AirPlay Setup

AirPlay Setup

AirPlay 

Roon has excellent support for most AirPlay devices out there. Sometimes small adjustments may be needed to cope with new devices as they reach the market. If you're having trouble with a particular AirPlay device, take a look at our troubleshooting page here, or visit our Community site and let us know.

Set-Up

Start by opening Roon on your Windows or OSX computer, or Roon Remote on your iOS or Android device. In Settings, click the Audio tab -- in the Networked section, you should be able to see your AirPlay devices. Sometimes Roon has trouble discovering AirPlay devices that are sleeping, so if your device isn't showing up in the list, try waking it up first.

Finally, enable the device (or devices) you want to use, and play some music! ## Sound Quality ## AirPlay only accepts CD-quality (44.1kHz/16bit) audio. Furthermore, some AirPlay devices (notably, AppleTVs) convert the audio to 48kHz/16bit internally--not a very nice thing to do. As a result, you will often see rather complex format conversions in Roon's Signal Path like this one:


AirPlay can be a very convenient and affordable solution; however audio quality is capped at 44.1kHz/16 bit. If this is a concern a device capable of Hi-Res playback may be desirable for the primary listening areas in your house.

AirPlay 2

At the moment, Roon only supports AirPlay, and not AirPlay 2. However, many AirPlay 2 devices also offer AirPlay backwards compatibility and can still be used in Roon via AirPlay (some features and capabilities may be unavailable, as they are AirPlay 2 specific). One poignant example is Stereo Pairing: This is an AirPlay 2 exclusive feature, so currently unavailable in Roon. This is frequently mentioned in relation to pairing HomePods.
There are a number of feature suggestions relating this topic that are visible by using this search on community. 

Using AirPlay 2 devices with Roon

If you have a Mac or iOS device it's possible to play to an AirPlay 2 only device by using the system-level AirPlay output functionality. 

Mac:

1. Make sure that the Mac's "System Output" zone is enabled in the Settings > Audio screen in Roon. 
2. Open the System Preferences app on the Mac.
3. Navigate to Sound > Output and select the AirPlay 2 device in the device list. 
3. Start playback to the "System Output" zone in Roon. 

Screenshot of the System Preferences > Sound > Output screen: 



iOS:

1. Make sure that the iOS device's output is enabled in the Settings > Audio screen in Roon. 
2. Open Control Center on your iOS device:
-- On iPhone X or later or iPad with iPadOS or later, swipe down from the upper-right corner of the screen. 
-- On iPhone 8 or earlier or iOS 11 or earlier, swipe up from the bottom edge of the screen.
3. Touch and hold the group of controls in the upper-right corner, then tap AirPlay .
4. Tap the speaker or TV that you want to play the audio to. 
5. Start playback to the iOS device zone in Roon. 

Animation showing how to open control center and select an AirPlay output:



If you're still having issues, please reach out to Roon Support via our Community here. 



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