on 1 and 3.
3. Start playing the track in Roon with the speakers you want grouped together in Roon. Never group speakers in WiiM.
4. Use the manual "sync" to adjust the delay forward and back for each device. Try and delay things as you can't really push much further forward then 20ms because the buffer is small (in my experience). If you have one device that is always really slow, delay all the other devices, rather than try and push the slow device forward.
5. Once you have things dialed in, save the values someplace in case they get set back to 0 during an update (found out the hard way)
6. Now when you play through Roon RAAT, it will automatically adjust for network latency, WiiM will be manually set to deal with hardware latency.
7. Things will now be in sync for long periods of time. If they become out of sync, just pause Roon, then start it again. I typically only have to do that if I've been continuously playing for longer than 8 hours these days.

Now that I've explained how I make it "work", you might be interested to know that I'm installing ceiling speakers wired back to a multi-channel amp with multiple inputs and input matrix ability. I've given up on multi-room using network technologies and going back to the tried and true hard wired speakers with a multi-channel amp. I've also started installing these systems for restaurants and bars again. It allows you to still play music to a room/area with Roon/PlexAmp/WiiM with a WiiM per room/area, but when you want to play multiple rooms, the matrix connects them together and plays from a single source (input). Software doesn't seem to beat hardware, ever. Maybe if someone makes a PoE powered RAAT end-point with a 50 watt amp built-in, I'd start putting those attached to ceiling mounted speakers and give it another go, but so far no one is making them and I don't have the time to build and market them unless there is about 1000 people that want a few units.

Thank you. This a really great explanation but honestly, how can WiiM call these devices "Roon Ready" when RAAT doesn't just take care of syncing the endpoints. I was using Sonos gear, Ports, AMPs and Play 5's and they all just worked together - the only challenge being getting grouped with the one WiiM Ultra. But since the Ultra sounded so spectacular into an External Dac, I decided to eliminate one Sonos Amp, and connect a Pro to DAC to a pair of monoblocks - I sold the Sonos AMP so now I can't go back, but I must admit, I regret it.

I'll take some time tomorrow to use your suggestions and start dialing in the Ultra and Pro playing ROON using the manual sync. ---- Not ROON Ready.