I used Logitech Media Server for many years and when my Squeezebox2 failed I settled on Media Player Daemon (MPD) with Mopidy and Audirvana. I was never entirely satisfied with these products.
In 2016 I discovered Roon. I was impressed but not hooked; not keen on a subscription model or the $500 lifetime subscription. But the reality was that Roon had changed the way I listened to music (at that time only rips from my CD collection.) I was rediscovering music I’d forgotten about and finding music I’d bought but never got around to playing. Roon also opened up other possibilities including multi-room.
I soon realised that I needed more time to decide, so I purchased a 12-month subscription. Within three months I knew that Roon was a keeper, so I bought the lifetime subscription (my unused months were credited against this.)
In a way I justified the cost by not buying a new CD player. The comparison is useless though. Roon does so much more and continues to evolve–it’s the heart of my hi-fi system. What’s more, it is so much more than it was when I started this journey with my enjoyment of music increased ten-fold. Discovering new (and old) artists is a joy–but you’ll need TIDAL or Qobuz too!
That’s why I chose Roon. I recommend you take longer to decide and take a yearly subscription. Currently, there is the option to go lifetime if you like what you hear.
60 is hardly at deaths door. You’d get well over 20 years out of it! If not more. Assuming ears don’t give out entirely. My husband is 73 and uses aids which are excellent according to him. He has a serious lung problem but I still don’t expect him to be popping off just yet.
I am 61 with serious health issues and a progressive disease which now has me in a wheelchair and I am brain damaged from head trauma but I still expect another 30 years.
Even if not, if I spend out for the lifetime package and I pop my clogs the next day so what? I am sure my list of questions will not be why I wasted the money on Roon?!
I guess I am trying to say in a long winded way, please don’t just because you are 60 that your life is almost over or that you are old. Think about it. How different is your essence from your teens?
Maybe I am different. Life was a terrible daily struggle for me until I was fortunate enough to sort it all out change my thinking and now I love ecvh day and look forward to it instead of hoping each night not to wake the following day.
Yes I am aware this is not really appropriate for here but your comment about being 60 was it really worth buying the full Roon just touched me hence my response.
Hello @Knitman. Since others have given helpful replies about using Roon itself, mainly from the point of view of what the software does, perhaps I can add something that hasn’t been mentioned yet…
…which is to say, the benefit of being part of this community. The range of musical tastes represented by the people who post here is very wide, and people are enthusiastic to share what they’re listening to – which Roon makes very easy. As a result I’ve discovered a lot of wonderful music that I doubt I’d have ever come across on my own. The combination of Roon, a streaming service (Qobuz for me) and listening ideas from people here has both expanded my musical horizons and helped me find new favourites in genres I already enjoyed.
I dare say there might be similarly enthusiastic and diverse user communities for other players, but nevertheless this community is definitely an unexpected and very welcome part of Roon’s value to me. Thanks, everyone.
I love Roon and could not live without it now.
I have stopped buying music since I started with Roon. This is something I NEVER thought I would do, so for me Roon has not cost me money , it has saved me a fortune as I was spending £60 to £100 per month on music. Now I exclusively use Tidal.
I do however feel that Roon is only really beneficial if you use a streaming service like Tidal or Qobuz, but this is just my opinion.
I have a NAS. My Yamaha RX-A3080 picks it up and shows all the files on the tv BUT when I click on one there is nothing there. There is but for some reason I cannot fathom it isn’t being seen. I am only interested in streaming from it if it streams hi-res files.
As we never learn from the past in networked music there are different standards - like betamax Vs VHS.
Arguments for each (and as it’s the internet, lots of arguments).
It’s an industry wide digital transmission protocol ie how the music gets distributed across a network, it’s been around for literally years . Roon is ofthe opinion it’s too flawed to use hence they developed their own RAAT
The big advantage of DLNA is that most network devices support it whereas RAAT at the moment has somewhat smaller coverage
I will say this…you seem ‘techy’ to me. Took me a week or 2 of posting cut & pasting people names that included their home page links. I knew this wasn’t right (I could see it wasn’t how others were posting), but I just couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong.
It took a private email from one of the mods here to tell me I wasn’t posting correctly & to get my sh!t together
Nah, he didn’t say that, but had to tell me what I should be doing…
It is possible DLNA is ‘too flawed’, I really don’t know.
I’d suggest that Roon developing a proprietary streaming protocol is a means of differentiation and exclusivity. That to me is a business model, rather than developing a system to eliminate so-called flaws of DLNA or otherwise improve on that protocol.
It’s possible that for Roon developing RAAT from the ground up, it was easier to meet their vision, rather than working with what is considered the industry standard. Further, as it’s a proprietary method, that means there are opportunities for sales, if there decided to explore such options.
I think this is closer to the truth. What’s more, I doubt that DLNA could ever be “fixed” or deliver the features we already see in Roon. This is probably why Slim Devices also implemented their own protocol.
I own licenses for JRiver, Audirvana, Amarra, and Roon. I’ve been a Roon lifetime subscriber since July 2015. I am pretty techie, and have compared all manners of software and setups.
Things Roon is great at:
1- Plays both local files and streaming in one platform
2- Supports all music formats you might have in your local repository
3- Connectivity is simple and simply works
4- It is robust, stable, always works, and has a strong support team
Things Roon is unique at:
A- Provides incredible metadata depth to your files
B- Easily find music in streaming services (I subscribe to both TIDAL and Qobuz)
C- Easily match music from streaming service - eg find your local album in streaming services and/or find an album in one service from an album in the other
D- Album versioning is fantastic - you can group together all versions of an album under one primary album - eg I have many versions of Aretha’s “I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You”, and they are all under my primary version (this includes both local and streaming versions, and there’s no difference between their treatment other than the indication it is on TIDAL or Qobuz)
E- Amazing integration of many endpoints into one interface - you can play different things to different systems in your house all at the same time - and supports RoonReady, USB, SONOS, Airplay, ChromecastAudio, Squeezebox, and Meridian’s old SOOLOOS protocol.
F- RoonReady works great and brings all DAC controls back to the Roon interface
G- Runs on all platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux) and includes a version of a Linux all-in install (Roon Rock) that you can set up in an inexpensive NUC and be done with for years on end
H- iPad, iPhone, Android, Mac, and Windows interfaces of impecable quality
I- Roon Radio is actually fantastic
I don’t know of any software that is as all-encompassing and robust for music playing.
PS: Having said all of the above, there are two major bugs I am experiencing (TIDAL login failure and iOS app instability - for a long time now) and as such I have to say I am on the fence on recommending Roon.
Do you mean how well does UPnP work? I am actually not 100% sure it supports UPnP streaming since I have never used it, nor have I used the SOOLOOS protocol (but a friend does since he has Meridian speakers).
