Mirror Worlds and Lifestreams. Takes me back. Wonderful stuff. But the Unabomber attack seems to have somewhat unhinged him. I can’t imagine anyone endorsing our current president for president in 2016 (or ever). Maybe it’s the same thing that happened to Dennis Miller after 9/11 – turned him deeply unfunny.
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Was this some kind of April Fool gag? I notice by the name anonymous that I can only conclude it must be a joke. Otherwise, for one to think this sad essay is of community interest leaves me cold.
Yes, music over metadata.
@xxx, yes, Roon can list things by artist. I get 8 artists per page on my Kindle with a lot of space wasted on pictures. It’s a painfully slow process to scroll though a couple of thousand artists in my collection. There are some generic filters one can use to narrow things down, but I still find it a much more cumbersome process than LMS which gives me a much larger list of names per page (since there are no pictures) and I find the scrolling process quicker.
I’ve tried hard to give Roon every chance to impress me. While it does in some ways, I find it more awkward to use in getting to the music I want to hear at the moment.
So serous listening = to me, you know what you want to listen to and you sit down and listen.
How is it you can’t find an album you know you want listen to in Roon?
It’s just so easy… Search, use focus, look for artist.
Perhaps I’m missing something, but I just don’t get it.
Even if I don’t know what to play, discover usually finds an entry point.
Having faved many many tracks, a shuffle through those leads me in.
Then the pleasure of just browsing about as I’m listening, exploring and finding something I’d forgotten about is like being in an old fashioned record shop, but better as I can instantly play said album or any track from it. (This leads me on another journey of other and associated albums and all the artist/Composer links there in) The choices are endless…
This to me is a great way of re familiarising myself with my library over time in an inspiring way as opposed to scrolling around a dry tree of folders that may well be factual, but oh so dull with no stimulation.
Bookmarking sections of my library is also a great tool for fast access to areas where I feel I need this and is also a way of excluding them also.
Anyway, we all have our view and quirks but this is why I love Roon.
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To me the only reason for folders is if you are not using some form of library software.
I my early days with digital audio before I ran ethernet cables I used a direct USB HDD plugged in the back of my streamer (Cambridge Audio CXN) because wifi was so unreliale in my setup. Doing that simply displays the content of the drive folder structure , hence the legacy of classical by Composer , Rock etc by Artist just to give myself half a chance of finding something.
It keeps the drive tidy but is a lousy way to find music. Once I started with networked audio with JRiver and latterly Roon it rapidly became obvious that folder navigation was not the best way. Its the whole essence of such software , let it do its job
I suppose the “librarian” in me wants some order but the software doesn’t
rant over
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I can only relay my experience with Roon.
I’ve tried mighty hard to like the way Roon does things but it just isn’t working for me to the degree I would want, especially when the free software I’ve been using works better for me in certain aspects.
One doesn’t have to read too many other audio forums to find out that I’m not alone in having tried Roon and found they preferred something else. Reminds me of that old Sly & The Family Stone song, Different Strokes By Different Folks.
So, having said that, I’ll pack up and move one. I’ve provided my data point so there is no reason for me to use up any more space around here.
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Roon is not for everyone. For me, it’s perfect.
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Audirvana is good. Give it a try. Good luck.
I have strong reservations as a power user.
Roon is the only way to go.
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Audirvana is a good basic player. It is certainly not Roon. Nowhere close.
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Pull the other one, mate. It’ got bells on.
You’ve obviously never used the abomination Roon passes for search.
Depends what your looking for TBH. I only search for popular music and it works fine. Classical seems a lottery but for pop/rock/folk it works for me.
I came from using LMS for years before switching to Roon. LMS was an invaluable step along the evolution of streaming but, IMHO, Roon blows it away in every way of looking at it. I find that when I know what I’m looking for (artist or album title) using Roon search - even on just a partial name - yields very quick and accurate results. Even if I can only remember one song from an album, search does a wonderful job of finding the albums and artists that performed it. So I rarely wander through the artist or album sorted displays.
But as you said… different strokes (or clicks or swipes) for different folks.
I can only go by my experience, but if I Type Uriah Heep or `Megan O’Neill… Guess who shows up? 
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goodness everyone feels so strongly about stuff
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/start of frustrated rant/
Yah… along with a landfill full of unrelated and irrelevant rubbish. Try finding a song by title and see what comes up.
The cl#####s w#####s who thought up that search thîng don’t even realise it might be a good idea to put exact matches for the search string first. Noooo, jumbled is just fine, according to Roon. Cos it’s relevant, brah! And parametrized search is soooooo, like, last century boomer!
It. Just. Does. Not. Work. Like. It. Should.
/end of frustrated rant/
I think the search is the one area that roon does disappoint , but overall I could not live without it so I am more than happy with it
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No issues for me that I can’t sort my way through, what is perfect? If you can answer that, you know where to go.
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I’m paying for it. Every year, BTW.
I’m far from alone, just look at this thread for all the stuff that never gets fixed.
So while I use Roon daily, it’s not out of love or admiration. It’s just that Roon is the best of the crappy.
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Oh no I don’t think so. Roon has some brilliant bits for sure. Let’s keep perspective. Roon has made some head-scratching, totally oddball decisions, and some things just don’t seem to work. But it is the minority - what works, really works.