Why Roon?

[ahofer]

Roon seems like a cool idea, but ultimately didn't work for me. I didn't really care about the streaming integration (I know, a big selling point). The DSP and streaming to multiple endpoints were the selling points for me. The DSP was great. The streaming was... less seamless than either Airplay or Sonos in my house. Not saying it doesn't work for people, but it didn't well enough with my setup to justify the rather steep price.

Interesting, my comparisons were LMS, Chromecast, and DLNA/UPnP, and Roon has been a huge improvement, literally no streaming issues in two homes with 4 streaming points each (Roon-Ready, ROPIee, and Chromecast).

 

[tgray]

Streaming worked fine to one endpoint or so. But once I started trying synced playback to multiple points, it was just less polished than Sonos (very seamless) or even Airplay. I should note that doubt 80% of my endpoints are Sonos and not Roon-ready. Like I said, I bet it's great if you have a bunch of Roon-ready hardware. I'd probably buy it for $100-150 to use sometimes despite it not being a perfect match for my setup, but for the price it's at, I'll stick with what I'm using and buy another sub

 

[mrbungle]

Roon seems like a cool idea, but ultimately didn't work for me. I didn't really care about the streaming integration (I know, a big selling point). The DSP and streaming to multiple endpoints were the selling points for me. The DSP was great. The streaming was... less seamless than either Airplay or Sonos in my house. Not saying it doesn't work for people, but it didn't well enough with my setup to justify the rather steep price.

Roon remotes communicate to the core and the core to the endpoint. Sonos and Airplay go there directly. If your core is not connected to a reliable Ethernet, you have issues given WiFi duplex limitations. it’s pretty reliable when your home network is reasonably good. Audio, even upsampled, isn’t that big of a data stream, so it’s really not a big issue for most.

 

[tgray]

Yeah my core (main computer) and multiple endpoints are wired ethernet, and my house has 3 wifi points, so network coverage is good. It wasn't a streaming reliability issue, just general seamlessness. Like I said, never had any issues with Airplay reliability even though a lot of people do.

Just offering my perspective - I looked at it, could see why it would be attractive to some, and then realized I wasn't in that audience

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Roon works. It just does. You don't need to seek any help on any forum to use it properly.

I do agree but the myriad of daily posts on the Roon community would argue otherwise.

 

[bambadoo]

Maybe to avoid this:

Roon works. It just does. You don't need to seek any help on any forum to use it properly.

Then they really do not need the support forum or it should be empty.
https://community.roonlabs.com/c/support/6

 

[VintageFlanker]

Then they really do not need the support forum or it should be empty.
https://community.roonlabs.com/c/support/6

Right. This is 90% about bug reports. Not tutorials or tips about "how to use/integrate this with this". When you get over 100K users, trouble happens for hundreds of reasons.

I could personally say I've never experienced any of the issues mentioned over there... But alright, trust be told: I had troubles with Tidal sync few months back and a fix dropped a couple of days after that.

I'm using Tidal and Qobuz integration, live radios, or playback straight from my PC SSD. With both Roon Remote (Android) and my PC. With whatever USB, Roon Ready devices or CCA. Everything works just flawless. Everyday. The one and only big downside is pretty obvious: the Roon Core has to be running all the time.

As any good software (and it is) on the planet, the vast majority of users will be fine and a few % will have issues... mostly related to poor hardware behind, messy PC full of bloatware or bad network connection in the first place. LMS won't work any better for these people. Sure, some problems only related to Roon itself will still remain and will be fixed updates after updates... and so on.

 

[Jimbob54]

I do agree but the myriad of daily posts on the Roon community would argue otherwise.

Yup- I've had a couple /three issues that are either Roon or Roon plus streaming integration related and do have a live one at the minute.

Its better than my experience with iTunes and Plex beta attempt at online streaming but it sure aint perfect. I love the concept and the execution (mostly) but hate the price and the glitches can be very frustrating. Its still in my good books. For now,

 

[BDWoody]

I could personally say I've never experienced any of the issues mentioned over there... But alright, trust be told: I had troubles with Tidal sync few months back and a fix dropped a couple of days after that.

Same boat here. It just (other than very rare exception) works flawlessly, and am glad I got the lifetime before the most recent price increase. Used it for a few weeks, and it's integration with the CCA is what made me just bite the bullet and be done. Since then, I continue to appreciate it's 'slickness' in what it does, and I listen to more music with it than I did without it for whatever reason. That makes it worth a lot to me.

 

[Davelemi]

People complaining about the cost of a Roon subscription is laughable considering how many of us are well into 5 figures worth of gear.
The primary selling point for me is how seemless it is to integrate and operate my 6 endpoints.

 

[cequalspid]

Having 5 figures worth of gear does not make subscription cost complaints laughable. That response itself could be described as laughable and has no merits as an argument.

I‘ve been using Squeezebox since forever and once looked at Roon but the cost to me is laughable for what I would get from using it.
An aside, I choose what music I want to play, I don’t want algorithms picking things out for me. Much like search/marketing algorithms are turning us into products. If we have five figures worth of gear, surely a more dedicated dsp and or room correction device would make sense. I would use JRiver or Volumio if I let Squeezeserver go, and no longer even see Roon as an option.

 

[Jimbob54]

Having 5 figures worth of gear does not make subscription cost complaints laughable. That response itself could be described as laughable and has no merits as an argument.

I‘ve been using Squeezebox since forever and once looked at Roon but the cost to me is laughable for what I would get from using it.
An aside, I choose what music I want to play, I don’t want algorithms picking things out for me. Much like search/marketing algorithms are turning us into products. If we have five figures worth of gear, surely a more dedicated dsp and or room correction device would make sense. I would use JRiver or Volumio if I let Squeezeserver go, and no longer even see Roon as an option.

For some its the wrong product, for others its the right one. And for quite a few more I think its probably the right product at the wrong price. The ball is in Roon's court as to whether they want to try and grab any more of the latter group, not much they can do about the first group, which by the sound of it you are in.

 

[ahofer]

Funny how we want our decisions validated, no matter how personal.

 

[awdeeoh]

love roon because I never paid for it

 

[Katji]

[...] The ball is in Roon's court as to whether they want to try and grab any more of the latter group, not much they can do about the first group, which by the sound of it you are in.

When you get over 100K users, trouble happens for hundreds of reasons.
[...]
As any good software (and it is) on the planet, the vast majority of users will be fine and a few % will have issues... mostly related to poor hardware behind, messy PC full of bloatware or bad network connection in the first place. LMS won't work any better for these people.

Something I thought of, a while ago...Maybe they thought of that long ago- (and they did think about proper software development in the first place)...I mean why Roon is expensive - or somewhat expensive. If it was me, I'd take that approach.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Roon is nice if you have a mix of different sources (local files plus streaming) and end points (Sonos, Airplay, wired DACs, etc.). The large amount of metadata they pull in is great, but I find the interface sub-par on iOS devices, which are my primary controllers. I'm looking at other solutions now due to their inability (or refusal) to develop a native iOS app (people have been asking Roon for a native app on iOS for years).

Whether the iOS app is “native” (I.e., written from the ground up in Swift) or not, the Roon iOS app performs fine. It might not follow all the Apple interface conventions, but it’s not bad from a UI perspective.

 

[Vhond]

love roon because I never paid for it

???

 

[Zensō]

Whether the iOS app is “native” (I.e., written from the ground up in Swift) or not, the Roon iOS app performs fine. It might not follow all the Apple interface conventions, but it’s not bad from a UI perspective.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I find the user experience terrible on iOS devices (the progress bar at the bottom that interferes with the ubiquitous "home" swipe is only one egregious example). The multiple, long complaint threads on the Roon forum indicate that I'm not the only one unhappy with the poor design and support on iOS.

 

[Katji]

How are the Soundcloud and Bandcamp apps on iOS?

 

[Zensō]

How are the Soundcloud and Bandcamp apps on iOS?

They're amazing! Roon could learn a few things from Soundcloud. /s

Seriously, one bad does not make another bad any better. We should all hope for more.