That certainly fits with my experience that Roon has trouble identifying an album correctly if the track timings in its database are off.
I really like MusicBrainz and encourage everyone to take part. Unfortunately it does not always help if Xperi is providing contradicting data or there simply is no good solution for album title (in case of samplers, recital albums or whatever).
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@Nick_Zwar, this seems similar to what I got to work a few years ago. I don’t keep tags in my master library, but add these same few programmatically from the folder structure before moving to the Roon drive.
I marked the imports to “prefer file” for everything, and Roon seemed to respect that for most but not all. And for the few, you can always override (hopefully still).
One thing I don’t recall trying is adding the composer as artist in first-lastname format and then using the last-firstname sort (my folders are last-firstname).
Agree. I have many Japanese releases (how they release over and over!), and some arbitrary divisions I’ve made of larger collections, because I think in terms of the composer first.
Thanks to all who’ve chimed in on their recent experiences with classical. I’m getting a new server and must use Roon, and your input has given me some good ideas!
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That is my understanding, but this is not like AcoustIds. It is very similar to DiscIds used by freedb and dbPoweramp to identify discs. But because it is based on track length in seconds rather than the exact length that can be calculated on a CD it is not as reliable. We use a similar method as first option on SongKong because it is quicker than other methods. However it will only work if you have the complete album and timings are accurate and no good for singles and mini-albums because not enough tracks to get a (nearly)unique checksum.
Acoustids is very different because it is track based and actually listening to the music and so two encodings of the same track do not have to be exactly the same length just sound the same to get the same acoustid. Generating an Acoustid for each track is cpu intensive so if only this method was used would take alot longer.
FYI we have an option for this in SongKong called Add Composers to Album Title. If the album has been matched to MusicBrainz release and it does not have the composer(s) in the album title their surnames are added to start of title if the Add Composer to start of Album Title option is enabled
We also have a modifiable list of composers where we use initials as well because they share a famous surname.
Great to read this discussion, even almost 2 years after I started the thread. I’m still undecided about getting Roon 
, but it helps to know that there’s an active and (in this thread) respectful community.
Out of interest Xperi is now another name for TiVo you will find Roon’s metadata sources as TiVo and MusicBrains , I was confused . One user threw the curved ball suggesting a third source before Google corrected me. I am not aware that the Xperi name has ever been used before !
Yes, I do something like this. I edit the album title to last name of composer then the album title, usually the composition (which is usually Roon’s format); but I don’t often change the artist, unless I know I am going to search on the artist. If I leave Roon to manage the title it sometimes doesn’t have one, so I am in file name anyway, and if it does then I can get JS Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach, or Bach. Usually it is going to be Bach! and the others I change to match. If there is no obvious most important composer then I use the album titles as is and hope to search on artist. I have treated a few things differently and edited the titles of lute and guitar to have something like, Lute: Sor: Sonatas. In other genres I put Jazz: or Folk: in front of all else. I have a mixed attitude toward organ and add Organ: for many, except for Bach, whose organ albums live in “Bach:”. I do edit some composition titles, so Cello Suites are all regularised to this, and all pieces with cantatas have the word in the title. I accept that some of my changes may not work eventually. I tried MusicBrainz but I may have tried something too hard in trying to unscramble two different Calos Mena and separate the rap artist from the classical countertenor.
Note that when I scroll I eventually lose connection so I have to use filter to find things. Also this is mostly purchased albums and I use the library with Qobuz streaming favorites turned off.
When I first adopted Roon (From JRiver) around 8 yrs ago , I completely changed my “navigation” method as in Roon at the time my old one simply didn’t exist.
I used to do Composer >Genre (My version) > Albums > Pick but originally Roon did not have the Composer > Discography that it has now. My Genre is split by 01 - Orchestral, 02 - Concerto etc …and then by Sub Genre Piano Sonata etc… In JRiver’s pane view.
It was massive amount of work to get to this stage, the accurate allocation of Genre/Sub Genre was the secret and where the hard work came in. For most of the time I was retired !!
I changed to (in the most part), it looks bad but it’s just a few taps / mouse clicks and in Roon is slick.
Select Artist (use Filter 3-4 char)
Go To Artist Page
Select Discography
(Usually) select “my library”
Sort by Album Title
Pick Album (Cover)
I also have a Tag of my “top 10” Artists for quick access but that has fallen away of late in favour of the Artist View above. Its normally 3 letters on the iPad Pro 12.9 on my lap (I don’t have a cat)
As its been said most album titles in Classical are Composer: Work , single Surname : Piano Concerto No.5 etc so sorting works in that method.
Those albums not in that format eg the JS Bach etc I edit to be so
I occasionally use the Composition View, if I want to compare recordings
The method works for Rock as well with a change to sort by Release Date instead of album name. I prefer in age order.
The other magic bullet is where you are using a streaming service , you don’t need to add all the albums of any artist to the library , it just slows things down. I make sure I have ONE album of any artists I have an interest in added to library , that way they show in the Artist View which is my first stop. After that you can pick from the streaming service . With ancient Rock this works well. I trimmed my library by 35%. The non library albums I keep on are external USB attached to my NUC which I can Enable/Disable if needs be . Obviously your “Besties” you leave in place. Both libraries are in JRiver as there is no streaming option.
Also remember "Filter is your Friend, Search is your Frustration " 
Just my way of doing things , may not work for you ?
As you can see the shot above is a very granular method of navigation and I still keep it current and use it , why waste all that work.