What do you like in Roon?

[Rja4000]

What I like:
- Multi room
- Endpoints cheaper and more varied than BlueOS
- EQ
- Supports Qobuz (would be No-Go without)

What I dislike
- PC always on required
- Price
- Lack of VST
- Lack of a way to broadcast your own stream to your endpoints
- Roon Radio (I hate to be pushed music)

 

[Waxx]

Used Roon in the system of my ex father in law and i don't like it. It does not play albums like i want it and it's very expensive for what it is. It's dsp and streaming stuff i don't need JRiver does all i need actually. I only play local files from my NAS, no streaming subscribtion here. My ex-father in law used it for a year and also moved to JRiver as it works better for him, who is not that computer-litterate (he is now 76) and still plays a lot of vinyl also on his system. I don't get the Roon hype at all.

For dsp i use now JRIver or MiniDSP (depending to what system i'm listening), and it does the job for me, and for th rest JRiver does all i need. I used winamp and Foobar before btw.

 

[Snoopy]

I think the RME EQ is further Limited if you want to use Crossfeed and use EQ on upsampled content that is 384khz or more.
It's either one or the other.

Just can't remember where I did read that. But U lose some of its features with higher sampling rate.

With roon your limitations are your hardware.
And a RME ADI DAC I can only use in 1 setup...with roon I can use multiple cheaper DACs and have better EQ features on every of those setups.

All you need is a roon endpoint.

I have for example a living room stereo set-up, a living room headphone setup and a bedroom headphone setup. Roon lets me do all the DSP I want in all 3 setups with multiple headphone presets.

 

[jhaider]

I think the RME EQ is further Limited if you want to use Crossfeed and use EQ on upsampled content that is 384khz or more.
It's either one or the other.

Just can't remember where I did read that. But U lose some of its features with higher sampling rate.

Sigh. Don’t use irrelevantly stupid high sample rates. Problem solved.

And a RME ADI DAC I can only use in 1 setup...

Two, really - a headphone setup and speaker setup.

I have for example a living room stereo set-up, a living room headphone setup and a bedroom headphone setup. Roon lets me do all the DSP I want in all 3 setups with multiple headphone presets.

For a very limited selection of sources. Roonies always omit that key point. That point is why system EQ should reside in a controller for that system and not in a source. That’s my only objection to the Roon-mania here - a very crippled feature (EQ for 1 source) is used as justification for hardware makers to “just add SINAD” instead of doing things that actually improve real world sound quality and flexibility.

 

[Snoopy]

For a very limited selection of sources.

How so? You get your local library (where I do 90% of my music listening) and tidal , qobuz and a new Korean streaming services.

I think that's plenty for music... CDs, SACDs and Blu-rays can be ripped to local storage.

Apple music would be nice but you can't have everything.

There are ways to use external sources like turntables and stuff with roon but it introduces a input delay that won't work for movies.

But to me roon is nearly perfect.

I wouldn't want to mess around with 3 DACs and DSP features for each one every time I change something.

It's simple to select the zone I want in roon and choose my DSP stuff on a tablet instead of some tiny DAC display.

 

[jhaider]

you can't have everything.

Yes you can if you do it right instead of relying on software that by your own admission is of crippled utility.

 

[Snoopy]

Yes you can if you do it right instead of relying on software that by your own admission is of crippled utility.

Please enlighten me how I get all features of roon and more for multiple setups without buying 3 rme ADI DACs

(Including seamless use of local library with streaming services, DSD support, DSP, HQPlayer, multiroom support for multiple users).

And would be nice if the software doesn't look like something from 20 years ago.

 

[jhaider]

Please enlighten me how I get all features of roon and more for multiple setups without buying 3 rme ADI DACs

You misunderstand my point, which is which is limited to the so-crippled-as-to-be-practically-useless EQ functionality in Roon. "All the features" is well out of the the scope of that. If you prefer Roon as a player/source but keep system/headphone calibration in its proper place in the signal chain (audio hardware that takes signal from all connected sources) then sure, why not? It seems expensive to me for what seems to be redundant functionality with (free) Apple Music, but others don't want or like Apple for whatever reason. So there's a niche to fill. But that's preference, quite a different thing from settling for and defending a very limited equalization function.

That said, I do think it interesting that your retort to my "futzing with computers wastes time that could be spent enjoying music" argument is to burn all your disks to a computer somehow - i.e. more futzing with computers instead of doing what you actually want to do (presumably, enjoy music). No thank you!!

 

[Phorize]

You misunderstand my point, which is which is limited to the so-crippled-as-to-be-practically-useless EQ functionality in Roon. "All the features" is well out of the the scope of that. If you prefer Roon as a player/source but keep system/headphone calibration in its proper place in the signal chain (audio hardware that takes signal from all connected sources) then sure, why not? It seems expensive to me for what seems to be redundant functionality with (free) Apple Music, but others don't want or like Apple for whatever reason. So there's a niche to fill. But that's preference, quite a different thing from settling for and defending a very limited equalization function.

That said, I do think it interesting that your retort to my "futzing with computers wastes time that could be spent enjoying music" argument is to burn all your disks to a computer somehow - i.e. more futzing with computers instead of doing what you actually want to do (presumably, enjoy music). No thank you!!

You and I probably aren't roons target audience. The majority of people under 40 have no interest in anything other than streaming, and certainly wouldn't own CDs, tapes or LP's. That said, I can't name a streaming software that has the features named above-despite the fact that roon uses excellent marketing to gloss over the lack of compatibility with standard streaming protocols, and a frankly dodgy solution to on the go listening. I'll probably end up going back to roon just to polish the turd that is the qobuz user experience, but I will feel slightly sullied and always wonder whether qobuz is deliberately holding back development of its app features due to drive API licencing income from companies like roon.

 

[bevok]

If it’s interesting to anyone, I put on Midnight Blue (Kenny Burrell) and once it finished Roon Radio has served up :

Idle Moments - Grant Green
Midnight Special - Jimmy Smith
Autumn Leaves from Something Else - Cannonball Adderly
The Touch of Tour Lips from Webster meets Peterson
Round Midnight - Wes Montgomery Trio

A very pleasant Sunday evening playlist indeed. Is there a better algorithm .. no idea. This one is working fine for me tonight .

Hope this is useful,

Just as a point of comparison Apple Music served up:
Dial S for Sonny - Sonny Clark
Soft Impressions - Hank Mobley
Sweet and Lovely - Bill Evans Trio
Le Coiffeur - Dexter Gordon
Minor Mishap - Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane
The Phantom - Duke Pearson
One for Daddy-O - Cannonball Adderley

etc

I've always been interested in the mixes the various services provide, they can sometimes produce some really enjoyable listening experiences and music discovery (realise this is of no interest to some people). For a bit of fun started a poll to rate the various mixes, see if anyone is interested. If so will do some more.

Battle of the Algos - #1

[Edited to add Plexamp Sonic Sage and Roon options] Just for a bit of fun, lets rate the music service algorithms! Some users enjoy the music discovery from radios/stations/mixes on various music services. Based on a thread about Roon and its recommendation engine/radio I thought it would be...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[CapMan]

Just as a point of comparison Apple Music served up:
Dial S for Sonny - Sonny Clark
Soft Impressions - Hank Mobley
Sweet and Lovely - Bill Evans Trio
Le Coiffeur - Dexter Gordon
Minor Mishap - Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane
The Phantom - Duke Pearson
One for Daddy-O - Cannonball Adderley

etc

I've always been interested in the mixes the various services provide, they can sometimes produce some really enjoyable listening experiences and music discovery (realise this is of no interest to some people). For a bit of fun started a poll to rate the various mixes, see if anyone is interested. If so will do some more.

Battle of the Algos - #1

[Edited to add Plexamp Sonic Sage and Roon options] Just for a bit of fun, lets rate the music service algorithms! Some users enjoy the music discovery from radios/stations/mixes on various music services. Based on a thread about Roon and its recommendation engine/radio I thought it would be...

www.audiosciencereview.com

That list would also make me very happy

 

[RosalieTheDog]

I don't understand the use value either, but then again I don't understand why you would (a) stream your local library + (b) subscribe to a streaming service. For me streaming made local files superfluous. As for PEQ, I agree with Jhaider that it is better to put this downstream and not confine it to one source. As for metadata and "discovery", I find nothing lacking in Tidal: it's discovery playlist is in fact way better than it used to + I find it is much better to just listen to a good curated radio station of your taste and get music recommendations there. Add to that the necessity to have a PC running all the time and the exhorbitant cost (more than a subscription to a streaming service), and I remain mystified by its appeal.

 

[maverickronin]

I don't understand the use value either, but then again I don't understand why you would (a) stream your local library + (b) subscribe to a streaming service. For me streaming made local files superfluous.

Well for me the obvious answer is because you have local music which isn't avaliable on the streaming service.

 

[CapMan]

I don't understand the use value either, but then again I don't understand why you would (a) stream your local library + (b) subscribe to a streaming service. For me streaming made local files superfluous. As for PEQ, I agree with Jhaider that it is better to put this downstream and not confine it to one source. As for metadata and "discovery", I find nothing lacking in Tidal: it's discovery playlist is in fact way better than it used to + I find it is much better to just listen to a good curated radio station of your taste and get music recommendations there. Add to that the necessity to have a PC running all the time and the exhorbitant cost (more than a subscription to a streaming service), and I remain mystified by its appeal.

a) I have music on my local library that it not available on streaming services which includes music I recorded with various bands and specific CD reissues of favorite jazz albums (JVC XRCDs From the 90s as an example)

b) see (a)

(c) PEQ implemented in Roon works perfectly for me as I have no other sources. It is actually a significant disservice to simply call it ‘PEQ’ since the functionality is much richer, including convolution, gain matching, procedural EQ, up sampling etc. The UI for all
of this is excellent, intuitive and robust.

(d) great you like Tidal . Roon radio also fine.

(e) I have a NUC with Roon Installed. Yes, you could say it’s a ‘PC’ of sorts, but I would classify it as just another black box in my HiFi replay chain in the same way as my router is a part of a HiFi chain. I assume you have a router to stream Tidal - do you find it an issue having it turned on all the time

Roon has cost me less than £2 a week since I started using the license. This will get smaller as I amortise the license over more years. No need to be mystified.

 

[CapMan]

Well for me the obvious answer is because you have local music which isn't avaliable on the streaming service.

Simples

 

[CapMan]

You misunderstand my point, which is which is limited to the so-crippled-as-to-be-practically-useless EQ functionality in Roon.

I really don’t understand this point - what is crippled and useless? I can run convolution files generated from Acourate in Roon at any sample rate . Why is that useless ?

Not trying to be a dick, I genuinely don’t understand the issue ?

 

[Timcognito]

I think that Roon is not right for casual streamers who don't have a wide interest in lots of genres or ripped CDs and EQing their system on the cheap. Here's a personal example; I have 1000+ CDs/downloads on a NAS, Qobuz, and listen to this internet radio station that has 6000+ reviews of new releases (https://kfjc.org/music/). I find some I like to sample, guessing 50% are on Qobuz because my tastes are varied but not too weird and put them in my favorites and listen. If I like one Roon matches it others like it from my 1000+ CDs and the 7million albums on Qobuz with similar stuff in slick magazine format and when in the mood plays the selections in radio style format on Roon Radio. Roon's greatest feature is easy music discovery.

 

[AlfaNovember]

- Lack of a way to broadcast your own stream to your endpoints

There's a solution from Jan Koudijs aka "The Appgineer" called Roon Entrypoints, which builds on top of the Streaming Radio section of Roon. Setup is a bit fiddly and there's a bit of latency involved in use, but it's tolerable. Admittedly, it would be nice if the Roon devs incorporated the idea into the core product, but they seem to have firm ideas about their own product roadmap.

Home

A collection of Roon Extensions that let audio enter into your Roon system - TheAppgineer/roon-entrypoints

github.com

 

[mglobe]

This site usually comes up in English for me, but for some reason today it wants me to read German. Anyway, this is from the same guy @DrCWO who created RooExtend and the family of extensions that go with it. I have RooDial, which works really well. I've been toying with setting up RooPlay, but have not gotten to it yet. It allows you to feed pretty much any sort of audio signal into Roon.

https://shop.rooextend.com/pages/pf-extension-rooplay

 

[jhaider]

You and I probably aren't roons target audience. The majority of people under 40 have no interest in anything other than streaming, and certainly wouldn't own CDs, tapes or LP's.

Apple Music/Classical.

YouTube.

Deezer.

Bandcamp.

NFL Gamepass/DAZU.

Spotify.

Apple Podcasts.

Netflix.

Amazon Prime.

YouTube TV/NFL Sunday Ticket.

AppleTV+.

Max.

Disney+.

Paramount Plus.

Hulu.

etc.

If you’re using Roon as your EQ capability, you’re just guaranteeing yourself a second-rate sonic experience when enjoying program on any of the above streaming services. And realistically anyone who streams any content will use at least one of those sources (or some other one that’s not Tidal/Wobuz) some of the time, even if it's not her primary source.

Now, if you're using it as a music discovery tool in concert or player for Tidal/Wobuz/local content upstream of a proper hardware controller, then cool.

@CapMan I don’t know or even care what the computer goobledegook you used (“convolution,” etc) means. I’m simpler than that - either
(a) calibration signal processing works for all the program playing through that audio system, or
(b) calibration signal processing fails at its basic core purpose of calibrating the audio system.
That is distinct from tone control, which logically follows the program rather than the system and therefore makes good sense to include in a player.

Given that, the above incomplete list of streaming services (+ vinyl) Roon's EQ cannot touch should answer the question you posed above, even if we stipulate that digital disks are last decade's thing. Yet this expensive niche software used by barely any is often brought up here as justification to praise equipment makers for tinkering with circuit boards to get an extra inaudible dB of SINAD rather than adding real value by including calibration tools in their products. But for that Roon from my perspective would be just one more thing of many that's great for other people and that's that.