There needs to be a granular way to train the algo in Radio - the thumbs up / thumbs down pop-up before a track plays is one thing, but stuff like “does it take into account that I just skipped that New Kids on The Block track ?” isn’t obvious to the user. Also, I might decide that Hangin’ Tough isn’t what I want to hear right now, or within a given context (say, because it has nothing to do with A Very Marky Mark Christmas), but that I don’t want to, like, not ever hear it again, and how to make that happen needs to be (more) explicit.
Some kind of visual feedback of how “trained” the algo is might be nice as well, but that’s more secondary, as well as a few elementary options (say “prefer rarely played albums in my library”, for example).
There is no conflict there. Streaming, the new Roon Radio, MQA are things that I don’t need because I’m not using them. What I need is something that will master my local library, that’s all. As it is right now, Roon is not that thing and regardless the fact that generally speaking the way 1.5 was doing that was some how satisfactory (read I can live with), things that I need in order to really enjoy your product are not on your priority list hence why Roon is not on my priorities list. So yes, looks like it’s not for me, no biggie.
Any internet radio or FM radio or whatever radio does the same for me. This is why they are called radios.
I don’t deny the comode usefulness of streaming services, i like that occasionally, but it is not the centerpiece of my listening habits and absolutely for sure not the foundation of my library (not even the most insignifiant brick). I have other ways of discovering new music and this is why I don’t see the Roon streaming-centric approach as something that fits my needs.
For people who don’t want to use streaming so much that $20 a month is too pricey we have now Qobuz for $9.99. Stream in a decent 320kbps, wich is enough for discovering music if you intent to buy music anayway. Offcoarse there are allways people who can’t enjoy anything if it’s not highres even for casual listening but I consider that purely there problem. It does open up a whole new experience in Roon I can tell. I have a friend who was morbidicous against streaming untill I “lent” him my Tidal and Roon login for a couple of days. So yes for the majority of us streaming integration really is a big thing.
To be fair, Tidal have always had a $9.99 lossy option too. I remember it having issues such as not supporting gapless playback. I wonder if the cheaper Qobuz option does too.
I have only listened with 1.6 for one night, Agree UI is a bit messy and not coherent, kind of disjointed but with a bit of learning probably no big deal. The Radio function at least the first night I was very impressed with. It dug deep into tidal tracks and selected artists I was unfamiliar with and would not have discovered left to my own means. I added 6 albums to my library last night. It has been quite a while since I added 6 albums in one evening. Good work there.
One thing that does bother me is when I add items to que and in que view why does it not show if that track is added to any playlist I have created. In album view it does, I am selecting that track from album to que, so why doesn’t the playlist info move into que. Many times I have mistakenly added a track a second time to a play list because of this.
I am not understanding the disjointed claims with regards to operation, to me it still works in the same way it always had. But looks wise not having all the UI refreshed at once leaves some bits feeling old and not as in harmony with the others.
After all this time I didn’t even know there was a transfer zone. I was shutting down one zone and restarting it from the endpoint (zone) icon. It never made any sense to me what I was doing and it is difficult to think of something stupider and clunkier than that habit (which would annoy the hell out of guests) but I’m sorry to say the roon UI low-bars expectations after a while and acceptance just creeps in. But I notice my wife and her friends really shy away from roon and that in itself becomes a problem as I don’t want to have DJ responsibilities all the time.
Very well considered analysis. These little things really do matter and it is a great shame that they are being lost in the bigger plan.
The point I was trying to make is that because the UI is a mess I am compensating with work-arounds that I need not invent. It would be better if it were more intuitive. For me the benefits far outweigh the inconveniences of what personally I find an increasingly difficult to interpret UI. But to other members of my household they have already moved on to alternatives.
Apologies @mikeb. I realise your comments were not directed at me. Loss of concentration because seeded right the new radio is a life enhancing joy. But the UI . . .
Yes, they’re fine really. It was a light hearted comment.
I think this is probably the first time they’ve been on the receiving end of mostly negative comments about a new Roon release. They’ll calm down once the shock wears off and come up with some solutions.
I don’t get it. Lots of people are complaining about the UI being ruined, that this is so complicated and so on. I might be missing something or using it very basically, but on the whole little has changed to be honest. The screen looks the same mainly. Ok, it’s grey instead of black at the bottom, which is a bit unsettling as I am used to the black (and maybe prefer it) but no biggie. The waveform thing is stretched and there’s a bit more info, but that’s not changed much.
The big changes that I see is when I start clicking on buttons and get options: lyrics, artist bio and so on. As far as I am concerned, these are great additions. Someone made the comment that when the lyrics don’t scroll karaoke style, it would be nice to have most of them on the screen instead of having to scroll them manually a line at a time - which I agree with. But come on, this is hardly a ‘cancel my subscription’ type of situation.
I may be a basic user, but as far as I am concerned, I like the new bells and whistles and I find them unobtrusive. They haven’t changed my way of interacting with Roon and there’s been zero relearning past process; just additions.
I agree with many of your observations, but I disagree on the color of the footer! Sounds like a small thing, but it is just one example of excessive delineation of sections.
- no offense implied