[Ableza]

I love Roon. It has increased my music enjoyment immensely. I don't own any classical box sets, however, so YMMV.

 

[NovaFlyer]

Researching Roon possiblity as I just bought my first home a few weeks ago. So biggggggggggggggggggggg...

Congrats on your first house!

I have a Roon trial and am liking it very much. Being able to "link" my personal music collection with my Tidal subscription is very nice, and it's very easy to find tracks that I see here on Head-Fi. I have about 60 playlists in iTunes and they transferred seamlessly. As I look to the future with Apple possibly dumbing down their music player, I also discovered Last.fm and that Roon is able to integrate there as well. Plus being able to see lyrics for many songs is a bonus. I'll probably get a lifetime subscription.

 

[The Socialist Nerd]

Thanks so much. Right now I am focused on building my music server and improving my internet network.

Congrats on your first house!

I have a Roon trial and am liking it very much. Being able to "link" my personal music collection with my Tidal subscription is very nice, and it's very easy to find tracks that I see here on Head-Fi. I have about 60 playlists in iTunes and they transferred seamlessly. As I look to the future with Apple possibly dumbing down their music player, I also discovered Last.fm and that Roon is able to integrate there as well. Plus being able to see lyrics for many songs is a bonus. I'll probably get a lifetime subscription.

 

[ggetzoff]

I've been using Roon for a year. I love it for these reasons:

1. The interface ease of use
2. The integration of disparate / various pieces of hardware
3. DSP on the fly with an endpoint
4. Speed at of the core / endpoint
5. Tidal / Qobuz via Roon sound quality is significantly better for the way it exploits driver and noise bypass in Windows

Yes, it's pricey, but not that much when you consider how little it is per day and how much you get out of it when you listen most days as I do, and for many hours when I listen.

I don't think Roon is one of those YMMV products, I think it is a bargain that provides true performance and ease-of-use in an industry of more $$ = less.

My best sounding setup is using an Ipad or phone (android) as an endpoint because of the battery power. No matter what ridiculous shunt regs and other quite designs I've built nothing touches battery powered audio.

Cheers,

Greg

 

[Ableza]

^^ Well said, I agree concerning Roon.

 

[Ultrainferno]

For giveaway 48 we have for you a full subscription to Roon for a year. Sign up now!

https://www.headfonia.com/giveaway-48-roon/

 

[silversurfer616]

Trying the 14 days trial period and as a 'headphone only' user and 'non oversampling' guy, it is degrading the sound I am after. Music is now beautiful and sleek but has sucked out depth, holgraphic soundstage and the emotional quality of instruments and most of all voices is lost.
That's with all my headphone systems.
Probably different on a speaker based system.

 

[starence]

Trying the 14 days trial period and as a 'headphone only' user and 'non oversampling' guy, it is degrading the sound I am after. Music is now beautiful and sleek but has sucked out depth, holgraphic soundstage and the emotional quality of instruments and most of all voices is lost.
That's with all my headphone systems.
Probably different on a speaker based system.

That's odd, what software were you using before? Might want to check these guides before you give up on Roon.

https://kb.roonlabs.com/Sound_Quality

https://kb.roonlabs.com/Sound_Quality_in_One_Computer

 

[silversurfer616]

Thanks for the links, also after a few hours listening I am somehow getting used to the different sound signature. It is very polished and sleek...so different, though.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

What are your experiences with Roon? Any happy long-term users? Any recommended alternatives? I tried Plex and will also try Emby and the software provided by Synology, but I do not expect much at this point ...

I trialed roon and hated it. It requires your music to be tagged and they expected me to tag 2T of music *and* pay their price. No. roon is supposed to be about metadata, but they butchered my collection and displayed it like somebody on bad drugs.

They expected me to rip my SACD isos (have a few hundred) into separate .dsf files.

<FAIL>

At the end of the day roon is basically a shiny GUI for your music. They don't have support for the OS I run, they expect me to spend weeks tagging my music so they can show me what I already know I have since all my albums are cataloged artist, album, title and they can't figure out what I have. Just hugely stupid. Hated it, ten thumbs down.

Instead, I have a node 2i. Their app is pretty good, I can browse my folders and play my music that I serve over samba on an OS that roon doesn't support. I wouldn't pay 5 bucks for roon.

edited: I wrote 2G of music but I meant 2T... <facepalm>

 

[Hoegaardener70]

I actually ended up buying it. I spent a week or so on sorting out tags (all while listening to music, so it wasn't that bad) and since then, I am quite happy with what it offers.

 

[Ableza]

Roon works far better for me than any other solution I have tried. I love it. The Roon server software is fast and uses few resources on my Linux server, and I use the Roon app from a Win 10 PC, from two iPhones and two iPads, and they work wonderfully with all my five Roon endpoint devices in the house. Seamless, easy to use, and I did not have to tag or re-tag any of my 4.2Tb library. SQ noticeably exceeds that from the old LMS system I had been using. It's one of the best software investments I've ever made.

YMMV, as always.

 

[MrPanda]

I think Roon was the most significant audio software purchase I've made - I have a large library, and use both Tidal and Qobuz with it. The integration is perfect, it works in every room on a variety of systems, and I can't fault the sound one bit. It has EQ features, substantial editing features (merging albums WITHOUT screwing up the ID tags, etc), and works perfectly from an iPad or phone as a controller. Best $500 (lifetime membership) I've spent on audio.

 

[bfreedma]

Roon works far better for me than any other solution I have tried. I love it. The Roon server software is fast and uses few resources on my Linux server, and I use the Roon app from a Win 10 PC, from two iPhones and two iPads, and they work wonderfully with all my five Roon endpoint devices in the house. Seamless, easy to use, and I did not have to tag or re-tag any of my 4.2Tb library. SQ noticeably exceeds that from the old LMS system I had been using. It's one of the best software investments I've ever made.

YMMV, as always.

I think Roon was the most significant audio software purchase I've made - I have a large library, and use both Tidal and Qobuz with it. The integration is perfect, it works in every room on a variety of systems, and I can't fault the sound one bit. It has EQ features, substantial editing features (merging albums WITHOUT screwing up the ID tags, etc), and works perfectly from an iPad or phone as a controller. Best $500 (lifetime membership) I've spent on audio.

What they said...

Roon used my existing library without any retagging, and the ability to control multiple end points via an iPad is the exact use case/solution I was looking for. The Roon server is lightweight on Windows 10 and the cross platform endpoints and interfaces have worked flawlessly since initial install.

It may not be the tool for everyone but it was the tool for me.

 

[silversurfer616]

Despite being critical a few days ago I am a convert now.
After getting used to the new sound I really love the interface with all the info at my fingertips.
My Linux based server run Squeezebox before and I was never really happy with the 'random tracks' play as this is the feature I use most. Roon just digs wider and deeper into my collection and finally I can hear all the songs I would never have listened to without Roon.
Even bought a new ipad mini to use all the 'remote control' features.