Thanks, I see that now.
If Roon was only available on RoonOS itself I would not have looked into it in the first place. My interest in it would have been way below zero. Besides, I have tried Roon core on no less than five different computers with four different OS, including ROCK and they all performed more or less the same and they sounded 100% identical to me so I settled with the lowest maintenance and most energy-efficient solution. I had the most issues on ROCK with lots of corrupted tracks that are not corrupted at all but because ROCK has a problem with certain characters in file names. The same files are not corrupted on any other platform so if I had to choose only one operating system for Roon core it would be Windows for me.
It’s funny, you just reminded me of one time I had a nightmare when I couldn’t find hundreds of (mostly classical) albums after I switched from having my music on a NAS to local. It was the accented characters in file names. Now I have my music back on a NAS because I can’t be bothered to rename files on an ongoing basis. I’d forgotten about that. I’ve gone through several iterations and ended up back on ROCK. Many paths. I still would rather see simplicity.
Wasn’t there a time when using email was considered advanced? Maybe I’m wrong, but I think most people today can download and install an app. You don’t have to build a machine and install the OS from scratch, you can get a laptop, or better still, use an old one.
For MOCK or ROCK you do need to adjust BIOS settings then download and use an application to create a USB installer. It may be easy but still out of some comfort zones.
Installing the Roon applcation to use as a CORE on PC or Mac hardware is trivial and most would have no trouble doing so.
Exactly. As I stated elsewhere, I don’t see the value of “optimized” OS’s this day and age, when computing power is a commodity and most people have basic computer skills. Supporting Roon on as many popular, general use platforms as possible makes it accessible, since people can use the platform they’re most comfortable with, and does not force anyone to use dedicated hardware.
I agree completely.
If it were costless to do so I’d happily say “let it run on Apple Iis”.
Even if the cost of supporting all those platforms is that everything moves more slowly and has lower quality / more bugs / defects than they would with more focus?
I just perceive from the outside that they are probably spread too thin for a small company. And I for one would make some changes in my set-up to see them get more focused.
I seriously doubt this is the case.
That would make Roon a serious exception to every principle of modern software development. Though I have no knowledge of how they actually run. And it is possible that they’ve made so many abstractions / use so many cross-platform frameworks that the incremental cost of development is lower than I imagine. But even if that were true, the impact of all these cross platform frameworks is things like the famous iOS jitter issue (and perhaps, though no one will ever know) some of the data integrity issues that cropped up with 880.
I don’t believe that’s the case, though I haven’t written much code for 20 years when OOP was the big thing. The data integrity issue was revealed in 880 but from all accounts was present all along, so it’s not clear that multi-platform development was the genesis of the problem. Perhaps the developers themselves could weigh in here otherwise this is just too much opinion and not enough fact.
I’m done.
That worked. Thanks a lot!
This is the first time I’ve heard of “the famous iOS jitter issue”! As I’ve just put my core on a Macmini M1 I’d be grateful for some details!
Same here - D’OH!
Sorry, iOS not macOS. And not audio jitter but jittery scrolling on iphones and iPads. Was using this as a conceptual example of not having a native application because of needing to support so many platforms (my assumption of priorities, not something Roon has ever stated).
This issue in question:
If I had had to purchase new equipment to even trial Roon I would be using JRiver.
I don’t think the optimization is about computing power. It’s about sound quality. The theory is less extraneous processing the core is doing, the better the sound quality. The optimization is intended to eliminate unnecessary processes, that is processes that don’t relate to running Roon, thereby improving sound quality.
That is a false theory. In a multitasking OS, concurrent processes don’t alter each other’s data.
Wouldn’t a version of Roon that only ran on specific hardware/software be… Sooloos? The great glory of Roon for me is that you can start with a laptop and a DAC and progress to a full-blown multi-room system with (as I have) a mix of RAAT, AirPlay and Chromecast endpoints (and many more besides). Problems arise generally from underpowered core hardware and iffy networks.