Official Roon User Impressions Thread

[The Computer Audiophile]

You're using a UPnP client/server setup then? I've got my two computers as renderers, neither's a client of the other. Allows me to create solid but simple isolation from the internet creepy-crawlies for the computer serving the DAC and get rid of a lot of security processes. May have to re-think that for Roon.

No. No UPnP involved. Roon can be installed as a Server and a Client that views the server.

[Priaptor]

No. No UPnP involved. Roon can be installed as a Server and a Client that views the server.

 

Chris

 

When running in server mode will it play gapless? Also since there has been so much attention by so many (including me) to limiting services etc for best computer playback how do you think roon compares as a playback device compared to others?

[digitalzed]

A little over 1 hour in after having downloaded the program. Set up was simple and scanning my library was fast. Connected my Tidal account with no issue and was amazed at the integration. If you're a Tidal user you can kiss the crappy desktop application goodbye. Soon really makes great use of what Tidal can offer. I can see where hours could easily slip by with Roon's ability to mine information from every aspect of the tracks playing. Links to producers, musicians, studios, labels, it pretty amazing. Sound is good but I haven't compared it to either MC 20 or Audirvana yet. Still need time but positive initial impressions.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Chris

 

When running in server mode will it play gapless? Also since there has been so much attention by so many (including me) to limiting services etc for best computer playback how do you think roon compares as a playback device compared to others?

Full gapless support from NAS library and streaming from TIDAL.

[Priaptor]

Full gapless support from NAS library and streaming from TIDAL.

 

Thanks.

 

And the second part of the question??

[The Computer Audiophile]

Thanks.

 

And the second part of the question??

Way too early.

[dannyroonlabs]

We'd love more information on the The Intel NUC setup @dtb300 is running.... Could I possibly bother you to post details on your setup at https://community.roonlabs.com -- both our support team plus our developers will be looking there, and we want to make sure we do everything we can to make sure you can run on that NUC.

 

I have multiple NUCs running Roon, some in Windows 8.1, some in Linux (not quite ready to release the Linux yet!)

[Priaptor]

Way too early.

 

Again thanks. I figured.

[ednaz]

No. No UPnP involved. Roon can be installed as a Server and a Client that views the server.

 

Ah, it wasn't clear from anything I read whether you could install something on more than one machine to access Roon. So, this'll be a lot like my JRiver/JPlay setup - I'll have a fast main machine for data acquisition and management, and a number of less capable machines (or machines totally not related to entertainment that can be used from time to time to do so) for viewing and control.

 

As Curly would say, "Poifect!"

 

There goes my productivity...

[dtb300]

Thanks for the info about the NUC.

It is more than the NUC as I read about on Roon Forum. Looks to be more 2012R2 than the NUC. Others with 2012R2 are reporting same issue.

 

Roon said to install Server Essentials Experience, then install a Patch from Microsoft to see if that fixes it. They do not test on the 2012R2 server platform.

[dtb300]

We'd love more information on the The Intel NUC setup @dtb300 is running.... Could I possibly bother you to post details on your setup at https://community.roonlabs.com -- both our support team plus our developers will be looking there, and we want to make sure we do everything we can to make sure you can run on that NUC.

 

I have multiple NUCs running Roon, some in Windows 8.1, some in Linux (not quite ready to release the Linux yet!)

 

I have the 54250 version and running Server 2012R2 on it. I see on the forum others are having the same issues - same error - due to 2012r2, not the NUC.

 

I see from other posts, that installing Server Essential Experience, then the Microsoft patch cures the issues.

 

Maybe Phil (2012 Guru) will be able to review and see if there is another fix for this without having to install all that is associated with Server Essential Experience.

[Jabs1542]

Downloaded it, installed it, had it crawl through my library - easy peasy.

 

Impression - It's different, will take some getting used to. Currently I have my library organized in such a way that it's easy to maneuver using JRiver, this is completely different. Ran into a few hiccups alongside the way:

 

1) Couldn't find out why I couldnt see certain albums until I found a pattern, they were all DSD! I assume that will get resolved later.

 

2) Looked at Led Zeppelin and almost all of the albums were labeled as Presence. The album artwork was correct (i.e. for LED Zeppelin II, III, IV, etc.) but they were all called Presence. Then when I tried to rename them I ran into GUI problems and never really figured out how. It seems that if you can't find the one you want among the alternates it provides you then your out of luck. Would be nice to just be able to over write the name of the album. It's probably in there somewhere, as I said, GUI issues.

 

3) My music server is a headless CAPS and using an iPad for control through RDC doesn't work. It tries to use the iPad device itself as the sound source and says that there is no sound device. I have the same problem with Tidal btw, it would be great if someone could explain a work around.

 

4) So I included a couple of Tidal collections when I first installed Roon, the option said I could remove them later. Now it's later and I want to remove them - how is that done? Went to the Tidal settings, went to general settings, even went back to the original option screen that offered this to me in the first place - saying "no thanks" allowed me to not add more but it didn't remove the ones I had.

 

Still playing with the interface, Chris did a good job with his intro video, that helped a lot. It appears that if you don't know what you want to hear next, or just want to explore, then Roon is the go to tool. If you have a specific album you want to play, then a more direct solution such as JRiver is a better tool.

[digitalzed]

Downloaded it, installed it, had it crawl through my library - easy peasy.

 

Impression - It's different, will take some getting used to. Currently I have my library organized in such a way that it's easy to maneuver using JRiver, this is completely different. Ran into a few hiccups alongside the way:

 

1) Couldn't find out why I couldnt see certain albums until I found a pattern, they were all DSD! I assume that will get resolved later.

 

2) Looked at Led Zeppelin and almost all of the albums were labeled as Presence. The album artwork was correct (i.e. for LED Zeppelin II, III, IV, etc.) but they were all called Presence. Then when I tried to rename them I ran into GUI problems and never really figured out how. It seems that if you can't find the one you want among the alternates it provides you then your out of luck. Would be nice to just be able to over write the name of the album. It's probably in there somewhere, as I said, GUI issues.

 

3) My music server is a headless CAPS and using an iPad for control through RDC doesn't work. It tries to use the iPad device itself as the sound source and says that there is no sound device. I have the same problem with Tidal btw, it would be great if someone could explain a work around.

 

4) So I included a couple of Tidal collections when I first installed Roon, the option said I could remove them later. Now it's later and I want to remove them - how is that done? Went to the Tidal settings, went to general settings, even went back to the original option screen that offered this to me in the first place - saying "no thanks" allowed me to not add more but it didn't remove the ones I had.

 

Still playing with the interface, Chris did a good job with his intro video, that helped a lot. It appears that if you don't know what you want to hear next, or just want to explore, then Roon is the go to tool. If you have a specific album you want to play, then a more direct solution such as JRiver is a better tool.

Funny, now that I checked my Led Zeppelin albums (all recent hi res downloads) almost none of the names are correct. The tracks are but the album covers and choices to correct in the edit section are not right. I would think albums like Led Zeppelin II or Physical Graffiti would be easily found but not yet in Roon.

[FusionFive]

Funny, now that I checked my Led Zeppelin albums (all recent hi res downloads) almost none of the names are correct. The tracks are but the album covers and choices to correct in the edit section are not right. I would think albums like Led Zeppelin II or Physical Graffiti would be easily found but not yet in Roon.

 

I have run into the same issue with my remasters, but didn't have the time to find which box set or album match from a multitude of search results would fit the one in question. You can always go back to the user meta for the time being by selecting "none of these look right" twice and saying yes to the prompt on using the original metadata

[sasbyte]

this roon software is amazing. using it for 15mins and i am already hooked. better than jriver and itunes. i like the interface a lot

[dannyroonlabs]

4) So I included a couple of Tidal collections when I first installed Roon, the option said I could remove them later. Now it's later and I want to remove them - how is that done?

 

I'm having the support forums updated with this one, since it's already coming up a lot.

 

In Roon, you can go to your albums browser, click on the little tag next to the heart/favorite, and then it'll "focus" on your albums tagged with the tag you chose. All these essentials albums are tagged. You can then select all with Control-A/Cmd-A, and delete them, and they will get removed from Tidal's stars, and thus your library.

[dannyroonlabs]

The worst part about this Led Zeppelin issue is that we had a last minute emergency rewrite of the update system, and one of my lead developers told me explicitly "LET ME WORK ON THIS ISSUE OR EVERYONE WILL COMPLAIN ABOUT LED ZEPPELIN".

 

Sorry about this... this should actually resolve itself in the next few days, unless you did the "none of these look right" solution, in which case we will never touch it again.

[digitalzed]

The worst part about this Led Zeppelin issue is that we had a last minute emergency rewrite of the update system, and one of my lead developers told me explicitly "LET ME WORK ON THIS ISSUE OR EVERYONE WILL COMPLAIN ABOUT LED ZEPPELIN".

 

Sorry about this... this should actually resolve itself in the next few days, unless you did the "none of these look right" solution, in which case we will never touch it again.

 

LOL! Danny, if we did use the "None of these look right" option, we can try to update these in a few days, right?

[digitalzed]

I have run into the same issue with my remasters, but didn't have the time to find which box set or album match from a multitude of search results would fit the one in question. You can always go back to the user meta for the time being by selecting "none of these look right" twice and saying yes to the prompt on using the original metadata

Thanks.

[Jabs1542]

So I completely disconnected Tidal for a while just to focus on my library. I also added another rule to my JRiver Artist View which removes the DSD files.

 

When I go to Bach, Roon says I have 31 "works", JRiver shows 65 tracks

When I got to Beethoven, Roon says I have 47 "works", JRiver shows 158 tracks

When I go to Mozart, Roon says I have 83 "works", JRiver shows 225 tracks

When I go to Mahler Roon says I have 40 "works", JRiver shows 69 tracks

Going way down the list for Beethoven I see that Symphony No. 1 is "one performance" and when I click into it I can get to the four movements. I think everything is there, it's just different.

 

When I go to The Rolling Stones Roon says I have 12 albums, JRiver shows 12 albums

When I go to The Beatles Roon says I have 26 albums, JRiver shows 26 albums

 

I think everything is in there, it's just that it gets tagged in its own way, sort of like HQPlayer. The total track count is about the same (about 0.1% error and I suspect most of those are radio stations in JRiver) - note that I have DSD filtered out of the JRiver views.

 

Still have no idea how to control my main stereo using an iPad with RDC. After adjusting all of the possibilities the best I could do was to get playback out of the iPad - yuck. I also tried naming the zone (typing in the exact name I created in Roon on the main system) but it didn't work.

 

I must say say though that the "discovery" capabilities in Roon are really cool. I am having fun digging through my collection and finding connections - would rather be sitting on my lazy ass doing this on an iPad.

[jtwrace]

Does the lifetime membership Unlimited Remote Devices include the AURALiC ARIES? Is that considered a remote device? It seems as though you can swap computers at any time; right?

[Jabs1542]

Other good news - Roon is pretty low overhead on my CPU. The temp goes up to about the same as JRiver.

[tranz]

Hi Jabs1542

 

Try the Mocha VNC app in the mean time for headless Mac action.

[The Computer Audiophile]

If anyone wants to delete just a single TIDAL album previously added to their library they can simply right click the album to select it then select delete from the top of the window. Here's a screenshot.

 

[robbbby]

So i've had a bit of time to play with Roon now on my desktop PC which my headphone rig is attached to.

I'm having a lot of fun, I really like the layout of the interface and the interactivity is top notch. I'm also enjoying it's simplicity, setup is very easy (so far, haven't played with "remotes" yet), I like the fact that it doesn't have a normal menu bar like other software. There is no 'File > open' file/folder browser so it forces you to go through the library, some may not like that but i'm not bothered by it.

 

One thing I don't care for is how the artist info, album info, random info, etc. is done. It gives you a few lines of info within the gui, generally underneath the artist name/album/file info/focus button then to read the rest you need to click the little blue arrow, this forces a white popup screen (in windows at least), it would be nice if all this extra info can be scrollable from the main screen or if clicking the little blue arrow scrolled down to more info on the same screen without the big popup.

This is just a small gripe and is a personal preference sort of thing, others may prefer the popup window.

 

I can only hope that the mobile apps for tablet browsing/playback are as well done and just as interactive as the desktop software.

 

I plan to install this on my main system soon but i'm not sure what the best way to do it is.

I have a fileserver running windows 7 that serves all my music to the network. I then have my CAPS running win 8.1 hooked up to my main stereo/dac. Am I best to run the core program on the caps and have it monitor the drives on the fileserver or am I better off installing the core program on the fileserver and running my caps in remote mode?