A thread to actually celebrate Roon and no doom and gloom please!

I startet my music journey in the 70ies with FM Radio.

Then i explored Compact Cassets and Vinyl.

Later, I did buy CDs. Many years later, I ripped lots of CDs to my Naim-server.

And today i mostly stream music via Roon. I still listen to Vinyl, but love Roon very much. The interface is outstanding, the sound quality excellent.

It is made to stay.

1 Like

All good here. Roon continues to be the only solution for integrating my own library with Qobuz and stream this Hi Res around my house with minimal fuss.

2 Likes

Roon is brilliant! It seemed an expensive investment when I bought lifetime a couple of years back but it’s paid for itself over and over. The flexibility, ease of use, interface… it just works. Amazingly. Every time. All the time.

3 Likes

Well… exactly!!

I read this forum frequently and think you have a very good point. For me, Roon has been a life changer. I have a lot of music stored over the years locally and also subscribe to Tidal and Qobuz. When someone drew my attention in 2013 to Roon, and what it could do, I immediately tried it and was absolutely amazed. Here was a system that seamlessly integrated all my music sources into a single library, sending it to several endpoints around the house. My playlists created with iTunes years ago, and with Tidal and Qobuz more recently, were all still available. The only difficulties I had were that sometimes my Windows computer left something to be desired as a core and that my home Wi-Fi system was sometimes a hindrance. I have, however, acquired a Nucleus that performs flawlessly and upgraded my Wi-Fi. Roon may have room for further enhancements but I find it a spectacular technological achievement as it is, and think my subscription is money very well spent.

2 Likes

Quite right! It was a perfectly reasonable and polite request to place your comments in the appropriate thread … and sadly there are plenty to choose from if you’ve only got criticisms to make and enjoy doing that in a way which helps no one other than to work yourself and each other into a fever pitch of negativity (without so much as the basic details needed to help if they are genuinely seeking it)

Inevitably there will be those who took this posts as an insult or invitation to drag the discussion into the gutter. As my mother used to say, “Just smile nicely and keep walking by, unless they really want help”.

As for me, I’ve been a happy Roon user for about a year or so, and don’t regret paying for lifetime subscription from the get go. The only problems I experienced were due to ignorance as a newbie, and I received prompt and helpful advice from many other users.

Coming from Sonos, it not only confirmed that my allegedly “beyond” use Zone players were still good for years to come (even at performance levels way exceeding the crap direction Sonos is heading towards), but also reminded me of the joy I used to have listening to and discovering new music. As an early Sonos adopter here in the UK (back when they valued their customers) I fell in love with streaming from Pandora, only to sadly have to plug pulled on their service due to rights issues.

I was borderline obsessed with “owning” copies of music stored locally, and initially struggled with the concept of paid streaming services, especially as there was just too much to choose from! It became a pain to find what music I was in the mood for.

Ironically I ended up with so many local files that I developed indecision-itis and frustrated navigating my local library (can you believe Sonos never featured a “recently added” or “recently played” list to choose from!)

Then I discovered Roon, which not only brought all “my” music together in one place, irrespective of where it came from or which streaming service, it served it up in an immersive, visually pleasing and aurally inspiring way, with gorgeous, dynamic artwork and biographies and album reviews and credits with links to other artists, making my listening a journey of discovery. WOW!

Then I discovered that it also has a Pandora-esk algorithm which serves me up new music after my selected tracks had finished - OMG I was in heaven. And to top it all off, unlike Sonos (yet again) it even allowed me to listen on devices that are also used to control ‘zone players’ like iPhones, Macs, iPads etc as well as playing nicely with all my old and newest Sonos devices and my new Chord Poly/Mojo as both an endpoint for active monitors or a ‘head-Fi’ set up on my collection of cans!

Is it perfect? Probably not. Do I care? No! I’ve bigger things to worry about, like recovering from serious ill health and endless hospital admissions, or a global pandemic that has ruined economies, people’s jobs and killed countless people!

Why have I never had any technical problems? Hard to say, but I’d hazard a guess it’s because I run it on a dedicated Mac Mini, local files on Qnap NAS, connect as many devices as possible over Gb ethernet, use a solid 24 port switch and have 3 Ubiquiti UniFi access points dotted round my house and have Fibre-to-the-home internet access, so it’s all rock solid and trouble free.

I’m also happy to help anyone who IS having technical problems however, but they will need to give enough information to help identify the cause and try to stay calm and respectful (however frustrated they may have become).

Apologies for such a long and overwhelmingly positive post. I of course respect anyone’s right to identify as a disgruntled Roon user :wink:

3 Likes

I have had problems with Roon that were all sorted by technical support. Now I am a very happy lifetime subscriber. Amongst other things, 1.8 gives me:

  • the ability to search for Hi-Res content in Qobuz
  • a user-friendly way to control multi-room audio
  • a beautiful interface

What more could I want?

1 Like

My only real complaint would be that Team Roon rather shot themselves in the foot with the pre-publicity for 1.8 attracting so many simultaneous users at launch that some had an initially poor experience as the infrasructure buckled a tad.

Purchased with a Qobuz subscription at the start of Lockdown 1 in the UK, I’m a year into my Roon experience and it’s probably my 2nd best hifi purchase (after my Focal Utopias…). It’s got me listening to more music more often, which is surely the point of it all.

2 Likes

I have to make a confession here.
I am first and foremost an analog guy, vinyl and tape are my love and passion with way too many dollars spent for sanity…lol.

But…

Roon is definitely the best thing that ever happened as far as digital goes for myself and it has been a game changer for my ripped CD and Qobuz streaming experience.
One that I think would be very hard to walk away from.

Sure I can use bubbleupnp and it will control all of my devices but the enrichment that Roon brings in artist information and suggestions would be a major blow now I have experienced it.

Between Roon and my new to me Lumin T2, digital is getting closer to my analog reproduction…

I am now in my fourth year. The latest version is great. I particularly like the listening recommendations. I am finding many new recordings on Tidal that are not even listed on Tidal’s new releases.

1 Like

I largely agree with you. The little hickup in my system right after the 1.8 update was resolved by the “over-the -weekend-build” after a few days.

Otherwise it works just flawless.

1 Like

Roon is the best and never had any issues in 3 years of use (knocking on wood!)!

3 Likes

I’m all in. My core is running on a NUC10i7 that I easily put together with the help of this forum. Endpoints include two Bluesound devices - NODE 2i and POWERNODE 2i (living room), a Peachtree DAC (office stereo), Chord MOJO (for headphones), 2 Apple Homepods (kitchen and bedroom), Apple TV (family room), and a Sonos Move (for outside). This is all controlled through various Apple computers, iPADs and iPhones. In addition to ripped CDs and library of live flac recordings, I’m a big fan of TIDAL. We have a robust WIFI (EERO pro). I’m a happy guy as long as the system continues to be stable and fundamentally works.

2 Likes

1.8 has been working flawlessly for me. User friendliness has gone up a notch.

3 Likes

This happy tread was a great idea! I`m so happy with my Roon plus Nucleus and Devialet. I have been interested in hifi for 50 years.
Roon is the best development so far!

Leif, Kalmar, Sweden

3 Likes

You are not wrong James. Roon (insert your genre here) rocks!

2 Likes

“Showing (off) your Roon setup” & “What we’re listening to” seem to be the most popular (and populated) threads in the Roon Community, which suggests to me that not only are the majority of users here mainly interested in music and HiFi, they’re not that bothered by whatever quirks the software presents. Criticism has its purpose, but let’s face it, Roon delivers, and delivers extremely well. I dare say there a few in the community for whom Roon has completely reignited the love of music. No small feat.

7 Likes

… and I keep getting pleasantly surprised about how widely roon is being adopted … delighted to find the Cambridge Audio streamers with Roon in and mine works great.

1 Like

It’s really easy and not very creative to find fault.

Most people come to forums to find answers to setup issues but a few just love to complain.

I have had Roon for a long time, a lifetime subscriber after the first year.

It works, really well.

2 Likes

I will definitely take some of that wine.