What I do not understand about the need for folder browsing is why users can’t simply tag the albums in the folder? If you have a bunch of albums with no metatadata, held in folders of bootlegs, mixes, home recordings etc etc surely you just create tags that replicate the folders? This is a genuine question of interest as I’m confused.
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Probably OK for a few folders, but if you have a whole bunch of them, maybe not. Besides, the folders are already there - presumably organised in some sort of way - anything else is just extra and unnecessary effort.
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I am 100% headphones too, with 3 sets of $1000 + headphones and an highish end headphone amp . To me it’s far from casual 
Many users would see my headphones count as low !
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I’ll preface my post by saying that I am 100% on board with Roon sticking to its guns about folder browsing.
BUT - here’s an example of why having some reference to folders in the UI could be useful for me:
- In my case, I have a fairly simple folder structure for my music. That said, I have all non-lossy classical in a top-level folder, and all non-lossy non-classical in another top-level folder. I have a separate folder for lossy music as well because I have a separate goal of making that folder smaller over time. Lossy classical is all in one subfolder in that structure.
So: Not everything that is in my classical folders is of a single tagged genre, and not everything in those classical folders is considered classical by Roon’s genre algorithms. On my Synology NAS, where I use Synology AudioStation, I can easily create smart playlists (which are like Roon bookmarks that are based upon filters) that simply and efficiently exclude content that whose path includes the phrase “/Classical” - and it’s really that easy.
Roon currently has no way to elegantly allow for that sort of filtration of content. If all Roon did was add new string-based filter dimensions based upon pathnames, I suspect that would be enough to satisfy almost any folder-based needs that people have. They would not need to specifically add “folder browsing,” because the new filter capabilities as I’ve described would essentially provide the most important benefits of folder attributes to people.
If I were on the Roon team, doing vertical slicing of features to address people’s “folder” needs, then this is the first slice I would do for sure.
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As said above, that could be a lot of work, if it worked precisely as expected.
What that doesn’t take into account is that Roon’s use of file embedded metadata is a little uneven and it doesn’t always identify things well enough to even be found. That’s where folder browsing makes sense. You can find the item, adjust Roon’s “identification” of it so you can find it the Roon way, and go from there.
But also, that doesn’t address people that use folders as multi-artist playlists, playing files that aren’t in the library (because only Roon makes you put it in the library to play it - and doesn’t do that for streaming media), and a few other edge cases.
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I’ve only got to the one ZMF Caldera but it cost me close to $4,000 and a Naim Atom Uniti HE for around $3200. Plus the expensive Maine Coon cat and view 
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Having ‘survived’ numerous acquisitions, I hope that all of your talent was retained. I can only imagine the ‘harmonization’ of a huge tech company diving into your baby which we all love so much. We often called it ‘moving out of the garage’. The post and direction is surprising in all the rignt ways. Kudos to the geeks behind tbe curtain.
We have a lot in common , my Eames Chair has no cat , it’s all mine tucked away in a corner of the lounge.
Same amp, I moved from an RPi / RoPieee / Audiolab M-DAC to the Naim HE about a year ago.
I used Sennheiser HD800 for around 10 years and recently bought the HiFiMan Arya Stealth and a pair of Focal Clear Mg , I am still trying to decide between them but the Arya is winning so far . Such a clear detailed sound. My first foray into Planar magnetics I had some true electrostatics years ago Stax SR3
Hi Fi is just SOOO expensive in South Africa , our Rand is so weak against the $ and UKP, Euro etc. BUT we have lots of Game Parks. I am off for 7 days in the Kruger Park in March
Afraid my view is not so impressive , middle of a an estate,
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Where is this? What a cracking view that is.
I can imagine sitting in the dark at night with your headphones on. Bliss
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Sorry for the OT but oh man, we spent some time at Singita as part of our SA honeymoon years ago. Unforgettable.
We are just 5 hrs drive away i have spent most of my birthdays there. The end of May is perfect 
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It’s the edge of downtown San Diego looking southeast with Mexico towards the south. I get amazing sunrises. Bedroom looks out towards an old building. So the Eames chair is actual an old knockoff from the 70’s that my dad gave me but still does the job although the cat is usually in it.
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Ah…great view fir the cat! I like the cleverly mounted “steps” to the Kitty Hammock…
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Roon database is not perfect, not even with Identified album(because of the metadata providers), even worst for unidentified or non-album track (special mixing/demo/bootleg/bonus download track) so folder browsing is an assistant tools to rediscover tracks that not well-managed/treated by Roon, at lease to resurface and organized by custom album/playlists/tag in more manageable fashion by general users.
I don’t get why people can’t look in their computer’s file manager for this
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I don’t need folder browsing, but I understand why it could be useful, even for me. I use Roon on a headless server running Sonictransporter. I don’t have a computer where I listen to my music, but use an iPad for Roon Remote. The only way to see what’s on my server, is to use the Apple files/documents app (I don’t know what this app is called in English). But this app is not very user friendly and you can’t play a track through this app in Roon.
A real step forward would be, if folder browsing would open the possibility to select newly downloaded convolution files using an iPad instead of a computer.
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I find the Files app not so bad and I am not sure that a tack-on file browser built into Roon would be better.
Yes but this is a different use case than the one I replied to.
This is much easier to do and does not need file browsing as such at all
I am at a complete loss with this folder browsing discussion. Using a file system to describe the content of the files stored does only make sense if the files do not carry that information inside of them.
This is true for wav (which do not make sense just because of this these days), but that’s about it. All current formats for media files carry metadata, which can be easily read and edited.
It is easy to generate tags (metadata) from folders and vice versa. So once you go have the folder information inside the file, you can do everything with metadata you can do with folders, and more.
This is what ROON does with the focus feature, and I have yet to learn what might be accomplished by browsing a folder that cannot be do via tags.
Unless you have no tags, that is. But then creating tags based on folder conventions is a no brainer.
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So if you have Bach’s complete works under “JS Bach” folder and you want to rename it “J.S. Bach”, all you need to do is re-tag a few thousand files. Sounds simple enough.
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The only use case I can personally imagine here (and it could be somewhat useful) is that you can browse through the content of your watched folder(s), and for every music file there check a) whether Roon had imported it (if not, why) and b) if it was imported, what it was identified as.
Once there, might as well be able to play them, too…