Harman acquires Roon

[Timcognito]

I'm still considering incorporating Roon in to my Bluesound NODE system. (Apparently the NODE is Roon ready).

I seem to remember Roon has some sort of room eq, or an equalizer, available. If so, anyone tried it? Any good?

Me too, it's good, just use on my main system. The HT uses the AVR for DSP and the garage/shop goes al-natural, usually I use the BluOs to control those.

 

[JP]

That perspective did also appear in responses @ HFH, in full disclosure.
I have zero vested interest, but the press release (or whatever it is) was less valedictory than I would've expected a priori.

I’ve been on all sides of that equation - it’s an empty puff piece. Maybe people will get lucky and they’ll do some of what they mention.

 

[Roger285]

I'm still considering incorporating Roon in to my Bluesound NODE system. (Apparently the NODE is Roon ready).

I seem to remember Roon has some sort of room eq, or an equalizer, available. If so, anyone tried it? Any good?

You can see the roon eq in action at the end of many of Amir's reviews. It's a huge benefit for me to be able to have eq presets for every end point.

 

[Moderate Dionysianism]

I received a user feedback survey recently:

Take notice of question#9, you'll need to use the 'other' / write-in option: [EDIT:] To be clear, ASR is not listed at all among this strange menagerie, you need to add it yourself.

 

[mhardy6647]

Well, "K" is better than not on the list, I suppose.
That's an odd list, but I guess for a streaming platform kind of thing, the salient omissions aren't unreasonable.

 

[GDK]

Well, "K" is better than not on the list, I suppose.
That's an odd list, but I guess for a streaming platform kind of thing, the salient omissions aren't unreasonable.

ASR is actually not on the list. "K" is the "Any Other (Tell Us Which)?" option.

 

[Moderate Dionysianism]

ASR is actually not on the list. "K" is the "Any Other (Tell Us Which)?" option.

Exactly, that's why I said you need to use write-in.

 

[mhardy6647]

Whoops! Not enough caffeine yet today!
OK, well... audiokarma & audioasylum aren't on there, either. But the former is more about the vintage silver behemoths that someone pulled from the dumpster today* and the latter, although a pioneer after the listserv era, sadly is ever more becoming a wasteland.


______________
* BTDT

 

[SloPoke]

I received a user feedback survey recently:

View attachment 351496



Take notice of question#9, you'll need to use the 'other' / write-in option: [EDIT:] To be clear, ASR is not listed at all among this strange menagerie, you need to add it yourself.

View attachment 351495

Yes, was surprised too that ASR was not on the list especially considering those that are on the list. And yes, wrote in Audio Science Review too.
For wanted features, asked for more streamer service integration (like Amazon HD or Apple Music etc.),....but don't think will happen.

 

[BR52]

A Message from the Roon Founders

To everyone in the Roon community, Last November, Roon Labs was acquired by Harman International. This marks a new beginning for Roon, our industry partners, and our team. Today, we want to discuss…

blog.roonlabs.com

It seems the business approach is now more clear under Harman.
Fortunately, offline works again!

 

[jonmichael]

I'm on a Mac.
If I'll have issues with Roon I'll just stop using it.

I had issues with the original Nucleus. Went back to a dedicated Mac mini. Now, the only issues I seem to have with Roon are user errors.

 

[jonmichael]

Wow, I’m amazed at all the negativity around here for Roon.

As a passionate Roon fan, I’d like to share my perspective.

First of all, I’d like to clear up a few things - you don’t need to purchase expensive equipment to run roon. I use a $500 Mac Mini running Roon as my “Core”. An attached high capacity usb drive holds many terabytes of music, all is available to me at numerous endpoints. I have a headphone listening area in my bedroom fed wirelessly to a tiny Chromecast audio. My music room has ethernet attached Wiim Pro. And then my laptop, workstation, iPhone and iPad. It’s all right at my fingertips with Roon’s elegant and browsable interface.

In the transition from physical media to a file-based music library I tried many programs, including iTunes, Audirvana, Plex and many others. I was aware of Roon, but the price tag was off putting. When I finally got around to trying it for a few months on the free trial, it became obvious that Roon was the answer for me. I have a lifetime license and couldn’t be happier.

I admit I’m not a typical music fan - I have a very large music library ripped from a lifetime’s worth of ripped cds and purchased downloads. Probably half of my collection is classical, and as others have mentioned browsing a large classical collection can be a challenge. With Roon I can easily browse artists, conductors, composers and compositions with a responsive and beautifully designed interface. I have over 14,000 albums in my library, and the little mac mini has been operating smoothly for a couple of years now. It just works.

Oh, and then there's built in fully customizable EQ and other DSP functions, Qobuz integration, advanced metadata, tagging, playlists etc.

I could go on all day but I'll leave it at that.

Me, too.

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

 

[Liya]

I had issues with the original Nucleus. Went back to a dedicated Mac mini. Now, the only issues I seem to have with Roon are user errors.

For me, the most annoying issue was with Roon's iPhone app (controlling Roon Core on MacMini). I have a large library of over 8000 albums and - say - I was listening to some album from the middle of this vast catalogue, an artists whose name begins with the letter 'M'. Every time I left the app and came back to it, it reset itself to the beginning of the albums list, starting from the letter 'A'. Is this 'user error'?

 

[jhwalker]

For me, the most annoying issue was with Roon's iPhone app (controlling Roon Core on MacMini). I have a large library of over 8000 albums and - say - I was listening to some album from the middle of this vast catalogue, an artists whose name begins with the letter 'M'. Every time I left the app and came back to it, it reset itself to the beginning of the albums list, starting from the letter 'A'. Is this 'user error'?

No, IF you're using scrolling to navigate your library, that's the way it works.

However, I have a 12k album library, and I only ever use search to pull up albums - even on a fullscreen display (e.g., an iPad or MacBook screen), scrolling is WAY too inefficient.

I also frequently Sort by Date Added, which means that my most recent albums added are always at the top - makes it easy to listen to the 10-15 albums I add weekly from Qobuz and / or Tidal (to decide if I want to buy them or not).

 

[Liya]

No, IF you're using scrolling to navigate your library, that's the way it works.

However, I have a 12k album library, and I only ever use search to pull up albums - even on a fullscreen display (e.g., an iPad or MacBook screen), scrolling is WAY too inefficient.

I also frequently Sort by Date Added, which means that my most recent albums added are always at the top - makes it easy to listen to the 10-15 albums I add weekly from Qobuz and / or Tidal (to decide if I want to buy them or not).

Same function - A to Z scrolling thru entire library to find album - on Audirvana and the iPhone's control app stays where I left it.

 

[markrubin]

2 days with my Titan
I received the new ROON Titan as part of a trade up deal where I could trade in my Nucleus Plus that I purchased in 2021.
The Titan is heavy and beautiful, and barely gets warm after running overnight. The connections panel is the same as the Plus but is harder to reach because it is recessed under the cabinetry.
There is a migration procedure necessary to get it working: as long as you do a backup of the Plus to a USB stick the procedure is relatively simple, and there are prompts that guide you through the process.
I was up and running within an hour after authorizing the Titan and deauthorizing the Plus.
I had not yet moved the storage SSD backup drive for music.
Everything seemed fine except the 2 HDMI ports, which are supposed to output 2 ch and multichannel audio did not work, and they did not appear in ROON settings menu to enable/disable. I read of at least 5 other new Titan owners (on the ROON forum) with the same report.
I reinstalled my Nucleus Plus and confirmed the HDMI ports still worked, and appeared in the ROON menu, and requested an RMA for the Titan.

 

[Mr. Widget]

2 days with my Titan
I received the new ROON Titan as part of a trade up deal where I could trade in my Nucleus Plus that I purchased in 2021.
The Titan is heavy and beautiful, and barely gets warm after running overnight. The connections panel is the same as the Plus but is harder to reach because it is recessed under the cabinetry.
There is a migration procedure necessary to get it working: as long as you do a backup of the Plus to a USB stick the procedure is relatively simple, and there are prompts that guide you through the process.

I looked over the Titan on the Roon site... other than a cool looking box with an additional HDMI connection and capability of larger internal storage, what is the benefit over the Nucleus Plus?

For someone who doesn't use the HDMI connection, uses external storage exclusively and has the Nucleus hidden away with the rest of their network equipment, is there any advantage to the new hardware.

 

[markrubin]

other than a cool looking box with an additional HDMI connection and capability of larger internal storage, what is the benefit over the Nucleus Plus?

For someone who doesn't use the HDMI connection, uses external storage exclusively and has the Nucleus hidden away with the rest of their network equipment, is there any advantage to the new hardware.

None that I have been able to determine….keep your present Nucleus!

 

[markrubin]

Update:
Roon pushed a fix for the Titan that seems to resolve all early issues: they also added support for Thunderbolt over USB-C.
I do notice quicker response/load times with the Titan over the Nucleus Plus. Roon customer support was top notch.