I have been a lifetime subscriber to Roon since 2017 but after the late 2021 build 880 debacle where I, along with many others, found themselves with a system that didn’t work at all, I am now, again, after the latest update, nursing an unstable Roon installation that just stops without warning, every few minutes (Zone keeps disappearing) which I was told is a “well-known issue with no current solution in sight” in a way that suggested it was just my hard luck I had encountered it and that Roon support didn’t give a damn it was the case.
I am sick to death of that attitude and always being in a situation of wondering whether, after an update, my system will continue to work! Now it doesn’t, thanks to Roon’s clinical obsession with f****ing changing things and not giving users the ability to say “do not update”!!!
That being the case, I would like to ask if anyone can recommend an alternative to Roon that has the same basic functionality of being able to play locally stored files and can, unlike Roon, be relied upon to work all the time…because I’m done with this cr@p!
I’ve been a lifetime subscriber since last year and use Roon as my main streaming platform. That said, like you, there have been times like internet interruptions when it won’t cooperate and the experience could sometimes be less than ideal. During those times I use Plexamp (with lifetime Plex pass) to stream my locally stored and Tidal libraries to my endpoints(raspberry pis with ropieee installed). This works flawlessly. But Roon just removed the internet requirement in the last update so it might all be good now.
Try running it on some different hardware. It doesn’t need to cost the world. I run my server on an old Lenovo x220 laptop, and it works flawlessly.
I think your NAS setup might be the issue here. Don’t throw away your lifetime subscription. Adapt.
4 Likes
SukieInTheGraveyard
(This one time, at Bandcamp... I spent too much money!)
8
Having researched alternatives to Roon before taking out a lifetime sub, I can safely say that there isn’t an equivalent in terms of a full feature set. It depends entirely on your usage (dsp, multiple zones, integration of streaming and local library etc.) But, like others have said, your problems might be CPU related.
Your “zone keeps disappearing” issue is apparently an issue with the Meridian 218 device. As @connor says, Roon Labs have passed the results of their investigation over to Meridian, and the fix lies in the hands of Meridian.
I know a couple of people who use Audirvana and are happy with it. I myself have no experience at all with it. If you’re terminally frustrated with Roon, it could be worth a shot. Based on those people’s experiences, it’s my backup solution in case Roon should become untenable for me (which is far from the case as of now).
I really don’t see how it could be the 218 since it has worked perfectly since I bought it for Roon in 2017. The only thing that has changed is Roon itself specifically since the last update. Up to that point there were no problems. Likewise, blaming my NAS is wide of the mark too. I know it’s underpowered when compared with the ideal but the point is it works. Maybe not as fast a some would like but fast enough for me. My system has been as it is now for seven years and it was never an issue but now it is and the only common denominator in that equation is the changes within Roon.
To be clear, I have no intention of plunging. But whenever I become dependent on some piece of technology, I always identify a backup solution just in case.
For example, Linux is my backup solution to macOS on the desktop. I don’t actually use it on the desktop (although I do extensively as a server) but if Apple were to cease to exist (ha), I would switch to Linux desktop.
What I can say is that I no longer recommend Roon to my friends/family in search of a music management solution, unless they have experience in managing software and networks, and are willing to troubleshoot and fix stuff on their own. Roon support was always mediocre and has recently become catastrophically bad. I don’t want to recommend it to novices and then end up having to be their support person. I typically recommend Apple Music to such people: they seem happy.
Hopefully the Harman acquisition lets Roon return to at least the mediocre support they had when I bought my lifetime subscription in 2018.
Edit/Add: I want to add that I’ve received great support and many tips and suggestions from forum members. Thank you, everybody. That has never been an issue for me. However, Roon took my Amex card number and to the best of knowledge didn’t share any of the money with the always helpful members of this forum. That doesn’t seem fair to me, so I generally don’t count crowdsourced support as support, unless it’s for an open source platform that’s maintained by volunteers (e.g., Linux).
This somehow reminds me of one of their very first core reasons to introduce RAAT. DLNA/UPnP wouldn’t be suitable for best audio quality and it would be implemented rather “creatively” because of lacking more specific definitions. Which would lead to broad incompatibilities.
But, no matter how well defined a proprietary standard is it’s only as good as its implementation in systems. And beyond this every software has bugs. But the manufacturers’ task is to use a qualified QA process eliminating those with a bad impact on user experience.
In their latest statement they more or less say that this will be improved.
It’d be a way to prove or not if the 218 is in fact an issue.
Please let us know how things go
1 Like
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
21
But that can be misleading. Unfortunately, changes to one part of the system can also expose deficiencies in the other parts of the system. Someone should sort this out.
Agreed. Roon should be testing their updates and their interactions with Roon compatible equipment far more thoroughly than they seem to at the moment. Being told that it’s unfortunate I’ve encountered a well known issue and then providing me with a link to someone else who has too (presumably so we can comiserate with one another) isn’t helpful.
