Article: Audiophile 5: Roon 1.6 in 5 Minutes

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, JDoyle said:

Thanks for your reply.  I’m not sure if I follow you... if they don’t offer the tracks in my playlist (I’m mostly into Jazz), what’s the important stuff that I’m missing?  Do you mind elaborating on the benefits of Qobuz beyond what I saw in the video?

 

 Thanks again,

 

JD

Qobuz has all the tracks in my playlists and them some. That's what I call the important stuff. I'm less interested in the 20 million other tracks and large numbers of tracks that people use to compare services. 

 

If Qobuz doesn't have your tracks, then it's probably a no-go for you. A music service without your music is a nonstarter :~)

 

 

[crenca]

Careful folks if you use DSP in Roon.  With 1.6, they removed the gain setting text box in EQ - it is now only a slider.  This means that you have to click on it to see what you have it set to.  If you click slightly above the setting for example, you can instantly boost your gain by 12db  - I did this by accident.  Luckily, I had my volume turned down quite low already but this can be an ear and/or equipment damaging experience.

 

Also, the gain slider is close to the windowing slider, so you might accidentally click on gain when you were wanting to scroll down to see other settings (e.g. Q).

 

IMO, DSP is problematic with a mouse, and a no-go with touch (I like to sit back and tweak DSP with my tablets). 

[Don Blas De Lezo]

@JDoyle     If Jazz is your main thing .....Qobuz all the way .  No comparison.  

[diecaster]

4 hours ago, Ben-M said:

Maybe something like the new JPLAY 7, the first JPLAY release in +2 years and a complete overhaul. So far, by all accounts, it's a major improvement to an already good player. 

 

If JPLAY 7 is such a big deal, I am sure posters will talk about it. If there is enough traffic, I am sure Chris would take notice. JPLAY has never been on my radar and I don’t care about it. Is it hugely popular? It does not appear to be.

[JDoyle]

2 hours ago, Don Blas De Lezo said:

@JDoyle     If Jazz is your main thing .....Qobuz all the way .  No comparison.  

Okay, thanks Don,  that’s what I needed to hear. 👍

 

JD

[Ran]

9 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi Ran - Can you provide a bit more info?

 

There are so may applications out there with various features that preceded Roon by years. For example, 

 

Tidal & Qobuz integration was available to BubbleUPnP, Kazoo and MConnect users years ago.

Roon's Wiki Interface - Was part of GMPC years ago

MPD - This piece of software alone deserves some press as it is found in many commercial products

MinimServer / Streamer - OpenHome with various DSP and transcoding options

 

This is just a partial list that came into mind. My point is there are interesting options out there, some are free, some are open source and some are commercials. These solutions are available and should be covered as well. Fair space for all. 

[One and a half]

4 hours ago, crenca said:

Careful folks if you use DSP in Roon.  With 1.6, they removed the gain setting text box in EQ - it is now only a slider.  This means that you have to click on it to see what you have it set to.  If you click slightly above the setting for example, you can instantly boost your gain by 12db  - I did this by accident.  Luckily, I had my volume turned down quite low already but this can be an ear and/or equipment damaging experience.

 

Also, the gain slider is close to the windowing slider, so you might accidentally click on gain when you were wanting to scroll down to see other settings (e.g. Q).

 

IMO, DSP is problematic with a mouse, and a no-go with touch (I like to sit back and tweak DSP with my tablets). 

The window problem....

 

For the Parametric EQ (on the direct download, as opposed to upgrade?) there are text boxes adjacent to the say the low shelf boost which set the shelf knee frequency and the shelf level. I tried the sliders and they are a pain, even navigating, but the boxes are easily edited.

[skatbelt]

- deleted -

[JDoyle]

10 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi JD - I’d drop Tidal today in favor of Qobuz. Total number of tracks is meaningless. It’s all about the important stuff. 

 

Here’s how to transfer your favorites and playlists. 

 

 

Okay, one more question. Why do I need Soundiiz to transfer my playlists... aren’t they already in Roon?

[The Computer Audiophile]

14 minutes ago, JDoyle said:

Okay, one more question. Why do I need Soundiiz to transfer my playlists... aren’t they already in Roon?

There are Roon playlists in your Roon database and Tidal playlists connected to your Tidal account. 

[Munchoba]

Anyone know when Qobuz is coming to Canada?

[crenca]

20 hours ago, Ran said:

 

There are so may applications out there with various features that preceded Roon by years. For example, 

 

Tidal & Qobuz integration was available to BubbleUPnP, Kazoo and MConnect users years ago.

Roon's Wiki Interface - Was part of GMPC years ago

MPD - This piece of software alone deserves some press as it is found in many commercial products

MinimServer / Streamer - OpenHome with various DSP and transcoding options

 

This is just a partial list that came into mind. My point is there are interesting options out there, some are free, some are open source and some are commercials. These solutions are available and should be covered as well. Fair space for all. 

 

All true, but all only accessible to a computer (and largely linux familiar) "geek".  Roon is a commercial product designed for the masses. 

 

Sure, a front page review/explanation of how to config BubbleUPnP to integrate Tidal into JRiver would be helpful, but many (most really) would not even bother.  I could be wrong, but most would rather just purchase a product that does the same thing and has a slick UI.

[bobbmd]

@JDoyle I transferred my hundreds of TIDAL playlists I made to Qobuz via Soundiiz(get the premium subscription) those playlisst had sometimes 100's of songs/albums not all will transfer( ie within each individual playlist) but enough did to make me happy couldn't get my 'favorites' to transfer nor did my favorites from my 'French' account transfer to Qobuz USA but I did transfer all my Qobuz France playlists to Soundiiz(itself) and then from Soundiiz to Qobuz USA

The amazing thing is those TIDAL transfers in MQA  play as 24/96 or 24/192 HiRes on Qobuz

[bobbmd]

@JDoyle I transferred my hundreds of TIDAL playlists I made to Qobuz via Soundiiz(get the premium subscription) those playlisst had sometimes 100's of songs/albums not all will transfer( ie within each individual playlist) but enough did to make me happy couldn't get my 'favorites' to transfer nor did my favorites from my 'French' account transfer to Qobuz USA but I did transfer all my Qobuz France playlists to Soundiiz(itself) and then from Soundiiz to Qobuz USA

The amazing thing is those TIDAL transfers in MQA  play as 24/96 or 24/192 HiRes on Qobuz

[bobbmd]

@The Computer Audiophile Great review Chris the integration of Qobuz/ROOn could be the best thing since white bread

Have you seen comments elsewhere(on AS) about 'bugs' with ROON/Qobuz over past several days  or just go to ROON support and see

I still had a French account 3 days ago and ROON/Qobuz was fantastic then when I got my USA account nothing worked/played except snipits at MPS 325 quality for 30 seconds even TIDAL stopped working but apparently ROON support(Noris/Danny) were able to somehow to do diagnostics on a multitude of people with this problem and fixed it- great support

I personally had tremendous support from the new head of Marketing/Media in Qobuz USA who previously was head of Warner Records in France(he has joined AS) and of course David Craff and an Eric Benoit at support Qobuz USA(BETA) who walked me through the transfer

I don't think you or anyone ever experienced this kind of support from any other streaming service or 'player' service( never heard from Damien78 as to how A+3 was handling this integration but A+3 works with Qobuz USA)

I will soon say goodbye to TIDAL and Deezer and save about 1000$/year in streaming fees

[Metnoc]

@The Computer Audiophile I couldn't miss that the endpoint being used is a APL dnp-sr. Ive heard a APL dac once and they are supposed to be among the very best. So is there a review of the APL streamer coming up? 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Metnoc said:

@The Computer Audiophile I couldn't miss that the endpoint being used is a APL dnp-sr. Ive heard a APL dac once and they are supposed to be among the very best. So is there a review of the APL streamer coming up? 

DAC and streamer. Excellent stuff. 

[JDoyle]

6 hours ago, bobbmd said:

@JDoyle I transferred my hundreds of TIDAL playlists I made to Qobuz via Soundiiz(get the premium subscription) those playlisst had sometimes 100's of songs/albums not all will transfer( ie within each individual playlist) but enough did to make me happy couldn't get my 'favorites' to transfer nor did my favorites from my 'French' account transfer to Qobuz USA but I did transfer all my Qobuz France playlists to Soundiiz(itself) and then from Soundiiz to Qobuz USA

The amazing thing is those TIDAL transfers in MQA  play as 24/96 or 24/192 HiRes on Qobuz

 

Thanks for your reply @bobbmd, I have to admit that I’m still a bit confused about this. I don’t have any playlists in Tidal per se, all my playlists are in roon, where I’m combining my stuff (on my Salkstreamer’s ssd) and also from Tidal via roon’s Integration with It.  So after I would presumably make the switch to Quobuz, if a said track wasn’t available, would Roon just say “this track is currently unavailable in Quobuz”?  (Sometimes I get that message currently with roon/Tidal).

 

JD

[bobbmd]

@JDoyle I transferred my hundreds of TIDAL playlists I made to Qobuz via Soundiiz(get the premium subscription) those playlist had sometimes 100's of songs/albums not all will transfer( ie within each individual playlist) but enough did to make me happy couldn't get my 'favorites' to transfer nor did my favorites from my 'French' account transfer to Qobuz USA but I did transfer all my Qobuz France playlists to Soundiiz(itself) and then from Soundiiz to Qobuz USA

The amazing thing is those TIDAL transfers in MQA  play as 24/96 or 24/192 HiRes on Qobuz

@JDoyle1/26-since this showed up twice-to answer your post of 19hours ago  i got same message at times none recently ie last 24 hours some music just isn't available on qobuz ie won-ton-ton/barb jungr/a lot of dylan's recent stuff

[Ben-M]

On 1/24/2019 at 2:46 AM, diecaster said:

 

If JPLAY 7 is such a big deal, I am sure posters will talk about it. If there is enough traffic, I am sure Chris would take notice. JPLAY has never been on my radar and I don’t care about it. Is it hugely popular? It does not appear to be.

I appreciate the reply, but I don't exactly think your self-provided answers are exactly "correct".

 

If you take a quick look back at the articles posted over the past few months, you would see that one about JPLAY (for example) wouldn't be out of place. 

 

If you compare it to "the best version of ABC album", "super expensive Boulder amp", or "new TLS streamer", JPLAY is at least comparable in popularity, and especially so since this site used to focused on computer audio as a source and computer audio playback. Am I saying I didn't like those articles, no. Are they out of place, also no. Are they not "popular" enough for me, no again. I Iiked them and I'm very happy about the increase in curated content here. 

 

If we're being objective and  not commenting from personal relevance, JPLAY has actually been a pretty longstanding player in computer audio playback (relatively, since it's a newer area) and features integration with other popular delivery schemes like Audiophile Optimizer and Fidelizer, just as Roon does, while some other players are not supported. 

 

Am I saying it's as popular as Roon, no. Was I specifically talking about only JPLAY, also no. I was replying to another point that other computer audio playback software would be nice to read about or be introduced here, rather than joining the mainstream and only seeing more articles about more of the same. We live in a niche of a niche and it's appreciated to be introduced to interesting parts of that niche that you may not otherwise know about. As compared to mainstream parts of it that you couldn't help but know about. 

 

Or at least that's what I inferred from the original commenter's post, and to which I provided a relevant example of without shitting on anyone. 

[diecaster]

That wall of text did nothing, absolutely nothing, to persuade me to learn more about whatever that software you like is called....

[The Computer Audiophile]

31 minutes ago, diecaster said:

That wall of text did nothing, absolutely nothing, to persuade me to learn more about whatever that software you like is called....

Perhaps it's your friendly attitude people are hung up on.

[Ben-M]

20 hours ago, diecaster said:

That wall of text did nothing, absolutely nothing, to persuade me to learn more about whatever that software you like is called....

I was making sure you didn't mischaracterize my original reply, just as you're attempting to do so again with that reply regarding my reply.

 

I understand now that I'm being trolled. 

[Lee Scoggins]

Nice video Chris.  I am finding Roon 1.6 works well on my system.

[Bruce Orr]

I have now added artwork for whatever was missing among 1845 artists. Each is sized to fill the screen (rectangular) and in png format. 

Everything has slowed to crawl. Search. Play. Everything. 

 

Pls help me fix this picture.