With 1.8 Roon is taking the first tentative steps to moving to a streaming-only future as a Music Discovery Tool - I believe that this is what is behind the changes to 1.8, a move away from the Library as the primary function of Roon.
As an example, the individual Artist page is the page I personally search for an album by an artist to play. If Roon is primarily a library it should serve up my library of albums by the Artist on page 1. Instead I get:
half a page of a picture/name (this could be smaller)
beneath that a biography which is truncated (surely the biography should be accessible via a separate button next to ‘discography’? rather than a few sentences that disappear)
beneath that “Popular” which is straight out of Spotify’s layout of info (this could also be a button accessible as for discography)
and finally by scrolling down I see the albums in my library.
(2), and (3) above are classic music discovery tools, and (1) is a form over function graphical device.
But it all points to Roon moving away from being primarily about a Library of owner’s music, and instead a discovery tool. But I would suggest that most people that turn up on the artist page are doing so because they want to access albums by that artist in their library. Roon has consciously moved itself away from that.
Why?
Maybe this is future-proofing Roon - as ‘ownership’ of music dies off and so will the older demographic that still own music, then Roon needs a reason to exist: in that future users with a hard drive full of content will become a smaller and smaller contingent. Also Roon has probably already attracted most of the interested people who have music on a hard drive. In order to grow the future strategy must try and convert those who only stream. Roon needs to survive in a streaming-only world - maybe they see the changes in 8.1 as a way down that path?
However I would argue that streaming subscribers still want to create a library of ‘liked’ albums and then, if Roon wants to distinguish itself from the Qobux or Tidal interface, it needs to add to the library-style functionality, not take it away. The way 8.1 downgrades the ease of Tagging and Playlists suggests Roon does not see it this way.
The “Owner’s Music Library” is the collection of music I have created; no matter how long is the path leads to a given piece of music - whether it is on my disc drive at home or on the NAS at Tidal’s headquarters …
The ironic thing is with 1.8 they’ve thrown up so many paths to ‘discovery’ it’s overwhelming and I just feel like giving up. Similar, Recommended, New Release, and If You Like album recommendations all on the same page - just pick one and combine it with the others.
I love the new 1.8. Fantastic for discovering new music. I have been doing that a lot.
Roon is moving from a library management software to a MUSIC ENCYCLOPEDIA. Easy to get lost or distracted by the so many paths you can take. Quite an adventure with a lot of rewarding discoveries in front of you. Explore.
This is the path forward.
I agree. It’s all too much now.
Overwhelming indeed, and not in a positive way per se.
I’ve got many many albums on my Qnap nas stored locally, so i did enjoy the collection-based functionality of Roon v. 1.7 in stead of the streaming-based discovery software that Roon v. 1.8 has become. Please KISS
Yet, they demoted “Discover” from the home page, and they moved “Recommended Albums” so that you have scroll to see it.
My favorite way to discover new music in 1.7 was to listen to my own music or (especially) Roon Radio, and look at the two Recommended Albums sitting right there on my screen. There would be two new albums every time the current album changed and they could lead me down a new trail.
If that really is where Roon is going, I applaud that. I am acting exactly the same way. Using Qobuz to discover new music at a high quality. Then I buy and download the music I want to own in the highest quality available.
I buy music…
…that I really love
…to give extra financial support to musicians and ensembles I love
…because I want to have the freedom to convert the music to whatever format I want for mobile devices
I agree. Until Qobuz/Tidal, I accumulated hi-res files as fast as possible. Since, I have learned it is cheaper, and wiser, to rent rather than buy. I still have – and play – my 3000 or so albums in my personal library. But I have seen little reason to purchase at the level I once did. Tried both, stayed with Qobuz.
Well. There was a time when you did not know what you buy, before you did. I still buy, but very select. I also got roughly 3000 albums in my library. And about the half I would not buy again. So I think all in all it is a healthy development… not for those artists I would not buy again. But for me and those artist I really like
Most of my library is rips of CDs/SACDs/DVD-As. The hi-res rips are, virtually 90+, music that I already owned in CD quality. Glad I have the hi-res versions, but many I would not buy again. At least, if Qobuz goes belly-up, I will still have music. No looking back.
I was going to start ripping my SACDs just when Qobuz started going HighRes. Now that most of my SACDs are available in HigRes on Qobuz I am too lazy to rip. I could still do that if Qobuz goes “belly-up”.
Well, I payed a guy here in Denver who offered the service, so, since I am no longer buying hi-res discs, I am done. Though I must say the rips sound great, and some of those files are not – yet – available on Qobuz. Including my 5.1 files played from my Nucleus to my AVR.
I agree. We all love to have options, Roon is just one of them.
I guess there are several issues with the user interface. That should be relatively easy to address in a reasonable fashion. Unfortunately, there is not way to reconcile the interests and opinions of thousand of people. Hopefully Roon people will do their best effort to keep polishing the interface.
The last few day had been intoxicating discovering new music and opening a new landscape with endless possibilities.
Roon 1.8 really unleash the full potential of having a mega database of music, such as TIDAL and QOBUZ, at your fingertips. All kind of fun is ahead!
