Hmm.
I wonder if you’re right that a big portion of problems arise because of underpowered hardware, network. And if Roon could pop warnings on those setups that are marginal, and/or refuse to run on those that are “out of spec”. That’s different from reducing the number of platforms… but minimizing the number of folks who knowingly or unknowingly run with suboptimal / barely functional environments.
Warn, yes. Refuse, no.
I think that assumption is off. Roon came from a walled garden, I’m not so sure they want to be in the business of setting up a new one.
Roon launched very specifically to be cross platform that is why it utilized Mono/.NET, OpenGL, and leveldb. One code base or as close, etc etc
Maybe a review of history, Roon launches with Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS. It would be nearly two years before Linux, RoonOS, or NAS come on the scene. Roon has been about expanding platforms, not limiting them.
I don’t think it unreasonable to expect customers to understand they need to be on a recent ™ version of their preferred OS; I do think it unreasonable to now tell them that Roon would drop one, or more, of the core OS’s that Roon launched with.
Reading between the lines on some threads I suspect a lot of users presenting with problems have staggeringly convoluted local networks, and sometimes its many posts in before you realise core and endpoint are on Wi-Fi.
The nice thing about the hypothetical version of Roon that only ran on select hardware / platforms would be the turnkey consumer-friendly nature of it. Those turnkey solutions aren’t cheap, though. I started my Roon journey on my laptop running over Airplay. I added a Raspberry Pi and Meridian Explorer 2 I was done for a good while for not much money at all - even including my lifetime subscription. I’d seen and lusted after Sooloos but it was a little rich for my wallet back in the day (as were / are the Meridian DSP speakers I’d have put with it!),
On Windows 10 and Mac OS everything with Roon (touch wood) has been brilliantly stable for me.
Me too and I may still have the brochure hidden somewhere, but the cost was typical Meridian so not viable for me. It was also a closed system on custom hardware, so obsolescence was built in. Roon is quite the opposite and I hope it stays that way.
Not SQ. Roon Core is not in the audio signal path. It’s a music server. There cannot be SQ differences between machines running Core (with the low-probability exception of audible noise floor issues). The Optimized Core offers the chances of greater reliability and smoother user experience. Not sound quality.
IF YOUR KIT ALLOWS IT
My 5 (ish) year old PC doesn’t , I ran the diagnostics and it came up short …
HiFi News measured huge decreases in both jitter and S/N ratio of some DACS when they were driven from Roon Core running on a Nucleus compared to Roon Core running on a pc.
“ – iFi Audio’s iDSD – showed a near-total drop in jitter from 140psec to <5psec coupled with a huge gain in A-wtd S/N ratio from 88.9dB to 108.2dB”
I am seriously thinking of a NUC and wavering between ROCK and Windows. I will probably go Windows so that I can run JRiver in parallel as I do currently. (as i happens I have 128 M2 drive with Windows 10 on it from a laptop that died due to a “Fall” so I could easily swap between the 2 with a bit of tricky screw driver work
When it comes to custom views and tag Maintenance JRiver is hard to beat. I still have all my major Box Sets managed by JRiver
I wholeheartedly agree with you Johnny. Roon has to stop supporting so many platforms/devices and just focus it’s attention in one area. I propose that Roon should force everyone to use only Slackware OS which is extremely resource friendly as well as require everyone to use a current gen Threadripper CPU and a 3090 graphics cards at a minimum thereby eliminating any question that the Roon Core has plenty of horsepower. By just getting everyone to do this modest one time purchase we can ensure everyone is on the same page.
A hardware ID check by Roon along with ensuring everyone is using Slackware at all time needs to be rigidly enforced. Non-compliance should lead to immediate termination of Roon account and IP address banned from this forum so that Roon doesn’t have to spend time on those that aren’t falling into place.
Has this thread turned into parody? 
I think it has. I still think it’s a good idea, but I didn’t really expect anyone to vote for it, so mission accomplished. I’d still vote for Roon to figure out what tough decisions they could make that would make the platform more stable and enable higher velocity for them, but beyond that it’s none of my business. I’m an existing user, add as many here have pointed out correctly, they need to serve both existing and new users.
I don’t think the idea has legs though. Excluding Windows and MacOS, as I see it would merely increase Roon’s velocity into bankruptcy. They need subscriptions (I would imagine) to continue operating. I’d also suggest (and apologies for making assumptions here) that the vast majority of Windows and MacOS Roon users find the platform entirely stable (me for example), never experience performance issues and never frequent this forum which (again I assume) represents a tiny fraction of Roon’s installed base. Cutting off a huge number of customers so a vocal minority can get (say) a Roon mobile solution quicker wouldn’t be a good business move.
The OP may have come from this from a place of wanting genuine improvement, but it’s also based on zero data or knowledge of what the current user base looks like and seems entirely anecdotal-based. With that in mind, this request is less than useless and probably harmful.
Civil discussion is never harmful or dangerous. Roon honoring this request would be harmful, and it would be on them, not on the OP.
Let me clarify and say the discussion isn’t harmful, but the end result of the intent more than likely is, especially since it came in as an active request with a seemingly dearth of actual data about the situation behind it. This is why so many people are defensive about it; it’s the equivalent of casually tossing a grenade into a group of people with zero thought to the consequences and expecting everyone to be levelheaded about it.
Oh come now… People thus far have been civil.
There have large swings of frivolity in the discussion (not really unwelcome). As such, for this particular case, I would also like to refrain from derailing the conversation any further with meta-comments and focus on the actual thread at hand.
I believe frivolity is civil as long as it’s directed to ideas, not persons. It sometimes has a greater impact that hard, cold facts.
I understand and don’t disagree, hence the clarification.