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I have had it with Roon, their lack of support, their user forum, and it's users...


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18 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

The problem I was having that caused them to say they would remote into my system and log its activity to see what was going on, it has stopped happening. So... they probably saw the problem, fixed it, and decided to keep their mouths shut about it after blaming everything they could on my end.

I've suspected this as well.  At least it was fixed...if Roon wants to be stealthy and fix things while rejecting blame at least that is better than denying the problem entirely.  

 

I think the issue is more nuanced.  And in Roon's defense there are a lot of users who don't really know what they're doing with digital audio and it's probably not unreasonable to want to validate that the software is being used "correctly." I also think that Roon's server-streamer model is sometimes drastically misunderstood by some users that want to use tweaks that make sense with other architecture but not Roon.  

 

BUT, it's also very clear that there are many power users who know plenty of about digital audio, networking, computers generally, etc.,  and want to use Roon to its full advertised functionality and cannot because of various nits and bugs, some of them pretty significant.  

 

I think a balanced view of Roon is critical.  They are trying to create something new, unique, and different relative to digital audio, and in many respects it is a fantastic and creative product.  If I had to live without it, I'd be bummed, and it would take a good chunk out of what I have been able to build in my man-cave.  But that doesn't let Roon off the hook for the clear bugginess of each release nor that they have ignored some issues for a good long time.  And some of their decisions are just real head scratchers - lack of folder access being one, and their choices on query logic for searching tags and genres being another.  They seem to want to prove to users that their way is better rather than giving users what they want...I can't say that is right or wrong as much as more extreme than most products I've used. 

 

In general, I have to be pro-Roon.  They've built something you can really enjoy.  But it's a mixed experience for sure, and I have already "signed off" on their forum for having Support (not the Moderators) edit my posts to remove references to issues with the software.  Being moderated for breaking forum rules is a fact of life on the Internet...having one's posts modified to mean something different is another thing entirely, and totally inappropriate IMHO.

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51 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

Letting random internet people offer your support is a pretty terrible way of conducting business because it ends up boiling down to whatever the prevailing groupthink is, and it shows the developers lack of consideration for their product. I have tried getting support there, jumped through all their hoops, offered all the requested information, only to have them blame my network and say that Roon "works differently from other programs" Which I guess is all of them because the only one having issues is Roon... I have no network issues that aren't caused by user error. It's robust and works perfectly and there isn't a single piece of software that doesn't work as intended on it. Except Roon because the official word is, it works differently... That's a them problem, not a me problem. I was once told that they would remote into my Roon and see what the problem was... that was ~6 months ago and I have not heard a peep back.

 

They deleted my thread and I received a nasty email from an admin. Apparently I am just supposed to bend over and take it when the group decides the software is perfect and I have the audacity to suggest there is room for improvement.

 

edit: The problem I was having that caused them to say they would remote into my system and log its activity to see what was going on, it has stopped happening. So... they probably saw the problem, fixed it, and decided to keep their mouths shut about it after blaming everything they could on my end.

 

That sucks and for the money spent, one would think much better interaction to be had.

 

My rig

 

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35 minutes ago, Pappy Boyington said:

...having one's posts modified to mean something different is another thing entirely, and totally inappropriate IMHO.

I submitted a bug report for something clearly broken in a new release and they moved it to a feature request. I complained, and they replicated it, and it eventually got fixed after a bunch of other people complained. It wasn't clear how this got past alpha and beta testing.

 

It's like they automatically assume every problem is user error. And support doesn't always seem to know how the software works. They give a lot irrelevant canned answers and some just plain wrong answers that get corrected by users.

 

I know they are relatively small and trying to do cool things in a niche market. And they have accomplished some cool stuff. Sure is a strange way to run a software company, though. 

 

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4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

My one major gripe with Roon is the support. Nobody likes software issues or bugs, but stuff happens and that’s OK. But, support is very important to me. If something doesn’t work, a cursory forum response 10 days later isn’t acceptable. 
 

It would be nice if there was a premium support option. I know that may irk some people, and I totally understand, but I’d take it if offered. 

 

I'm not even sure that would tempt me back at this point. I am pretty fed up with it.

No electron left behind.

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28 minutes ago, Pappy Boyington said:

I've suspected this as well.  At least it was fixed...if Roon wants to be stealthy and fix things while rejecting blame at least that is better than denying the problem entirely.  

 

I think the issue is more nuanced.  And in Roon's defense there are a lot of users who don't really know what they're doing with digital audio and it's probably not unreasonable to want to validate that the software is being used "correctly." I also think that Roon's server-streamer model is sometimes drastically misunderstood by some users that want to use tweaks that make sense with other architecture but not Roon.  

 

BUT, it's also very clear that there are many power users who know plenty of about digital audio, networking, computers generally, etc.,  and want to use Roon to its full advertised functionality and cannot because of various nits and bugs, some of them pretty significant.  

 

I think a balanced view of Roon is critical.  They are trying to create something new, unique, and different relative to digital audio, and in many respects it is a fantastic and creative product.  If I had to live without it, I'd be bummed, and it would take a good chunk out of what I have been able to build in my man-cave.  But that doesn't let Roon off the hook for the clear bugginess of each release nor that they have ignored some issues for a good long time.  And some of their decisions are just real head scratchers - lack of folder access being one, and their choices on query logic for searching tags and genres being another.  They seem to want to prove to users that their way is better rather than giving users what they want...I can't say that is right or wrong as much as more extreme than most products I've used. 

 

In general, I have to be pro-Roon.  They've built something you can really enjoy.  But it's a mixed experience for sure, and I have already "signed off" on their forum for having Support (not the Moderators) edit my posts to remove references to issues with the software.  Being moderated for breaking forum rules is a fact of life on the Internet...having one's posts modified to mean something different is another thing entirely, and totally inappropriate IMHO.

Excellent and thoughtful statements.  I particularly like  the "Balanced View", which I suppose could be said about most things.

 

Sort of stating the obvious - If you are a user that struggles endlessly with bugs and the like, your experience is gonna suck.  If everything is working just fine and has for a long time, never had to deal with their support etc.. that perspective is obviously different then the former. 

 

How one gets through a situation (bugs, quality) with their support and forum users/responses, I guess pretty much forms your opinion experience with said product.

My rig

 

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2 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Understood completely.
 

I’m overlooking several issues that bug me, but I’ve come to accept them from the Roon team. They have their way of running their company, and I guess it’s take it or leave it. 
 

Competition is good. We need more competition. 

I'm sure there is a product in the wings / right around the corner that some company has basically encapsulated everything roon (product, support, architecture, good, bad, ugly), that may be able to capitalize on roon's shortcomings.  Will be interesting for sure.

My rig

 

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2 hours ago, botrytis said:

Well, measurements are more sensitive than ears and are not skewed by how our hearing works.

That’s not exactly true.  How our ear and brain work together is quite complex and science is still trying to understand it.  A single measurement could be more sensitive for sure, but alone it gives us only a part of the story.  

Digital:  Sonore opticalModule > Uptone EtherRegen > Shunyata Sigma Ethernet > Antipodes K30 > Shunyata Omega USB > Gustard X26pro DAC < Mutec REF10 SE120

Amp & Speakers:  Spectral DMA-150mk2 > Aerial 10T

Foundation: Stillpoints Ultra, Shunyata Denali v1 and Typhon x1 power conditioners, Shunyata Delta v2 and QSA Lanedri Gamma Revelation and Infinity power cords, QSA Lanedri Gamma Revelation XLR interconnect, Shunyata Sigma Ethernet, MIT Matrix HD 60 speaker cables, GIK bass traps, ASC Isothermal tube traps, Stillpoints Aperture panels, Quadraspire SVT rack, PGGB 256

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2 hours ago, Foggie said:

 

That sucks and for the money spent, one would think much better interaction to be had.

 

 

Its not just the money spent on the Roon License, its the money spent on a server and the parts, the time and effort building it, the time spent learning linux, etc... Luckily, the hardware is still useful and I can continue to use Roon for casual listening and for previewing albums to buy while I use HQPlayer or Euphony to playback music when I want maximum fidelity.

No electron left behind.

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1 hour ago, kennyb123 said:

That’s not exactly true.  How our ear and brain work together is quite complex and science is still trying to understand it.  A single measurement could be more sensitive for sure, but alone it gives us only a part of the story.  

 

our ears are not sensitive at all - we are sensitive in the 2K-5K region.

 

Equal Loudness Curves (gsu.edu)

Current:  Daphile on an AMD A10-9500 with 16 GB RAM

DAC - TEAC UD-501 DAC 

Pre-amp - Rotel RC-1590

Amplification - Benchmark AHB2 amplifier

Speakers - Revel M126Be with 2 REL 7/ti subwoofers

Cables - Tara Labs RSC Reference and Blue Jean Cable Balanced Interconnects

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3 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

Its not just the money spent on the Roon License, its the money spent on a server and the parts, the time and effort building it, the time spent learning linux, etc... Luckily, the hardware is still useful and I can continue to use Roon for casual listening and for previewing albums to buy while I use HQPlayer, or Euphony to playback music when I want maximum fidelity.

Yep, I to purchased a new computer and one internal large capacity HD with its soul purpose of core duties only.  Which meant I had to re-learn linux, build it up, move all music off NAS to new core servers internal drive etc...  I have a dedicated wkst that runs HQP which then sends to naa / optical rendu.  So yeah totally get it, not a 10min ordeal by any stretch.

 

I really want to try euphony,  but its just a time thing

My rig

 

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1 hour ago, Foggie said:

Yep, I to purchased a new computer and one internal large capacity HD with its soul purpose of core duties only.  Which meant I had to re-learn linux, build it up, move all music off NAS to new core servers internal drive etc... 

Any reason why you did it the hard way ? Wouldn’t ROCK on a NUC or a Sonictransporter be good enough ?


And if heavy HQplayer processing is your requirement, should that be done on same computer as Roon ?

(I use HQplayer on my old Sonictransporter i5, but PCM only). 

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On 7/4/2021 at 8:16 PM, AudioDoctor said:

If you want to be insulted, belittled, and treated like an idiot, go ask for support or make a feature request on their forum. Even better, make a request that you hope or believe will improve sound quality.


So this is what they say about your posts: To bad it can’t be verified. I post a reply in Roon forum. 
 

“Well, for starters, his grammar and spelling need work…

I’m not sure what you’re asking here.

Was he being a self-righteous @ssh0le? Yes.

Was he being constructive? Definitely not.

There are ways to comment on how a system could be improved that will get you heard.

B!tching, whining, moaning, saying it’s $h!t and accusing it’s satisfied customers of collusion will get you nowhere, maybe even banned.

It’s pointless, toxic and undermines the efforts of the good people who dedicate their working lives to making Roon the best it can be.

Roon may not be 100% perfect for everyone - show me an operating system/software package that is, but I have zero issues with it. An occasional niggle, sure, but nothing that warrants waging a one man hate campaign against the company and its products.

If you get a Windows update that causes problems for you, do you holler at Bill Gates via every public forum available that it’s cr@p?

Bar the very occasional exception (In 30+ years, I’ve only ever fired one person for this), no one goes to work with the intention of doing a bad job.

Why do some individuals feel it’s justifiable to accuse an organisation of going out if its way to make their life difficult, when in reality, nothing could be further from the truth?

We seem to be living in an increasingly toxic world, where behaviour like this is almost accepted as the ‘norm’.

In my view, individuals should conduct themselves online in the same way they expect others to conduct themselves in the real world.

Good manners and decency cost nothing.”

 

 

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I have felt for a while that there is something else going on at Roon that we don't know about.  I don't know of any other company that would be ok with users waiting 10, 20 even 30 days for an initial and unhelpful response from their support.  On top of that, support rarely ever actually solves an issue for anyone.  You basically have to wait until a new update comes along and hope they fixed this issue.  This last update they focused on their stupid search again and fixed only a few of the numerous issues they have.  They continually let known bugs and issues take a backseat to better searching and prettier looking pages.  All that stuff is nice, but they need to just fix their issues first.  Most of them seem small and would not take a long time to fix. For example, how hard could it be for a team of developers to fix their dark mode so the window title bar isn't bright white?  I sometimes wonder if they even have a full dev team or if it is just a couple of them actually coding...  It would explain a lot.  

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1 hour ago, R1200CL said:

Any reason why you did it the hard way ? Wouldn’t ROCK on a NUC or a Sonictransporter be good enough ?


And if heavy HQplayer processing is your requirement, should that be done on same computer as Roon ?

(I use HQplayer on my old Sonictransporter i5, but PCM only). 

Wasn't really the hard way and was a planned move

- ROCK has some limitations (I don't recall at the moment) and wanted to run Ubuntu server (headless)

- I didn't want a NUC, for sev reasons, one being couldn't add a large capacity HD

- I already have a high end wkst carved out for HQP duties running Server 2019.  The computer I got for core duties only isn't suited for HQP and PCM ->DSD

 

My rig

 

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1 hour ago, rn701 said:

"his grammar and spelling need work"

That guy is one of those pedantic "I'm an IT guy so know everything" on an anti-snake oil crusade against switches and everything else that might come before a DAC ASR types. We've had our go around and now I just ignore him. He loves to mansplain'. He's got plenty of doppelgängers over there. 

 

Amazing how Roon just keep blowing it and blowing it release after release. They come across as a bunch of we know best tech guys who don't want deal with the boring fundamentals of the program and are tripping over each other adding their pet Valence projects to the software with no overall picture in mind. They need to just take care of the fundamentals. At least they got snap back to place fixed this go around after so many years.

 

Some user customization of screens and menus would be great and go a long way to everyone having a better experience, but since they don't trust their customers (said as much when they were being pushed to implement a quicker way to delete titles from the library) I'm not holding my breath. Still love using it daily and I'll be kinda screwed if they fold, but man, they've got some housecleaning to do. A wider beta testing group would be a good start - I have a feeling they never really tested their servers on a larger scale for the Daily Mix thing and now it's a flop (probably should have gone for weekly or monthly mixes). 

SERVER CLOSET (in office directly below living room stereo):NUC 7i5BNH with Roon ROCK (ZeroZone 12V on the NUC)>Cisco 2690L-16PS switch>Sonore opticalModule (Uptone LPS 1.2)>

LIVING ROOM: Sonore opticalRendu Roon version (Sonore Power Supply)> Shunyata Venom USB>Naim DAC V1>Witchhat DIN>Naim NAP 160 Bolt Down>Chord Rumor 2>Audio Physic Compact Classics. OFFICE: opticalModule> Sonore microRendu 1.4> Matrix Mini-i Pro 3> Naim NAP 110>NACA5>KEF Ls50's. BJC 6a and Ghent Catsnake 6a JSSG ethernet; AC cables: Shunyata Venom NR V-10; Audience Forte F3; Ice Age copper/copper; Sean Jacobs CHC PowerBlack, Moon Audio DIN>RCA, USB A>C. Isolation: Herbie's Audio Lab. 

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2 hours ago, rn701 said:

"his grammar and spelling need work"

 

Lol.

 

Man would I love to comment back to that guy, maybe he can read it here. He can read this thread, read the dissenting posts to my opinion and notice that nowhere did anyone attack the other and the conversation is civil, here. There is a reason it wasn't there and it sure isn't ONLY my fault.

 

The very first reply to my post was, I must be using Roon wrong and am therefore need to learn how to use Roon. Talk about condescending bullshit. No one even asked until halfway through what the specs of my server are and how I am using it, or even addressed the fact that EVEN IF MY DAC WAS CONNECTED TO THE CORE, REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF PROCESSING DURING MUSIC PLAYBACK WOULD STILL BENEFIT THE QUALITY OF THAT PLAYBACK...

 

Instead, it was a bunch of you're wrong, and it progressively got worse until it devolved into insults. Yeah, I am certainly going to reply in kind to those.

No electron left behind.

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