I now get Roon..

[craighartley]

To Wap, Cebolla, Craig, and tne:

 

My thanks to tne who correctly saw my post as a "playful poke." "Noxious" in my case simply referred to the common British use of the particular phrase, almost never spoken in the U.S.A., "have got." To Cebolla and Craig, I'm sorry you read my post as having an offensive intent, but I'm glad you raised the matter so I can comment:

 

I love Britain and its people, *wherever* they come from. I love those with all colors and shapes, all religions, all beliefs, even when those beliefs deeply oppose mine. I can say the same about all other countries, because that is *my* religion. Wap has a wonderful moniker that reminds me of beautiful hamlets in Britain like Chipping Camden and Moreton-in-the-Marsh.

 

I am saddened and disgusted by the xenophobic, jingoistic, and bigoted statements that have emerged from my country, especially in the Republican Party Primary campaign. I lament the undoing of so much hard work and sacrifice, made by people everywhere, to bring the world together.

 

And Wap's nickname *sounds* like an old American ethnic slur. So when I use his nickname in a friendly post, it turns the slur implication around into a message of friendship instead of prejudice. That is always my hope, anyway!

 

While there are many people here that I feel are friends, even though we've never met in person, Wap is actually the only person I have "friended" on the CA Forums. I really like his posts, especially ones that challenge my thoughts. I often send (what I intend to be) funny notes into some forum conversations; I think the forums have room for that.

 

So I'll end with a note of gratitude to Wap and all Britons, as well as the many other thoughtful members of this forum, and to all the world's people.

 

Sam

 

Thanks for explaining Sam. I'm really glad you wrote this. My original problem was not that I took offence personally, but that I didn't understand the joke.

Craig

[OneHandWaving]

With all due respect a likely customer can get the concept (in this case blending online streaming services with your own personal digital library) without actually trying it..

 

That's not really the concept though - not everyone has Tidal - the concept is overlaying your music with a rich layer of meta-data. Is that worth what they're charging? That's an individual decision. Would I have preferred monthly payments? Yes I would, but I expect the reason they went with annual payments was to get more money into the company upfront to recoup some of their development costs.

[Bystander]

You all win. I got as far as the "give us your credit card number and we will bill you from now until doomsday". I wasn't curious enough to go past that.

 

Same here. Though I did get an email from them recently about that. If the code will allow me to sign up without giving up my cc info, I might go for a trial one of these days (frankly that 14-day trial seems a bit skimpy as well, seeing as you can get 3 months of Apple Music for free) :

 

It looks like you created a Roon account but didn't take advantage of our free trial.

 

Due to license restrictions, we were required to ask for credit card details, but soon we're going to be able to provide trials with no credit card required!

 

For now, we want to make it as easy as possible for you to see for yourself why Roon was named a Stereophile Product of the Year for 2015! Just click the link below to start a free 14-day trial:

 

Redeem your free 14-day Roon trial with code...

[Bernardo C]

I've also tried Roon for a few days and decided to cancel my trial way before the period ended. Here's the feedback I gave to them, based on what I saw it doing (or not doing) to my music library:

 

"The tagging still have a long way to go to be close to ideal and justify the costs.

Two good examples of what I am saying: you categorise the Brazilian artist Chico Buarque as bossa nova. He's not a bossa nova musician. Then I removed the tagging, but his albums are still marked as bossa nova. So, removing the tag from the artist does not remove the tag from his albums. These are two tagging failures in one example.

Secondly, the violin player of Dave Matthews Band, Boyd Tinsley, is only associated with one of the band's album, although I have 54 albums of the band and he has played in all of them. Very upsetting!

Another problem I have is that it doesn't seem to be possible to organise albums by audio resolution. I have flac and DSD versions of the same album, I'd like to be able to know before selecting the album which one I'm choosing (these are separate masterings of the same album, by the way, reason why I want them both there).

The software is an effort that I can appreciate, but you are really aiming too high with that price mark in my opinion. Spotify or Apple Music leaves you in the dust in terms of tagging accuracy, I'm sorry to say. And music quality aside, I can listen to 30,000 songs anywhere with a subscription to one of these services. With Roon I have to buy a subscription to keep my own purchased music files (or Tidal) presented in an interesting way, but this is failing in my opinion. For a fraction of the cost I could probably bear with the amount of extra work I'd have to do with Roon to give full meaning to categorisation or my music library. There's no way I'm spending the asking price to do half of the work myself."

[tne]

Actually I would like to see a one sentence clear description of what the benefits of Roon are, not the marketing stuff. I wish them the best, but I still cannot see a single reason for me to have it. If it is just a music organizer with nice GUI, then no thanks. It does not matter if HQPlayer or Tidal is integrated. It still adds nothing to my enjoyment of the music. But, as always, some will have a different perspective.

[Zakus]

. If it is just a music organizer with nice GUI, then no thanks. It does not matter if HQPlayer or Tidal is integrated. It still adds nothing to my enjoyment of the music. But, as always, some will have a different perspective.

 

It is a music organizer with a nice interactive GUI. A different perspective, Tidal and the upcoming HQ Player integration do and will greatly add to my enjoyment of music.

[sdolezalek]

This seems to be the "why I hate Roon thread," so I don't want to disrupt people's freedom to announce their frustrations with a new consumer product. But virtually every one of the frustrations voiced so far seems to me to be a function of not spending enough time with the software and not being willing to treat it like a millennial: "try everything, you won't break it; but unless you explore all of its possibilities, you won't understand why people love it so."

 

When integrated with Tidal and even more so when both the HQPlayer integration is live and more Roon Speakers modules are out, Roon simply does a lot more to enable enjoyment of a growing music collection than any other tool out there.

 

Ok, so that sounds like marketing speak, so I will try to summarize why after years of enjoying first iTunes, then JRiver then Audirvana, I now spend more time with Roon than all the rest combined:

 

1. Easy to use filters: quickly and easily dissect your entire collection by genre, by album type, by format, by date added, by almost any characteristic you want to choose, all using the "FOCUS" function.

 

2. Roon radio: after you have played a few selections, let Roon Radio keep the music coming, dynamically and effectively developing a radio station from your content based on what you have been listening to. I often forget that my playlist has ended and Roon radio has started, the transition is that seamless.

 

3. The Tidal integration: I enjoy Tidal more through Roon than in its own application. Why, because Roon lets me explore new Tidal music in a flexible and enjoyable fashion, by exploring new music as it relates to what i already have and by instanteanously letting me add Tidal selections to my Roon library.

 

4. Its flexibility across platforms and devices: I use Roon across the entire house, all sharing a NAS-based music collection, but tied to different endpoints and using my iPad as the handheld remote, wherever I am. I also enjoy the ease of adding new devices, DACs, etc. and having them be individually and easily configurable.

 

5. The tagging and search capabilities. I find these generally more intuitive and flexible than in other applications. They aren't perfect, but the end result is that it is much easier to find and play whatever I want in Roon than the other software I have tried.

 

6. Playlists: They are easy to build, you can import those you created in Tidal and they are easy to adjust even after you created them.

 

7. The Roon Community: A great support forum and a very active group of Roon engineers working hard to make their product better in response to user comments. In particular it has been great to see senior members of the Roon team very active in the user forum, addressing issues and being very accommodating.

 

Used this way, the combination of Roon, Tidal and HQPlayer isn't cheap, but it has changed my listening experience for the better and I find that I'm still buying new content (usually in hi-res, but often in 16/44 format), but now, when I buy something, I buy it because I already have been enjoying it through Roon plus Tidal and just want my personal copy in the best-available format.

[rodaguilera]

I'm really enjoying Roon; As long as your rips or downloads are well tagged and organized i found that it really works well. It's just a matter of getting used to it's style. You can customize it a lot right now.

 

For me there's nothing like it right now! Lyrics, reviews, bios, recording details metadata, native DSD playing etc...

 

I'll keep it together with Audirvana and follow its development; A lot of companies started to work on solutions based on Roon.

 

I don't use Tidal anyway.

 

Regards

[tne]

I have HQPlayer and already know where my files are. Not really geared toward a streamer such as Tidal, but even if I was it can be used as a standalone like HQPlayer can. So when you state the reasons Roon is good is because it has those programs, I will say one can have them already. I am assuming one still needs to buy HQPlayer and Tidal in addition to Roon (correct?).

 

As I said earlier I understand others like the GUI and organizational tools, but the way I listen to music, those are immaterial.

 

I really would like someone to tell me if I am missing something.

[Zakus]

I have HQPlayer and already know where my files are. Not really geared toward a streamer such as Tidal, but even if I was it can be used as a standalone like HQPlayer can. So when you state the reasons Roon is good is because it has those programs, I will say one can have them already. I am assuming one still needs to buy HQPlayer and Tidal in addition to Roon (correct?).

 

As I said earlier I understand others like the GUI and organizational tools, but the way I listen to music, those are immaterial.

 

I really would like someone to tell me if I am missing something.

 

Currently to use HQ player (OSX) I have a window open with my files organised by artist name with the albums as subfolders. At present I have to get up out of my listening position, try remember the artist of the album I'm looking through as I am scrolling through ugly folders with just names no metadata. Who was that again? Then open the folder of the artist then open the album folder and drag and drop the files to play.

 

Looking forward to the day when I can search through an interactive informative GUI with powerful search tools to find just what I feel like listening to. Press play and the music is heard with HQPlayer's amazing sound. All from my listening chair through a purpose iPad app rather than getting up as though to change an LP over or through a clunky VPN.

 

Each to their own.

[firedog]

Another problem I have is that it doesn't seem to be possible to organise albums by audio resolution. I have flac and DSD versions of the same album, I'd like to be able to know before selecting the album which one I'm choosing (these are separate masterings of the same album, by the way, reason why I want them both there).

 

In settings, Roon enables you to have each album labelled acc'd to samplerate/DSD/resolution. Click the setting and it will do this automatically.

 

The "focus" feature allows you to set up smartlists based on resolution of albums.

[Jabs1542]

I have HQPlayer and already know where my files are. Not really geared toward a streamer such as Tidal, but even if I was it can be used as a standalone like HQPlayer can. So when you state the reasons Roon is good is because it has those programs, I will say one can have them already. I am assuming one still needs to buy HQPlayer and Tidal in addition to Roon (correct?).

 

As I said earlier I understand others like the GUI and organizational tools, but the way I listen to music, those are immaterial.

 

I really would like someone to tell me if I am missing something.

 

Here's your simple definition (I've posted tgis in other threads as well). If you have all the music you want and it's organized the way you like it, then Roon isn't for you. If you like to explore and learn new music, then Roon is the best way to get there.

 

As stated by others, I have purchased a lot of really good music I never knew existed because of Roon. Roon takes me there from the music I start off with. What I find funny is that some of this newly discovered music is within my own library.

[Priaptor]

Here's your simple definition (I've posted tgis in other threads as well). If you have all the music you want and it's organized the way you like it, then Roon isn't for you. If you like to explore and learn new music, then Roon is the best way to get there.

 

As stated by others, I have purchased a lot of really good music I never knew existed because of Roon. Roon takes me there from the music I start off with. What I find funny is that some of this newly discovered music is within my own library.

 

EXACTLY. I have so many (lost) albums that the biggest benefit of Roon is allowing me to discover music in my own library.

[Jimmypowder]

EXACTLY. I have so many (lost) albums that the biggest benefit of Roon is allowing me to discover music in my own library.

 

Lol . That's when you know your library is too big .

[sdolezalek]

Lol . That's when you know your library is too big .

 

+1 ;-))))

[ajoe]

EXACTLY. I have so many (lost) albums that the biggest benefit of Roon is allowing me to discover music in my own library.

 

EXACTLY. I had lost a cd. Roon told me it was under the sofa cushion. AMAZING!

[4est]

Well, you can pretty much do this with Muso as an HQPlayer front end. I tried Roon months ago, but it would not play nice with my touch screen monitor and they did not have a solution for it then. Ultimately it seems way over priced for what it does for me, but if they get the HQP integration down, I may buy into it yet.

Currently to use HQ player (OSX) I have a window open with my files organised by artist name with the albums as subfolders. At present I have to get up out of my listening position, try remember the artist of the album I'm looking through as I am scrolling through ugly folders with just names no metadata. Who was that again? Then open the folder of the artist then open the album folder and drag and drop the files to play.

 

Looking forward to the day when I can search through an interactive informative GUI with powerful search tools to find just what I feel like listening to. Press play and the music is heard with HQPlayer's amazing sound. All from my listening chair through a purpose iPad app rather than getting up as though to change an LP over or through a clunky VPN.

 

Each to their own.

[Musicophile]

Lol . That's when you know your library is too big .

Your library is never too big, it's your brain that may be too small to remember everything....

[kumakuma]

Your library is never too big, it's your brain that may be too small to remember everything....

 

So true. Unfortunately both the hearing AND memory start to go as one gets older.

[Priaptor]

So true. Unfortunately both the hearing AND memory start to go as one gets older.

 

Don't remind me. Getting old is a bitch. My cousin now 68 said, the turning point is 62 just as I was turning 62 last April. Boy was he right. The good news, I am almost 63 close to the end of the 62 curse, but not without scars.

[kumakuma]

Don't remind me. Getting old is a bitch. My cousin now 68 said, the turning point is 62 just as I was turning 62 last April. Boy was he right. The good news, I am almost 63 close to the end of the 62 curse, but not without scars.

 

As Bette Davis said, “Old age ain't no place for sissies.”

[Paul R]

I cannot help but be a bit amused, in a nice sort of way I mean.

 

One the one side, we have the ROON Enthusiasts

...... on the other

The Turntable Guys

 

This is like a circle that is almost closed, with the extremes, Roon and Analog Only types, being on opposite sides, but very close together in all actuality.

 

Think about it -both sides argue that their way brings you closest to the music. Soon though deep exploration, Vinyl through listening to at least an album side at a time.

 

Both sides have mysterious incantations of perform before one can listen to the music.

 

Almost more alike there than different. And both very far away from the person who wants to kick back, grab their iPhone or iPad, and start music flowing around them. I think that in many ways, ROON and Vinyl are very far away from the average CA'er today.

 

 

-Paul

[Jabs1542]

I cannot help but be a bit amused, in a nice sort of way I mean.

 

One the one side, we have the ROON Enthusiasts

...... on the other

The Turntable Guys

 

This is like a circle that is almost closed, with the extremes, Roon and Analog Only types, being on opposite sides, but very close together in all actuality.

 

Think about it -both sides argue that their way brings you closest to the music. Soon though deep exploration, Vinyl through listening to at least an album side at a time.

 

Both sides have mysterious incantations of perform before one can listen to the music.

 

Almost more alike there than different. And both very far away from the person who wants to kick back, grab their iPhone or iPad, and start music flowing around them. I think that in many ways, ROON and Vinyl are very far away from the average CA'er today.

 

 

-Paul

 

I must fit a different mold, I'm a Roon AND Turntable guy - it's all about the music, no matter where it comes from

[Paul R]

I must fit a different mold, I'm a Roon AND Turntable guy - it's all about the music, no matter where it comes from

 

That's the point, Roon and Turntables both appeal to people with the same turn intheir personalities. Almost like two expressions of the same idea.

[tne]

Ah, where to begin....

 

I am not a Roon guy or a Turntable guy. This is an absurd and pointless dichotomy.

 

I have many routes to discovering new music, including the music threads here, friends of various ages and interests, and a teenage daughter. So those limitations do not apply here. Streamers can be used without Roon, as they were before it existed. Again a pointless dichotomy was used.

 

So don't misinterpret me please. I am not hating on Roon and understand why it works well for some. But to declare that it is more than a pretty interface that integrates one's music library and streaming seems a bit far fetched to me. I will follow its developments and maybe one day change my mind about its usefulness in my musical enjoyment experience.