Roon Vs jriver

[SonicYouth]

10 minutes ago, gcoupe said:

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.

Thank you. I'll give it a try. ?

[hvbias]

On 11/21/2017 at 12:59 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

There are many more pros and cons to each app. I've had an idea about creating an article that lays this all out for people, but I've been short on time. I thought I had one person lined up to do it, but it fell through. 

 

 

 

Chris, in my opinion any detailed article should include the serious short comings of AllMusic with classical music, it is unusable. Any heavy classical listener would have to use their local tags and make sure they are meticulously tagged in a specific way to work with the Roon ecosystem.

[Matias]

On 11/19/2017 at 3:12 PM, firedog said:

Sorry about calling your threads a sponsored forum.

 

Don’t know who you are, since you don’t use your name. I also don’t know if either at your threads here or at your own support forum who the person is posting as a representative of  JRiver the company and if it is always the same person. 

 

What I do know, is that your company’s posts are regularly rude and dismissive to customers.  “Jerk” means being obnoxious or treating other people badly (that’s from Merriam Webster); in my world, if you do that, the term “jerk” is accurate and fitting.

 

Sorry if you find the term insulting. Would you prefer I simply said you were often obnoxious and treated customers badly in online forums, including your own? If your prefer that to the pejorative term “jerk”, I take the term “jerk” back. 

 

That is especially true when coming from someone who is a service industry and seems to think his slogan should be “the customer is always wrong” instead of the opposite. 

 

If you read through this thread, you’d see that several other customers of yours made similar, if somewhat less acerbic comments about your forum persona. So it’s not just me that thinks so. There are also similar comments about your forum persona at other forums where your customers are free to post their opinions, unlike the situation at your own forum. 

 

How about that? Wow...

 

 

[Fredc]

On 1/15/2018 at 1:56 AM, Matias said:

 

How about that? Wow...

 

 

How about it. Just about any half decent dac these days already have filter options, some up to 5. Or you can add your filters outside SoX. Why spend time doing things that you can do already. I think JimH use of the term "esoteric requests" is not the best, nor the phrase "tail wagging the dog".  Rude? May be.  "Jerk" though is over the top.

[Abarth]

Anything JRiver seems really from yesterday, from Website to the UI of the program.

Not that it doesn't work, but I think it will be hard to persuade new customers with such an old style thingie, well maybe in some years it will go as retro or vintage 

 

But there is some functional progress. It looks like JRiver will introduce synced playback with V24:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,114619.0.html

 

Quote

[...]It requires DLNA Renderers that are based on JRiver Media Center.  This includes computers running JRiver, such as the JRiver Id.

 

Not anywhere near Roon which works elegantly on many other equipment (without the need to run Roon on them), but JRiver have a Raspberry Pi Id version:

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,106807.0.html

https://jriver.com/Id/

 

No idea why they sell that only on a SD Card...again seems so last decade..

 

And no idea how to find the Id products on their website under "purchase", got to that site by chance, somehow.

 

 

 

[Buffalo Dan]

I've been with JRiver for a few years now, and actually got it initially to rip all my DVD and BluRay disks.  Was also hoping to use it for Cable TV with its DVR functions, but they never got over the DRM hurdle.  Of course ripped my CDs and added downloaded music to it over time.

 

I did the 2 month free trial with Roon and made the decision to cease JRiver updates and purchase the Roon license.  Primary reasons were zone syncing, UI, Tidal integration, the growing number of Roon ready components, and the stability of RAAT over DLNA.

 

I also cant remember the last time I watched a movie from my JRiver DB. And as far as broadcast TV, IPTV is where that's going between SlingTV, PlayStation Vue, and others.

[Allan F]

On 11/21/2017 at 8:09 AM, jriver said:

Maybe you just don't like what I say.  I have said things that were unpopular with some very vocal members.  I do believe a bit is a bit.

 

Going back a while, your posts insisting that 'a bit is a bit", that all bit perfect music players sound the same, and your responses to anyone who disagreed were often both arrogant and condescending, if not downright insulting. Hence the reason that you turned off a number of members of this forum, many of whom continued to use your product in spite of your attitude, not because of it.

[Fitzcaraldo215]

10 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

Going back a while, your posts insisting that 'a bit is a bit", that all bit perfect music players sound the same, and your responses to anyone who disagreed were often both arrogant and condescending, if not downright insulting. Hence the reason that you turned off a number of members of this forum, many of whom continued to use your product in spite of your attitude, not because of it.

Ok, so, are you saying a CD rip played by JRiver sounds different from Roon via the same signal path?

[Allan F]

4 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Ok, so, are you saying a CD rip played by JRiver sounds different from Roon via the same signal path?

 

I have very little experience with Roon, so I can't really offer an opinion about it. I can say that HQPlayer sounds better than JRiver, and a number of others have commented that HQPlayer sounds better than Roon. IOW, all bit perfect music players do not sound the same. I know people in the audio industry who have observed that different versions of JRiver have not always sounded exactly the same.

[miguelito]

On 8/12/2017 at 10:55 AM, debt_collector said:

My roon trial is about to end so I looked at thier pricing.  A license for a year is $119! I've got Jriver v21 from before and upgrading to v23 wound cost circa $30 but that's a one off cost. I'm not too fussed about the artist info etc that roon offers and so I was wondering what the advantages of using roon over using jriver might be? Any thoughts?

If you use TIDAL and a substantial portion of your music listening is on TIDAL, Roon gives you complete, transparent integration between TIDAL and your library. Other than the metadata which you seem uninterested in, this is another key difference.

[One and a half]

I user Jriver for portable use and for auditing. Jriver found several jpg that were corrupted and couldn't be opened by ACDsee, so these were removed. Roon didn't let me know of the problem, however the jpg were secondary, some of them were cover or folder.jpg, perhaps Roon ignored them and added their own found covers. Still would good to know.

 

SQ wise, hard to tell at times since I use each application on different platforms. RAAT though has it all over Jriver stuck with DLNA. Hardware support from quite a few big name vendors is Roon's strength, it's a far better protocol than DLNA could ever be, and shove the 44.1 only Sooloos.

 

I don't use Tidal any more, but there should be a facility like that in Jriver since quite a few people use Tidal. Not going to happen though.

 

As far as support is concerned Jriver has their interact forum and the wiki. The wiki is good for product five years ago, was never the full bottle. Interact is not necessarily interactive, more 'our way or the highway'. Roon is completely different, very responsive and positive, although their forum structure could use some re-organisation, just find it a little difficult to search, although Google helps a lot.

[botrytis]

ROON is very CPU and HD heavy since it is more like a database administration software than Jriver.

[miguelito]

17 minutes ago, botrytis said:

ROON is very CPU and HD heavy since it is more like a database administration software than Jriver.

Not really. And certainly not why you would choose one or the other.

[Fitzcaraldo215]

16 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

I have very little experience with Roon, so I can't really offer an opinion about it. I can say that HQPlayer sounds better than JRiver, and a number of others have commented that HQPlayer sounds better than Roon. IOW, all bit perfect music players do not sound the same. I know people in the audio industry who have observed that different versions of JRiver have not always sounded exactly the same.

Ok, but are you comparing apples to apples - straight CD playback, no uprezzing, no conversion to DSD,  etc.?  Yes, HQP has its own sophisticated uprezzing and conversion tools that differ from JR and Roon.  Ergo, they may sound different via those tools.  But, it is not then bit perfect playback vs. the RBCD original.  Some may prefer that, others not.  YMMV.

[miguelito]

17 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

I have very little experience with Roon, so I can't really offer an opinion about it. I can say that HQPlayer sounds better than JRiver, and a number of others have commented that HQPlayer sounds better than Roon. IOW, all bit perfect music players do not sound the same. I know people in the audio industry who have observed that different versions of JRiver have not always sounded exactly the same.

Well, you can use HQPlayer seamlessly with Roon... And to another poster’s comment, I am pretty sure you’re comparing HQPlayer with its upsampling to JRiver (possibly with it’s own) and Roon’s.

[firedog]

IME, the upsampling tools in Roon are very close to the quality of HQP. Not quite as good but very good. Roon also has sophisticated DSP tools of various types built in.

 

But if you are only interested in straight bit perfect playback and not in metadata, etc., not a lot of reasons to choose Roon over JRiver. I like the Roon interface a lot more, but that's just a matter of personal taste. 

[Allan F]

1 hour ago, miguelito said:

Well, you can use HQPlayer seamlessly with Roon... And to another poster’s comment, I am pretty sure you’re comparing HQPlayer with its upsampling to JRiver (possibly with it’s own) and Roon’s.

 

IMO, If you do not subscribe to a streaming service, Roon is an expensive luxury to add as an interface to HQPlayer as HQP already does the work of music player, upsampling, etc. I use HQPDcontrol as a remote interface to HQP and it does the job for me. Unlike Roon, as an Android app, it does not add any additional CPU load to the server.

[miguelito]

1 hour ago, Allan F said:

 

IMO, If you do not subscribe to a streaming service, Roon is an expensive luxury to add as an interface to HQPlayer as HQP already does the work of music player, upsampling, etc. I use HQPDcontrol as a remote interface to HQP and it does the job for me. Unlike Roon, as an Android app, it does not add any additional CPU load to the server.

I agree with your assessment that if you're not streaming on TIDAL, Roon is of much less use. A luxury I would still pay for, but I get your point. 

 

For those on mac, and soon on windows too, there's also Audirvana, which also has a very nice app, MQA first unfold with any DAC (FWIW), two excellent upsampling options (iZotope and SoX) and allows for the use of DSP via AudioUnits. 

 

HQPDControl looks good, but I am an iOS guy...

[jaynyc]

when I last tried Roon with Tidal, if I created a playlist of Tidal tracks (or favorited them) there was no way to sync that list back to Tidal for use on my iphone.  Basically it’s a one way thing.   with the Tidal desktop app any list i create is near instantly available on my iphone and can be download for plane flights.

 

   Also i found searching for Tidal tracks using Roon was less accurate and less reliable  than just searching the Tidal application natively.   So i feel like a comparison of Jriver and Roon should be isolated to the local file experience.  I’d be curious if Roon has changed regarding echoing favorites/playlists back to Tidal.

[diecaster]

Roon is not going to link playlists back to Tidal. Roon is its own program with its own way of doing things. Roon is not using any of Tidal's code. Why would they do something to make their software less valuable?

[flkin]

If you add a Tidal album to your Roon library, it appears in the standalone Tidal app. On my iPhone is shows under My Collection / Albums

[Cebolla]

On 3/24/2018 at 11:39 PM, One and a half said:

RAAT though has it all over Jriver stuck with DLNA. Hardware support from quite a few big name vendors is Roon's strength, it's a far better protocol than DLNA could ever be

Is that because you are using RAAT with synchronised multiple endpoint devices? Otherwise, why are you saying RAAT is a far better protocol than standard UPnP/DLNA? It certainly can't be because of the RAAT endpoint vs UPnP renderer hardware support count!

 

Incidentally, you can get Roon to play to any standard UPnP/DLNA renderer, despite Roon's (strange) lack of official support for the UPnP streaming protocol, by using the UPnPBridge/squeeze2upnp Logitech Media Server plugin to act as the go between. This is because Roon also supports the Slim/Squeezebox streaming protocol (in addition to RAAT,  HQPlayer & AirPlay). The UPnPBridge just needs to be configured as a standalone application (ie, no LMS required) and can then be run on any networked machine, including the one running Roon.

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?103728-Announce-UPnPBridge-integrate-UPnP-DLNA-players-with-LMS-(squeeze2upnp)

 

 

On 3/24/2018 at 11:39 PM, One and a half said:

I don't use Tidal any more, but there should be a facility like that in Jriver since quite a few people use Tidal. Not going to happen though.

Windows JRiver users can use TIDAL's Desktop app and output the audio bit perfectly to JRiver's playback engine, via its WDM Driver. So this would include 'first unfold'/MQA core audio decoded from MQA Masters tracks. However, when using the JRiver WDM Driver as its input, the JRiver playback engine cannot be used for streaming over the network to UPnP/DLNA renderers and also there's no equivalent JRiver audio input driver for OS X and Linux JRiver users.

 

 

On 3/24/2018 at 11:39 PM, One and a half said:

As far as support is concerned Jriver has their interact forum and the wiki. The wiki is good for product five years ago, was never the full bottle. Interact is not necessarily interactive, more 'our way or the highway'.

Agreed. The JRiver Wiki's description of its UPnP/DLNA configuration is particularly poor.

 

[Abarth]

1 hour ago, Cebolla said:

Is that because you are using RAAT with synchronised multiple endpoint devices? Otherwise, why are you saying RAAT is a far better protocol than standard UPnP/DLNA?[...]

 

For me, this is THE unique selling point. A multiroom system with a broad range of different renderers from different manufacturers, including "cheap" RPi's, and all in Sync. At times, I don't listen to music exclusively and concentrated, but have to do other things in the house. And having synced playback in different rooms is a must in that case, else I'm getting insane....or a family member that is.

 

Seems like JRiver is getting a bit closer, but only with renderers having installed JRiver.

[Abarth]

On 25.3.2018 at 12:39 AM, One and a half said:

[...]Interact is not necessarily interactive, more 'our way or the highway'. [...]

[davide256]

There's a lot to be said for RAAT vs UPNP/DLNA. It does what its supposed to do, which is eliminate the nuisance network tweaking that UPNP/DLNA requires. Roon without RAAT supporting endpoint doesn't sound any better than UPNP/DLNA