Roon Vs jriver

[rn701]

Have trialed Roon a few times, most recently this weekend. I keep going back to Jriver.

 

Roon UI is nice, metadata is nice, SQ is excellent. Phone/tablet app is great. Tidal integration in Roon is the only way I would use Tidal if I still subscribed. Network and software architecture is outstanding.

 

Jriver also has excellent SQ and flexible network architecture. Library management is superior in every way. Playlist management is superior. DSP options are extensive. File import/export, conversion features, plus cd ripping are comprehensive and absent from Roon. Their phone/tablet app is adequate+. Bonus, it responds to MCE remote commands, which, along with a Harmony hub and the awesome third-party House Band skill,  gives you extensive Alexa voice control that will amaze your friends. Also, the code is super tight and efficient and will run (actually loaf) on just about any PC/cpu.

 

Yes, the Jriver UI is stuck in the 90s, psychedelic and somewhat impenetrable. They keep tweaking weird features and wasting time/resources on video (they should spin that off) when they should be giving it facelift to bring the ui into the 21st century so normal people can actually use it. They have a nice looking mobile sync feature, but it never works. They seem to have abandoned features like theater view.

 

Alas, their code base is likely approaching unmanageable, so a rewrite would be in order. Unfortunately, with all the features and tweaks it would probably take years and there are likely parts that are black boxes that nobody remembers  how they work. Similar to an old geezer like me, I guess.

 

Then there's the price differential. Oy!

 

Anyway, Roon has been very accommodating with regard to repeated free trials. They seem like smart, serious, decent people who are trying to change how people interact with their music. I give them credit for that.

 

But, I'm probably with Jriver until one or the other of us dies. If Roon addresses all the aforementioned deficiencies I'll take another look. And I might even be willing to pay the premium.

[Vectra]

I just heard about Roon and had a few questions:

 

1. Their web page markets a "problem" and their "solution" which to me looked similar to surfing All Music Guide web site w/a subscription so no ads.  Is their content any more interesting than AMG?

 

2. Do you recommend Roon for controlling songs played in various rooms in the house (i.e. alternative to Soonos)?  I have been enjoying Apple Music on my iPad played on my Airplay speaker (RIva) and wanted to use a controller like WIN 10 Laptop (or iPad) to search and play my multi-TB PC based FLAC songs sent to various rooms (less interested in syncing songs in various rooms).   I use JRiver today.

I have been thinking of just using Apple Music and Airplay/Apple TV or Chromecast/Spotify for casual listening around the house outside my main audiophile room or working with DLNA and JRiver.

 

3. How is Roon for managing different versions of the same album (i.e. I have several different mixes and masters of classic albums (MFSL, AF, Steve Wilson 5.1 BD, original WG, etc.).   I have this all tagged and sorted in JRiver.

 

In general I'm trying to summarize why I would be interested in trying Roon.

[bobbmd]

@The Computer Audiophilemy apologies I didn't mean to sound so obtuse/mean-i was much 'younger' in terms of my audiophile knowledge when i bought jriver years ago and was very frustrated in my attempt to get it to work or get reasonable answers-maybe it had something to do with my attempt to use it with PC based computer but then had same/worse problem when i went to Apple

i will apologize to Jim directly-i didn't mean to sound like  the shrills/trolls i complain about am truly sorry for my comments bobbmd

[bobbmd]

@jriver i am very sorry if my words were were too strong and i humbly apologize as i said to Chris i would write you directly to apologize but i see @firedog said/confirmed what i said-but i had no business saying anything since i am years from my interactions with JRiver and as i said could care less sorry i stuck in my 2cents and became just another schrill/troll that i don't like myself on this forum bobbmd

[asdf1000]

2 hours ago, Vectra said:

In general I'm trying to summarize why I would be interested in trying Roon.

 

It can be difficult to predict how Roon manages your tagging. Best to try the risk-free, 2 week free trial to find out exactly.

 

If you need an extra week or two with the free trial, you can always ask them :-)

 

[Matias]

18 hours ago, ElviaCaprice said:

Not really if your DAC does a much better job at it, like Chord.  Could even be a disadvantage if your taxing your server more.

Again that is why I always stat it is a CHOICE and OPTIONAL. Your example is also listed on the Roon article btw (reasons not to upsample #4).

[The Computer Audiophile]

15 hours ago, bobbmd said:

@The Computer Audiophilemy apologies I didn't mean to sound so obtuse/mean-i was much 'younger' in terms of my audiophile knowledge when i bought jriver years ago and was very frustrated in my attempt to get it to work or get reasonable answers-maybe it had something to do with my attempt to use it with PC based computer but then had same/worse problem when i went to Apple

i will apologize to Jim directly-i didn't mean to sound like  the shrills/trolls i complain about am truly sorry for my comments bobbmd

 

14 hours ago, bobbmd said:

@jriver i am very sorry if my words were were too strong and i humbly apologize as i said to Chris i would write you directly to apologize but i see @firedog said/confirmed what i said-but i had no business saying anything since i am years from my interactions with JRiver and as i said could care less sorry i stuck in my 2cents and became just another schrill/troll that i don't like myself on this forum bobbmd

Thanks Bob.

 

It's hard to get the full picture of a comment via the internet. I figured there was more to this than meets the eye. I don't know you to be grumpy guy :~)

[jriver]

15 hours ago, bobbmd said:

@jriver i am very sorry if my words were were too strong and i humbly apologize as i said to Chris i would write you directly to apologize but i see @firedog said/confirmed what i said-but i had no business saying anything since i am years from my interactions with JRiver and as i said could care less sorry i stuck in my 2cents and became just another schrill/troll that i don't like myself on this forum bobbmd

Bob,

Your apology is much better than mine.  Thanks for taking the trouble.  

 

Jim

[HardrockInMiniMac]

Roon is helping me to perfectly manage my music collection. I wouldn't bother too much if I only had -say- 100 CDs, but with a huge collection Roon is the best choice in my mind and I can't think of anything better on MacOS. 

 

Roon does not "sound" because I am not using any of the DSP features. I leave all of that to my hardware. 

I also have Audirvana and Amarra both latest versions and none of them compares to Roon's frontend I think.

 

Chris

[Fitzcaraldo215]

2 hours ago, HardrockInMiniMac said:

Roon is helping me to perfectly manage my music collection. I wouldn't bother too much if I only had -say- 100 CDs, but with a huge collection Roon is the best choice in my mind and I can't think of anything better on MacOS. 

 

Roon does not "sound" because I am not using any of the DSP features. I leave all of that to my hardware. 

I also have Audirvana and Amarra both latest versions and none of them compares to Roon's frontend I think.

 

Chris

Unfortunately, that is not true for large classical collections, though it might be for rock, pops, jazz, etc.. Yes, great GUI, but for me,  JRiver is still tops because it  supports my classical habits in Mch DSD, as well as videos, even TV.

[Kal Rubinson]

2 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Unfortunately, that is not true for large classical collections, though it might be for rock, pops, jazz, etc.. Yes, great GUI, but for me,  JRiver is still tops because it  supports my classical habits in Mch DSD, as well as videos, even TV.

I agree.  

I run them both because I am rooting for Roon to work better.  It looks good and it supplies all the ancillary metadata that would be tedious to unearth and implement in JRiver.   OTOH, and in comparison to JRiver, it fails to recognize too many files properly and the the correction of those relies on Roon's routines instead of direct editing.  

[rodrigaj]

On one of The Next Track podcast a guest mentioned that instead of what we have now for metadata, each recording that we purchase or stream would have two pieces of metadata - cover art and a url that would connect your control app to a website that contains full album information.

 

That makes infinitely more sense to me as a classical music fan than what we have now.

[Kal Rubinson]

3 hours ago, rodrigaj said:

On one of The Next Track podcast a guest mentioned that instead of what we have now for metadata, each recording that we purchase or stream would have two pieces of metadata - cover art and a url that would connect your control app to a website that contains full album information.

 

That makes infinitely more sense to me as a classical music fan than what we have now.

Makes sense if the metadata can be downloaded so that constant web access is not required for future listening.

[rodrigaj]

9 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Makes sense if the metadata can be downloaded so that constant web access is not required for future listening.

Current software such as JRiver would not change. The purchaser would buy the album and fill in the metadata provided in the url as he or she wishes. The url is always there for future reference but unnecessary for future listening.

 

 

[Fredc]

I would be happy just to use web access to view the "metadata" while the album is being played. The Jriver Theatre View already shows the album cover. May be it can access the url to display the other metadata as well (and leave it on screen a little longer for viewing). Actually the theatre view is getting artist images probably from the web already and I do like that. Good to see pictures of the artist while listening to his/her songs. It does not always work though as jriver probably just goggle the name of the artist. So Scott Walker comes up with images of a US politician rather than the artist himself (and Sam Cooke have images of a bikini-clad female). Some way of fixing that will help.

[David W]

I've been out of the scene for a while, but I found this thread interesting. I too tried, and then rejected JRiver over the years. Last year, after trying different solutions, I opted into JRiver big time and purchased Media Center on the JRiver Id. That allowed me to stream my music from a dedicated device (the Id) connected to my NAS through the JRiver to JRemote on my iPhone all following this guidance (thank you @The Computer Audiophile). I tell folks that when investing in any new technology, one should count on twenty hours of pain and suffering and JRiver MC held me to the task, but the JRiver forum other support got me through most of the tough period. Now it is a really cool system and one that I use all the time (although I still have some unresolved issues).

 

I would like to try Roon for the UI and the content, but I do plan to stick with JRiver regardless. Maybe there is a place for both.

[One and a half]

I've been using Jriver on Windows, since there's not much choice for the last year or so with full blown library management, let me finish. Every now and again, there is that quirk with the library with an artist having an odd album separate from the rest of the same named artist. Checking the metadata with MP3tag, all looks fine, and in Jriver, there's a difference in the Album Artist name, why. On importing to try and fix, the problem remains and the only way to solve is to fix in Jriver. Then there's multiple artists, which I never use as a tag, as opposed to the various artists tag which I do use. These errors started to build and I became jack of it. I did try upsampling to DSD128 on Jriver, but it sounded too thin, and left playback at 1.0 times the sampling rate.

 

The other week, EM2016 suggested to use Roon to play music over wireless, even DSD128 through an iPad and use the iPad as an output to the CCK. This is just not possible with Jriver, and NAA is so far off sounding accurate it's not funny and would never work on an iPad. But here it is, when it was working with one DAC, was very good indeed and not the other DAC, that went downhill and stopped using Roon. I let it go a couple of days, and worked with Roon 1.4 again, and the DAC problem was resolved.

 

I don't have much to moan about Roon SQ, it has improved since 1.0 though markedly. To compare Jriver to Roon SQ is a matter of time and judgement, this week I haven't had the need to listen to Jriver.

 

The flexibility to use a Roon end point anywhere on the network is a big plus, which DLNA just cannot match, let alone succeed. Now where's Ravenna in all this, I doubt it would ever take off now, with Roon setting the pace, even for a proprietary protocol, maybe that's the secret, it works like Dante, with the plus of transmitting DSD. Quite a few audio devices have Roon capability in a short time compared with Jriver's implementation of zero (?).  The main reason to try Roon again (this time is the 3rd attempt), Roon 1.4 has a workable interface that doesn't annoy to the point of get me outta here this time around, the audio setup is far simpler and more effective than Jriver. DSP is on a separate page, and the entire process can be switched off in one sweep.

 

The best part is, all the artist's albums are grouped in one section instead of different albums of the same artists, first time around, and hey, no Multiple Artists.

 

The Roon remote on the iPad is snappier than Jremote and there's no setup to do... Roon sees the app on the iPad and recognises it straight away, well give it 2 seconds.

 

Jriver is quicker to import than Roon, but it makes mistakes in the metadata which Roon doesn't. It took about three hours to import 50,000 tracks from scratch for Roon 1.4. Restores take about 20-30mins with Roon and instantaneous with Jriver (with the mistakes).

 

I'm no fan of Jriver's management opinions on this forum, let's leave it at that.

 

 

[Buffalo Dan]

I've had JRiver for PC now for a few years now, and use both video and audio side.  I started a free trial with Roon, and I like the multi room sync and capability to send music from one zone to another mid-song.  I think that is essentially RAAT vs DLNA?  Love the Tidal integration!  Like all the Roon ready hardware out there.  Don't like the fact you cannot (perhaps don't know how to) access the Core from outside your network (I use JRiver in the car).  I hope Roon improves Internet Radio.  I prefer JRiver library tools, which I think are very powerful.  I like JRiver Theater view.  I also like Roon "Radio" auto play after your que empties.

 

So, I think I might pay the Roon subscription and make it my whole house solution, and use JRiver for library management and video.  Would be nice to make library and tagging changes in JRiver and have Roon automatically update accordingly??

 

Would like to hear your comments or personal opinions on both these wonderful pieces of software.

[One and a half]

8 minutes ago, Buffalo Dan said:

I've had JRiver for PC now for a few years now, and use both video and audio side.  I started a free trial with Roon, and I like the multi room sync and capability to send music from one zone to another mid-song.  I think that is essentially RAAT vs DLNA?  Love the Tidal integration!  Like all the Roon ready hardware out there.  Don't like the fact you cannot (perhaps don't know how to) access the Core from outside your network (I use JRiver in the car).  I hope Roon improves Internet Radio.  I prefer JRiver library tools, which I think are very powerful.  I like JRiver Theater view.  I also like Roon "Radio" auto play after your que empties.

 

So, I think I might pay the Roon subscription and make it my whole house solution, and use JRiver for library management and video.  Would be nice to make library and tagging changes in JRiver and have Roon automatically update accordingly??

 

Would like to hear your comments or personal opinions on both these wonderful pieces of software.

JRiver tagging is only for Jriver. I use MP3tag independently of Jriver and Roon and Jriver doesn’t update accurately enough compared to Roon, which works within a minute of the change.

[SonicYouth]

On 19.12.2017 at 3:31 AM, Em2016 said:

 

It can be difficult to predict how Roon manages your tagging. Best to try the risk-free, 2 week free trial to find out exactly.

 

If you need an extra week or two with the free trial, you can always ask them :-)

 

Roon is not able to import the tagging and sorting people have done with JRiver, MediaMonkey or MP3tag. They seem to refuse user request in this direction. You cannot re-use your self-created value (www.allmusic.com is only ONE source of information), and you cannot rate your tracks and use these ratings in playlist, not to speak about track rating when playing through your home network. Tidal integration in Roon is great (and will be even better when integrated with Roon Radio), but these streaming services come and go ... so what about Spotify and all the others? For these reasons I'm still using JRiver while I allready own a Roon lifetime licence.

[One and a half]

11 minutes ago, SonicYouth said:

Roon is not able to import the tagging and sorting people have done with JRiver, MediaMonkey or MP3tag. They seem to refuse user request in this direction. You cannot re-use your self-created value (www.allmusic.com is only ONE source of information), and you cannot rate your tracks and use these ratings in playlist, not to speak about track rating when playing through your home network. Tidal integration in Roon is great (and will be even better when integrated with Roon Radio), but these streaming services come and go ... so what about Spotify and all the others? For these reasons I'm still using JRiver while I allready own a Roon lifetime licence.

??. 50,000 tracks all audited with MP3Tag were catalogued. I don't rate, therefore it's not important, but basic data, covers are all there.

[gcoupe]

17 minutes ago, SonicYouth said:

Roon is not able to import the tagging and sorting people have done with JRiver, MediaMonkey or MP3tag. They seem to refuse user request in this direction. 

Nonsense. Roon uses the tag information from my collection when necessary, and that collection has been managed over the years by MediaMonkey (in the beginning), now dBpoweramp, and MP3Tag (occasionally).

[SonicYouth]

On 19.12.2017 at 9:49 PM, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Unfortunately, that is not true for large classical collections, though it might be for rock, pops, jazz, etc.. Yes, great GUI, but for me,  JRiver is still tops because it  supports my classical habits in Mch DSD, as well as videos, even TV.

Roon is only a value for beginners. People who used to manage their music collection seriously by JRiver for years and years would lose control over it with Roon ... to someone in the cloud. Don't get me wrong: I like the cloud, but I do not need Roon to play Tidal, Quobuz and Spotify.

[SonicYouth]

2 minutes ago, gcoupe said:

Nonsense. Roon uses the tag information from my collection when necessary, and that collection has been managed over the years by MediaMonkey (in the beginning), now dBpoweramp, and MP3Tag (occasionally).

Interesting! How do you import your existing tags?

[gcoupe]

9 minutes ago, SonicYouth said:

Interesting! How do you import your existing tags?

Just let Roon watch the folders. When Roon can't identify the album, it will automatically use the metadata tags. If I don't like the information Roon uses for an album, I just tell Roon to prefer my tag info over what it knows from its database. 

 

Roon's object model is much richer than anything that can be done just using ID3 tags (for example, there are over 6,000 credit roles known to Roon), but for albums that I have created, clearly they can't be identified by Roon, so tags are the only source of data that it has.