Roon’s core design is robust, and it has been for the almost 4 years I’ve been using it. It does require a solid home network, which I have little difficulty maintaining but can be a problem for some users. Device and endpoint discovery rely on multicast, which unfortunately is not as well implemented in some home-grade routers and switches as it should be. Which is another reason I only use pro network gear at home.
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These pretty nail it for me too. One app to rule them all (endpoints that is) that works largely as well on android and ios. That and my loan library and my streaming collections being treated as a single library.
The extra info is nice but I see it as a bonus. I do find myself clicking on an artist or producer mentioned in
I buy those sleeves too. By clean I meant some new records sound clean-no snap, crackle and pop and others are awful. I do send those back when I am able.
You can rip SACD’s yourself with select OPPO and Pioneer players. I ripped my collection of over 100 SACD’s with a Pioneer BDP 80.
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You missed off the "and never will"
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Ha, I remember the '60s, at least bits of it (here and there).
The SQ on vinyl in the '60s was, most of the time, horribly mutilated.
I din’t think of that. I. can’t walk. I do however swim 1m 5 days a week. Sadly this C19 has put paid to that. 18 days without swimming and I am seized up and needing more morphine. Even when i wasn’t like this I could not imagine life without music. Yes there have been times I have been too ill to listen or have the interest. But rare. I just can’t imagine a life without music.
Your previous blog was very good btw.
Quite the opposite. I think many, myself included, used the alternatives before committing to Roon. Also, cost isn’t necessarily as important as features and function.
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I didn’t have the equipment required. I used a service who did,
There are lots of other options for DLNA/UPNP.
Only one for RAAT…
It sounds like you’re done with converting your SACD’s already so it’s a moot point in your case but I think your OPPO is one of the players supported. It just takes that and some free software to do it. Thought I’d point out an alternative for those who are thinking about how to get the files off of their SACD’s.
Nah, that was because of the awful cheap record players. When I was a kid, we had one of those record changers in a cabinet. An ACEC if I remember rightly (more than fifty years ago, memory’s not all that good). ACEC was a Belgian brand, quite famous at the time. It sounded like the music was playing from the house next door.
In 1975 I got my own record player for my 10th birthday, a Philips with a built-in amp, a cartridge with a tip like a darning needle and two speakers the size of a shoebox. I was stoked.
In 1982 I was DJ-ing for a pirate radio station and I got to know the indestructible Technics Sl-1200. That was an eye-opener (ear-opener). A few months after I went to my girlfriend’s house for the first time and met her dad’s music setup.
A Linn Sondek 12 with a Sumiko MMT arm and a Goldring cartridge (don’t remember which one), a Marantz 300DC amp and a pair of B&W 801’s. You couldn’t drag me out of that house with a team of horses.
@Knitman, sorry for hijacking the thread a little with this post. The memories just flooded back.
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Sorry, but I had a Garrard with the Shure type IV cartridge, not high end by today’s standards, but in the day a respectable rig.
It was the vinyl. There was such a demand for music, and vinyl was the only game in town (8 tracks were just coming out), that record companies used reconstituted vinyl and much thinner than the 140 g. quoted above. I would get Columbia Record Club records that were impossible to play.
For that reason, click and pop machines were invented. If it was the turntables then those machines wouldn’t have been effective, such as they were.
Zenith or RCA. Zenith had a tonearm with a “cobra” looking head on it.
Regarding this thread. I am gathering that the OP wants us to sway him a direction which, I assume, means we are to make compelling argument in favor of Roon. Not sure he really by any of us making his decision. At some level, I see Roon as not only a tool but a “hobby” unto itself.
Brings back a memory. I had a Dual 1019 and an Empire 888TE cartridge. I had the chance to get a V15 Type III Shure to replace it. The difference in SQ was impressive.
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As others have said, the one year rely isn’t a big commitment in the greater scheme of thing. I tried Jriver several times over the past 5 years. As a Mac OS user I found JRiver very clunky and confusing. I also found there customer service very lacking. Always pointing me to a Wiki that I found equally confusing.
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Hard to ascertain how many Roon users have tested alternatives & at what point in their development. As for cost, whilst I tend to agree with your comment (I am here 
), I don’t think we can say this definitively.
I would assume for many users that aren’t here, the cost compared to function hasn’t proved to be a defining feature.
Well, given that vinyl collectors often seek out original pressings, not for the resale value, but for the sound quality, I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. And sure plenty of collectors want original copies for resale value (that’s different).
It was the crappy players that let the sound down - not the pressings per se. Further, my point was that current 180g+ (pressings) do not, purely based on weight, sound better than older pressings on thinner vinyl. In fact, current pressings generally tend to be ‘poorer’ than their older counterparts.
Of course, that isn’t to say that in days gone by you wouldn’t ever buy a record that wasn’t warped or noisy. However, today the likelihood is a great deal higher. And given that once records were essentially the music playback medium of choice without peer & today they only form the basis of a niche market, that clearly says something about the quality to me. As per above, quality has been gradually been improving as more record pressing plants have opened.
Beyond all of that, I used to love buying UK/German import records as opposed to local or US imports as they were always pressed on heavier vinyl. They just seemed a better quality (not better sound) or perhaps it was the allure of sourcing a pressing that was deemed ‘better’. Hey, but being a kiddo then, buying records was definitely not about sound quality!