Harman didn’t acquire Roon for fun , you may well be right !!
Hi Darius
The title of your post had me initially quite excited as I took it to mean you had a tutor for your Roon discussions 
So close.
I completely agree that the variety of configurations for setting up Roon is both a fabulous aspect of the system, since it lets you step in more affordably than purchasing a dedicated server, while at the same time introducing problems for under-spec’d systems or poorly configured networks, further complicated by the daunting task of needing to understand the computing side that is so different from old-school traditional audio setup. I guess that is what community discussions are for.
Back to my misinterpretation of your post title… Wouldn’t it be fabulous if there was a network of Roon experts with multiple implementation experiences, hopefully backed by Roon support, that users could access to help them configure their systems? Think on that one for a moment and what it could mean to the Roon ecosphere. I wish I had that expertise myself but the only exposure I’ve had is the hard knocks of setting up my own system.
My system works quite well and I’ve learned a lot but still have challenges that I have not been able to overcome.
e.g. Adding HQplayer to the mix, and that I cannot get my local PC to play (it used to but then something got messed up and now I just get “Too many failures” message).
Support has been great for my initial installation but they don’t address these types of personal setup items. Having a Roon Tutor to assist me one-on-one would be fantastic.
Thanks for listening (pun intended)
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For me, the appreciation for Roon is overshadowed by the myriad of problems I experience with the service. These significantly undermine the user experience that Roon wants to be known for. To put things into perspective, I subscribe to several other services and applications across various platforms, and Roon is the only one that consistently presents problems. This has led me to conclude that the system is not bulletproof and requires much more attention.
Suggesting that “your system is not good enough” does not address the problem, as my system exceeds the requirements, yet the issues persist. Additionally, I’ve read about users facing problems even with Nucleus. Clearly, something is amiss, and this serves as a prime example of the customer pain points I discussed in class.
However, I still haven’t found a better service than Roon. Despite the problems, it remains the best option we have. But, there is tremendous potential to be unlocked in terms of reliability.
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It makes me sad to read negative opinions from those that do have real issues using Roon.
Wish that I could help every time I read one of the posts.
Most of the issues seem to point to the individuals internal network but no one wants to hear that because their network works fine for everything else. That is still a problem related to the usage of Roon if not directly caused by Roon.
There is another side where issues are non existent. Maybe its the simplicity of my network, one wi-fi router with 8 Ethernet ports plus one 16 port Ethernet switch to cover the whole house. Maybe its because the NUC/ROCK is directly connected to the router instead of through the switch. Who knows.
I have not tried ARC and can’t say if that would work for me. But my use of Roon literally runs for days on end without a hiccup and has done so consistently, repeatedly, every time.
Playing around with genres early this past week, I had one list that showed 2 days, 23 hours and some minutes of run time. I hit play and let it run. That queue completed this morning without stopping for any reason then Roon Radio followed up and continued for another 4 hours until I stopped it.
It just works, for this household anyway.
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Roon should be equally stable and reliable for all users, provided the minimum requirements are met. Unfortunately, this is not currently the case, and there is room for improvement. While excellent customer service is important, the goal should be to resolve issues to the point where customer service shouldn’t need to address the kinds of problems users are currently reporting.
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There is just as many bugs with their software and infrastructure that cause issues as much as the fallback response that everyone seems to have adopted. Since yesterday Discographies have been unavailable off and on this isnt a local issue.
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As mentioned, it is difficult to specify minimum requirements not only in terms of local computing power, but network speed, port, DNS and IP handling and alike. And it is pretty much depending on size and structure of the library.
This shouldn’t be our problem. Shouldn’t Roon prioritize stability over expanding endpoints? While expanding endpoints can attract new subscribers, ensuring stability has the same potential effect. I understand it’s a balancing act.
Number and handling of endpoints is seemingly no issue leading roon to slow down, and I do not really think they could easily reallocate Human Resources for this or that purpose.
It is rather the complex and multi-dimensional handling of metadata and browsing, and as far as this gets exponentially more complicated with growing library and credits both for local computing and cloud handling, I do not see an easy way to ensure stability. I would not want features like composition lists and focus filtering in discographies to be compromised for the sake of stability.
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Stability should be the most important factor. Don’t give a toss about anything else. Many of Roons problem are scale of the db and this is as much about using leveldb for its database choice as probably anything else. Whilst it may give some speed advantages to start it’s other areas are lacking and it’s not as reliable and robust and doesn’t scale nearly as well as other db choices out there. This is a design decision made likely over a decade ago that’s hindering Roon not the hardware. They likely made decisions based on thinking users won’t have libraries bigger than a few 10000 tracks. Whilst it’s great to have all that Roon offers it’s not when the performance comes crashing down because of these early choices. I dont think throwing hardware at it is the problem at all.
I dont get any issues as I have a relatively normal size library of about 34k tracks. The only issues I get are bugs that cause it’s metadataservice to go into meltdown at some points and it stops roon allowing connections when this happens. At the same time this is happening my Plex database and LMS operate flawlessly with same media on same machine. Hardware issue nope, just software.
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Throwing hardware at bad Roon performance is not the solution. At all. Fully agree. And poor performance and a design and implementation which are evidently hamstrung by early decisions were reasons for why I have given up on Roon.
LMS is not as nice to look at, does several things not as well as Roon, does some better than Roon but, most importantly, just works. Runs on the same machine as Roon server before, with a load average of 0.00 while playing music. Works reasonably well with Qobuz; no hiccups, no lost endpoints… I am back listening to music…
And really, I got so fed up with all the Roonsplaining going on here, where every critical post is immediately explained away by ‘complexities’ of DNS, network speed, multi-dimensional handling of metadata, etc etc etc… Roon for me is a beautiful set of design goals which have not been met by an adequate realization. If ever a real Roon 2.0 should be launched, which behaves and scales better than the current incarnation, I may be back.
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I regret to hear you left Roon.
I miss your classical music expertise quite a lot.
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And then there is the sound (for those that care).
I care just don’t hear any difference when matched volume wise. Which many different apps are not which is odd given they are all bit perfect.
I knew you would say that and I respect it. I do hear a difference and my setup allows me to switch between software at the same volume level with no dsp. It’s just that when I came to roon, sound quality was touted as one of it’s strengths. Sound quality dropped off as other features were added. I do love roon for it’s gui and library management but other software such as Lyrion sound discernibly better. For now I use roon for discovery, management and multiple endpoint casual listening. When I want the best sound I use Lyrion (LMS).
Per the OP… it is unfortunate that when discussing roon, sound is barely mentioned.
I use lyrion to and in all of my systems it’s never sounded any different to Roon. Same devices in the same chain only difference is using one or the other to serve. But you’re entitled to your opinion.
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This seems to be true for me as well. I recently moved to a seniors home facitlity, where they just finished upgrading internet access via glass fibre cable and installed a great wireless system in the whole house - but ARC stopped working for me (and also an app that previously allowed me to make music with other musicians in far away locations through a direct computer to computer connection). I found out that port forwarding is not allowed due to security reasons. ARC works everywhere within the (large) building, but not outside.
Same for me. Same network, same equipment, no difference in Sound Quality between Roon and LMS.
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