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No Blue Tooth.
National Bikini Team… Nobody has ever complained about the price…
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I bought the lifetime subscription. Price is now behind me.
My current investment is TIME… I have tags but I am helping Roon identify DVD, BD, SACD titles and getting the correct art and adding some more version info to Roon and tags. My Roon will have an investment in time just as I invest in tagging but the Roon info isn’t portable (trying to update from my metadata and files for more portability).
Given the lifetime subscription and custom setup time investment moving off Roon won’t be an easy choice. I’m in for the long haul. My time tweaking Roon (vs portable metadata) may be the biggest regret should I have to move off it.
I think it should be good for 5 years but things change. I was a Microsoft Zune user once. The streaming (Tidal) dependency, streaming alternatives and corporate buyouts present risk.
I’m getting enjoyment now so now worries.
A lifetime Roon subscription works out to be about 1.5% of my expenditure on my audio set up (speakers, amps, cables, wireless speakers etc). And if you include my music library, it would probably be less than 0.1% of my total expenditure. We have got so used to “free” or cheap software that either comes full of ads or charges for every update - and never quite delivers either on functionality or customer support.
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I can’t agree that Roon’s sound quality is inferior to a Naim ND5XS. I had one, together with its XP5XS outboard power supply immediately prior to buying Roon and the Meridian 218 to go with it. The first thing I noticed on day one was that the sound quality was better: more mid range detail and noticeably greater bass extension.
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Roon as a life time deal is a great value. My advice: get it, before it is gone.
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I don’t regret spending a penny on Roon, it opened up my collection and I listen to more music than ever before as a result.
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I could not agree more, Simon.
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Roon is just like heath insurance is for the rich. They can buy the medication the insurance wont cover if it is better.
Who can afford $10,000 or more on an audio system? The same people who can afford Roon. I looked at a demo of the software on line. A monster and will do much nice things. I am saving for the last audio system in my lifetime. I will be checking out J-River software because I can afford it. Roon has priced its self out of the middle class market and patterned around rich audiophiles. Sad that too many nice things in life the poor or not very well to do cannot afford. We all love music. I just cannot justify the cost after the cable bill and $20 / month streaming costs. My paycheck wont go that far. Soon I will be retired and have less. Senior discounts Roon?
Roon lifetime costs about the same as the annual road tax on my old van. Running an old van and paying extra road tax is cheaper than having a flash newer van. Choices choices… it depends how you look at it.
Another not rich person here.
I dropped my my cable bill many years ago and that allowed me to get ROON, even without being rich it is all about priorities. I chose to listen to music I love instead of “them” flashing their **** on their channels down my brain.
Roon is not perfect, i.e. I do all of my initial metadata handling in iTunes, which is free on Mac and Windows and then let Roon import it, but it is still a great piece of software. It is just magical when there is an update and it asks me if I want to update my RaspberryPi based endpoint. iTunes will get similar to ROON lyrics this fall, but ROON had it for years, etc. etc.
Health insurance is just that. Roon isn’t any where near as important as that, it is software to use for leisure for the most part (there are pro users). We all make judgement calls about how we spend what money we have. I won’t spend on cables. I think it is folly, and as an engineer I think that if something needs expensive cables to sound at its best, it is badly designed. That will get some people’s backs up but I’m cool with that. And I’ll admit my first spell with Roon left me questioning its cost vs. it’s value, and that was because we don’t normally think of software as being part of a luxury purchase. In the end I went with what felt best to use. And to be frank, I thought Roon was just better than the alternatives.
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It’s like smartphones… who needs to spend $1000 on something just to make a phone call? It’s that Roon, like smartphones, brings so much more to the experience.
Audirvana might be an option. $75 USD.
Thank you! I will check it out!
Foobar. Free and frankly better than JRiver in terms of sound. You will have to learn some things, but, that is part of the trade off.
Should software have a sound? Anyway, JRiver sounds just like Roon in my setup. JRiver also has loads of features missing from Roon and missing from Foobar unless you cobble together a Rube Goldberg Lego kit of plugins. Yeah, JRiver UI is psychedelic and impenetrable, but it is a lot of bang for the buck once you get past that.
CJRiver UI is complex no doubt but JRemote is clean neat Control Point
Yes you have to the UI for tagging but-when you listen you use the Control Point
Don’t Exlude config ability in the debate , you can make JRiver and JRemote look how you want ! With Roon you get what you pay for
I use Both in parallel and extensively
Money no Object if it does the job it claims
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