2019 Roon Thread - is it worth it?

[Recursion]

Roon costs as little as $120 per year, on an annual subscription.

That’s less than the price of a cup of coffee per day. Let’s put the price of Roon in perspective.

I’ll make the situation clear: I’m a lifetime subscriber, and I love Roon with my Linn Klimax DS/3. YMMV

https://roonlabs.com/r/fsumbvGpoUCMnMMa846tCA

Yes in addition to the the €20,- I'm already paying per month for my Tidal subscription. Yet, Roon's Tidal support isn't complete and it's local playlist management lacks too.

Why would I pay for a music player that doesn't do much more then the avarage audio player and also needs additional hardware to run on?

 

[kelly200269]

Roon's Tidal support isn't complete

How/why do you come to this conclusion?

I use both Tidal and Qobuz with Roon, and their integration is completely seamless.

 

[Recursion]

How/why do you come to this conclusion?

I use both Tidal and Qobuz with Roon, and their integration is completely seamless.

As I said in my first post on this thread, Roon doesn't support adding songs to my Tidal playlists. I have to use the Tidal client for that. That honestly is my biggest issue with Roon. If it actually supported that, i might start using it. For now, it isn't powerful enough for me.

 

[Ableza]

As I said in my first post on this thread, Roon doesn't support adding songs to my Tidal playlists. I have to use the Tidal client for that. That honestly is my biggest issue with Roon. If it actually supported that, i might start using it. For now, it isn't powerful enough for me.

That's a little different than your initial complete dismissal of Roon. If you need that functionality then Roon is not FOR YOU. So be it. But for me it was well more than worth the lifetime subscription cost. I don't use Tidal but I do use Qobuz and Roon is the best Qobuz interface on the market.

 

[Recursion]

That's a little different than your initial complete dismissal of Roon. If you need that functionality then Roon is not FOR YOU. So be it. But for me it was well more than worth the lifetime subscription cost. I don't use Tidal but I do use Qobuz and Roon is the best Qobuz interface on the market.

Well yes, my experience with Roon in the past hasn't been all that good. That must have caused me to be very dismissive against it. If things improve in the future however, I'm willing to try it again.

I have considered switching switching to Qobuz in the past and while it seems to offer even higher quality audio, it's collection is smaller than Tidal's which isn't too big to begin with.

 

[Ableza]

I always recommend to people that they use streaming services to AUGMENT their local library and not to rely on as a sole source. If you want something the services don't have, buy it.

That's why I like Roon - it shows local files and those I have added to my library from Qobuz side by side with equal priority, and when I listen to Roon's "Radio" function using my headphones while I work Roon finds tracks on Qobuz to play at random right along with my local files. I love listening in that mode and discover many new things.

 

[kelly200269]

I always recommend to people that they use streaming services to AUGMENT their local library and not to rely on as a sole source. If you want something the services don't have, buy it.

That's why I like Roon - it shows local files and those I have added to my library from Qobuz side by side with equal priority, and when I listen to Roon's "Radio" function using my headphones while I work Roon finds tracks on Qobuz to play at random right along with my local files. I love listening in that mode and discover many new things.

Couldn’t agree more

 

[111MilesToGo]

Soundwise, I like Audirvana the best. It helps too that it is a much cheaper solution than Roon.

However if Roon will give me an other trail version (which they won't), I can test again with the latest Roon version.

I read that statement on Audirvana most often, too. Unfortunately, with M$ it is for Windows 10 only, as stated. Too bad, though I am quite an experienced Windows user, I tend to dislike Win 10 the most for breaking ”everything“ every half year ... I am sticking to Win 8.1 as long as it takes me.

So, any chance for Audirvana on Windows 8.1? Guess no, just asking.

 

[ubs28]

I read that statement on Audirvana most often, too. Unfortunately, with M$ it is for Windows 10 only, as stated. Too bad, though I am quite an experienced Windows user, I tend to dislike Win 10 the most for breaking ”everything“ every half year ... I am sticking to Win 8.1 as long as it takes me.

So, any chance for Audirvana on Windows 8.1? Guess no, just asking.

I never tried it with Windows 8.1. I use it on Mac.

 

[orpheus89]

I always recommend to people that they use streaming services to AUGMENT their local library and not to rely on as a sole source. If you want something the services don't have, buy it.

That's why I like Roon - it shows local files and those I have added to my library from Qobuz side by side with equal priority, and when I listen to Roon's "Radio" function using my headphones while I work Roon finds tracks on Qobuz to play at random right along with my local files. I love listening in that mode and discover many new things.

Roon Radio is one of the best things about it. I've never seen a dynamic playlist with that hits the sweet-spot as well as Roon. Their algorythm is just very elegantly done and often shows me new music that I really like. Don't know how many albums I've added to my database just because Roon Radio played it to me.. fantastic

 

[audiobomber]

Roon Radio is one of the best things about it. I've never seen a dynamic playlist with that hits the sweet-spot as well as Roon. Their algorythm is just very elegantly done and often shows me new music that I really like. Don't know how many albums I've added to my database just because Roon Radio played it to me.. fantastic

Every music service does a version of a this Discovery mix,. I find it unlikely the Roon algorithm is better than others.

 

[orpheus89]

Every music service does a version of a this Discovery mix,. I find it unlikely the Roon algorithm is better than others.

Depends.. some softwares only use the Genre tag and create dynamic playlists, others use a variety of variables to do the same..
All I am saying is, that I've never experienced a software that played new music to me, that actually fits my taste and the previously played tracks as well as Roon Radio.. Maybe other services can do the same, but to be frank, I have not experimented with them, as I did not see the need for it... because I have Roon

 

[cj3209]

I have considered switching switching to Qobuz in the past and while it seems to offer even higher quality audio, it's collection is smaller than Tidal's which isn't too big to begin with.

If Spotify ever decides to upgrade their offering to a high resolution version, I will jump over many things to get it; there so much more music on Spotify than Tidal and Qobuz.

 

[Recursion]

If Spotify ever decides to upgrade their offering to a high resolution version, I will jump over many things to get it; there so much more music on Spotify than Tidal and Qobuz.

Honestly I don't see Spotify ever doing that. Their focus is on the mainstream consumers and not the audiophile niche. (They did have a high res beta in the past, after that we never heard anything about high res audio from them anymore.) Although it would be great if they ever decided to offer high res audio, I would definitely switch over in that case.

Tidal is fine for me for now, while it's collection is much smaller than Spotify's, it is sufficiently large that I can find almost all of the tracks and artists that I would normally listen to.

 

[rde01]

Roon Radio is one of the best things about it. I've never seen a dynamic playlist with that hits the sweet-spot as well as Roon. Their algorythm is just very elegantly done and often shows me new music that I really like. Don't know how many albums I've added to my database just because Roon Radio played it to me.. fantastic

Hi, do you mind sharing what you did to make the Roon radio algorithm work well for you? Did you favourite or ban alot of tracks?
Did you star rate whole albums etc?
For me it's not working very well so maybe i need to rate more. It's hard to describe but is chooses track that kind of relate to it but not the best ones.
If i play a movie soundtrack i love and than let roon radio do its thing it chooses other soundtrack but definetly not some that people would like.
(with alot of talking in it and i can not imagine audiophiles would like that)
Spotify seems to find really good tracks in the genres i listen too.