Major Changes For Roon in Version 1.8

On February 9, 2021 Roon will be updated to version 1.8. I'm short on details, but hope to have the team back on the podcast to talk about all updates. For now, here are the written details straight from Roon. I was told Roon version 1.8 runs natively on Apple Silicon Macs with the M1 SoC or newer. I'm waiting on a second confirmation of this and will report back as soon as I hear. 

UPDATE: Just got confirmation that version 1.8 won't initially support Apple Silicon natively. Rosetta 2 is required. 

Press Release: 

February 2, 2021 – Roon Labs, the world’s most innovative music discovery and streaming platform that offers users a way to engage with their music collection in a whole new way, has made significant improvements with its latest software release.

Roon 1.8 brings an immersive new experience that delivers even more from the Roon features you know and love, in a powerful and beautiful new way.

Refined and redesigned
In its latest release, Roon becomes a captivating gallery of music for you to browse and explore your collection on a much deeper level.

Roon 1.8 presents a fresh, modern design with bold typography that looks visually stunning and is a pleasure to use. But the changes made are more than skin deep. Each of Roon’s newly designed layouts, from the new Home and artist screens to the composer and genre pages, are curated just for you.

The new vertical scroll makes it quick and easy to find the music that you’re looking for, no matter what device you’re using – meaning your Roon experience is consistent and seamless across desktop, tablet and smartphone.

Intelligent and powerful music discovery

Roon 1.8 brings extremely powerful new browsing capabilities and recommendations that understand your music collection like no other. By combining Roon’s deep metadata and learnings from how you and Roon’s community of 100,000 expert listeners use the platform, suggestions are made with uncanny insight and is tailored to each individual listener.

Whether you have an extensive music collection you’ve built up over years or you’re just starting out, your own music collection is always just the starting point. Roon helps you rediscover your own music collection and find new music outside it. And by connecting TIDAL or Qobuz streaming services to your Roon account, you have access to a vast world of high-resolution streamed music and the possibility of making endless new discoveries.

Focus: far beyond “search”

Roon’s Focus feature has long been the most powerful way to explore your own music, but the newly-expanded 1.8 release goes beyond your library. Focus can now be used to find music anywhere in Roon – even across Qobuz and TIDAL – giving you a 360- view of your favorite artists, genre, performers and composers.

Browse and filter your favorite artists’ most significant albums, their top collaborations, their influences and connections to the artists you already love – to find exactly the music you’re looking for. Not only can you browse a variety of new Roon-powered recommendations, but the new Discography view makes it easy to browse even the most prolific artist’s catalog.

Classical music reimagined

Roon understands that how you explore certain genres of music is different. That’s why the 1.8 release features a completely new visual style and information layout for classical music, bringing advanced discovery and an educational experience like no other service.

Whether you’re a connoisseur or just getting introduced to classical music, Roon guides you to explore the genre from the perspective of the composer, performance, period or more. It also provides tighter links between albums and composers, as well as simpler browsing and intelligent recommendations based on the composer, performer, composition or conductor you’re listening to.

The new Discography feature also includes a comprehensive new “performances” view, where you can use Focus to find the exact performance you’re looking for. Interested in hearing Martha Argerich performing Chopin? Maybe a Nocturne? All Bach recordings by Glenn Gould? In just a couple clicks, Focus will get you there.

An experience tailor-made for you

Ever wondered what your most listened to artist or genre is? The updated Home screen in 1.8 includes an all-new dashboard of your listening habits over time, broken down by top artists, albums and genres. This can be switched to show data for the last week, month, year or all time.

You also get a calendar view of what music you’ve been listening to over the last four weeks, and clicking on each section offers even deeper insight into your listening habits down to the minute.

There are now also quick links to the Roon Community within the app, so you are always just one click away from support from Roon and its music experts.