Article: Roon From Roon Labs - A Video Run-through

[ted_b]

We are somehow in duplicate world today!

 

Dog, the DSF rollout is very soon, likely within the next month or so. I will report back as soon as I see it (beta).

[baddog]

Sorry for my duplicates - I think there must have been something up with the website. I've asked Chris to remove my first 2 duplicated posts. Any thoughts on the PC spec required to run this? It looks quite graphically intensive so I'm a little worried about it running on the CAPS servers which are Atom based or lower powered.

 

Discussed here:

 

Roon Labs Community

[Forehaven]

Great looking program and usefulness! 2 things for me: One is price, I don't understand why it's an annual pricing program instead of buying it once. Seems like the Adobe CC play which I dislike immensely. And 2, I just spent $$$ for the full Amarra Symphony w IRC. I love the sound with pcm and JRiver's not bad at all with dsd too. I really dislike wasting money...

 

Still, really cool product.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Great looking program and usefulness! 2 things for me: One is price, I don't understand why it's an annual pricing program instead of buying it once. Seems like the Adobe CC play which I dislike immensely. And 2, I just spent $$$ for the full Amarra Symphony w IRC. I love the sound with pcm and JRiver's not bad at all with dsd too. I really dislike wasting money...

 

Still, really cool product.

Hi Forehaven - I certainly don't speak for Roon, but I believe the subscription model is partially needed to pay for ongoing licensing fees from sources of data like All Music Guide.

 

I'm a fan of the subscription model because it's a real business model that enables companies to continue development and fix issues. it's also more economical model in some cases. I have Adobe CC for $50 per month / $600 per year. For this price I get every Adobe app. The cost of the apps I use under the purchase model was prohibitively expensive and still need to be upgraded for every new release. With a subscription model like Roon you can purchase one year. If it turns out you don't like the product you don't pay anything more. With the purchase model you can buy Photoshop for several hundred dollars and you've really pre-paid for something you may not use after a year.

 

There's no right or wrong here. I just like the subscription model fro a consumer and business perspective.

[Forehaven]

Good perspective. (btw, man, I miss living in Berkeley, and I really missed not being at the CA group! Aargh...when ya gonna come to Chicago Chris?? hehehe)

 

Have you found too Chris that you miss Amarra while playing Roon?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Good perspective. (btw, man, I miss living in Berkeley, and I really missed not being at the CA group! Aargh...when ya gonna come to Chicago Chris?? hehehe)

 

Have you found too Chris that you miss Amarra while playing Roon?

I was just in Chicago for AXPONA! Maybe next year we should organize a CA By The Lake event in Chicago around the time of AXPONA. The show was really impressive this year and most of the exhibitors I talked to were very happy. It should be just as good next year.

 

Anyway, I don't miss any of my other players right now. But, it's still very early. I'm one of those guys who uses everything (both software and hardware). In reality the price of software is minuscule compared to some stuff in this hobby. Many computer audiophiles end up purchasing all the software players and switching between them as they wish.

[Forehaven]

It was a very good show this yr, and what an Excellent idea Chris!! I live only 2 blocks from the Lake so maybe I can help organize something next yr?

 

Good point about the software, it does seem most of my friends use multiple software platforms. It'd just be nice I guess to be able to choose the player software like you can choose a diff output for a diff. dac.

[thaddeussmith]

It's early afternoon.. New York time. #chompingatthebit

[The Computer Audiophile]

It's live https://roonlabs.com

[ChrisG]

I posted this in the Roon forum, but maybe someone already knows the answer.

 

The pricing for Roon includes "1 Roon library device", does this mean a license has to be purchased for each PC that is connected to a USB DAC? I certainly hope not!

 

* got a reply already, good news!

Nope! You only need to buy a license for one PC. On the other PC you can install Roon and launch it as a remote control, and even stream music to your remote's USB DAC. You can read more about setting up Roon to run remotely

[The Computer Audiophile]

I posted this in the Roon forum, but maybe someone already knows the answer.

 

The pricing for Roon includes "1 Roon library device", does this mean a license has to be purchased for each PC that is connected to a USB DAC? I certainly hope not!

 

* got a reply already, good news!

Nope! You only need to buy a license for one PC. On the other PC you can install Roon and launch it as a remote control, and even stream music to your remote's USB DAC. You can read more about setting up Roon to run remotely

It's pretty cool, your remote Roon installs appear as zones and can be controlled from any other Roon install.

[Catalysis]

Wow!

 

Trying is believing. I signed up within five minutes of playing with this.

 

This is everything other apps should have been and this is only the start.

 

10% discount if you sign up now, in case you all think I'm bonkers not waiting until the 14 day trial ends :-)

 

The brilliance of its metadata has to be second to none. For example in my Roy Harper selection it's sharp enough to also recommend his appearance on Have a Cigar on the Floyd's Wish You Were Here. Brilliant.

 

Where you have box sets it even separates the track order into the actual discs, rather than the usual four pieces of cover art.

 

The other really nice benefit is that it finally allows me to use my network player's ASIO driver with Tidal, one of my biggest complaints about that service.

 

How cool to be able to bring up an artist listing and immediately and seamlessly play any album/track you don't own if it is on Tidal. Amazing stuff.

 

Stunning product. Actually worth the rather hefty asking price. It seems to totally address the issues we all have with metadata and achieving a seamless interface for our collections.

 

If they can add Qobuz compatibility I will kiss them :-)

[tranz]

I must have missed this somewhere, but does it include an audio streaming library or is the $119 price on top of also needing let's say Tidal?

[The Computer Audiophile]

I must have missed this somewhere, but does it include an audio streaming library or is the $119 price on top of also needing let's say Tidal?

Streaming services like TIDAL require their own subscriptions

[rwwjr44]

I just jumped in and downloaded it. After 10 minutes of just playing around IT IS GREAT. I don't know if I will feel the same after more use but for now, it is a keeper.

 

Now they need to get DSD working.

[tranz]

Streaming services like TIDAL require their own subscriptions

 

Thanks. So essentially a personal music info data mining service for $10 p.m. with a nice looking playback software thrown in for free. In that case how it sounds compared to the current king of bit-perfect playback Amarra will be interesting.

[stevebythebay]

Interesting. Installed Roon and started importing music. However, the app is consistently crashing. Running Mac Yosemite 10.10.3 on Mac Mini with plenty of memory and 256GB SSD. Anyone else seeing this yet? Anyway, wondering how to get support. Don't see much in the way of a ticketing or other system on their site.

[ChrisG]

Thanks. So essentially a personal music info data mining service for $10 p.m. with a nice looking playback software thrown in for free. In that case how it sounds compared to the current king of bit-perfect playback Amarra will be interesting.

 

It's pretty cool software. While Chris's video is very informative, once you start playing with it, the value really becomes apparent. I'm on a PC and it runs fine. Add to the fact that Roon recognizes the virtual audio device from JRiver 20, it's the best of both worlds - much improved interface w/ JRiver audio playback.

 

While I know nothing about Amarra, except that it is the 2nd best bit-perfect playback software ;-), if it installs a virtual audio device like JRiver does, you're in for a treat.

[Catalysis]

It's the sort of product that you didn't know how much you needed until you tried it for yourself. It's just great to have one interface for both your own music collection and streaming content and then when you factor in that it all gets classified under the same metadata categories as if you owned it all, well you're moving into the awesome territory.

 

Really nice future developments would include Qobuz compatibility and actual album liner notes and I am sure anxious to see how this works with mobile apps, presumably acting as a remote for my dac connected laptop. For now I'll be using Splashtop, which isn't perfect but a good start.

 

It's super to see Tidal finally having a desktop interface that makes total sense. Having to shift between JRiver and Google Chrome was a right old pain, to say nothing of the inferior sound compared to Qobuz, I suspect primarily because Tidal in Chrome can't access your ASIO driver. That problem is history with Roon.

[bobbmd]

Streaming services like TIDAL require their own subscriptions

 

Chris- Roon is great thanks for the article-I signed up for the month trial. Roon in less than 2hours transferred or copied my iTunes library and my TIDAL playlists and it does appear to improve the sound quality and if so how? It made Amarra Sq+ open immediately and work without toggling back and forth to start Sq+ and with TIDAL it(Sq+) so far works without any 'pops' or 'crackles' and the dithering bar creates great sound at lower level of volume.

Do you think Roon will also be able to do the same for Qobuz(ie my playlists there) and for Beats Music(my several hundred MOG playlists i have there)?

It is so convenient everything is at my fingertips and i am just exploring. thanks again for introducing this.

bobbmd

[The Computer Audiophile]

It's the sort of product that you didn't know how much you needed until you tried it for yourself.

Very well said.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Chris- Roon is great thanks for the article-I signed up for the month trial. Roon in less than 2hours transferred or copied my iTunes library and my TIDAL playlists and it does appear to improve the sound quality and if so how? It made Amarra Sq+ open immediately and work without toggling back and forth to start Sq+ and with TIDAL it(Sq+) so far works without any 'pops' or 'crackles' and the dithering bar creates great sound at lower level of volume.

Do you think Roon will also be able to do the same for Qobuz(ie my playlists there) and for Beats Music(my several hundred MOG playlists i have there)?

It is so convenient everything is at my fingertips and i am just exploring. thanks again for introducing this.

bobbmd

Glad to hear you like it as much as I do. I'm not sure about Roon's plans to support Qobuz or Beats. I bet it would really help bump it up on the roadmap if Qobuz launched in the US.

[shum3s]

I have a Caps 3 with the Intel DN2800MT Mini-ITX board and it will not run Roon due to a fatal error "OpenGL needs to updated or graphic driver" which I have been unsuccessful to upgrade. Does anybody have any suggestions how to resolve this issue? Or this particular board not compatiable with Roon!

[The Computer Audiophile]

I have a Caps 3 with the Intel DN2800MT Mini-ITX board and it will not run Roon due to a fatal error "OpenGL needs to updated or graphic driver" which I have been unsuccessful to upgrade. Does anybody have any suggestions how to resolve this issue? Or this particular board not compatiable with Roon!

Bummer. My guess is this board won't support Roon.

[dbtom2]

B-b-b-b-b-b-booyah!! They emailed me. I signed up, downloaded and installed the software, and within ten minutes was listening to a queue I had created.

 

Thanks Chris for the video you put together. It was kind of a yawner and I was waiting for you to play something. But once the installation finished I was well-prepped to set things without any "how do I do that?" pauses.

 

I don't know if I'm an audiophile. But sitting here with my Magic Mouse and Bluetooth keyboard, across the room from my MacMini displayed on a 60" TV, I am so glad somebody else interacts with music the way I do.

 

Really liked (ironic choice of words) that I didn't see a single reference to Facebook or Twitter or whatever during the install or setup.

 

Anybody read the user agreement? Will Roon inspect my library for illegal duplicates? Will my tastes be sold to record labels and artists who will send me unrequested email? Just wondering.

 

Enjoying.

 

T.