I plugged it into my switch five years ago and it worked ever since. There’s no magic to it on a normal LAN that works, with one subnet, the server on Ethernet and reasonable WiFi.
PlexAmp is really good, and it doesn’t need a separate server. The big strike for PlexAmp is losing Tidal support, although I am probably still going back to it soon.
Oddly, since I went down the path of trying to improve my music set up, I found I tend to not listen to new music much, so I think I may give up on streaming soon, and just go with my own FLACs. I like Roon, but I am not sure I can justify the cost compared to PlexAmp (where I bought a life membership for something like a $100).
But equally for others it does not work like that. As I said worked for me but I don’t discount others it doesn’t and they also don’t have anything fancy.
Yes, PlexAmp is really good and it was a bummer that Tidal support was removed.
On the go I think it’s better than Roon Arc for its use of Sonic Analysis mixes. Also much more stable, I never have any network/connection problems with Arc
In my home it’s no competition between the two, Roon is miles ahead with playing music on different speakers in the house. I have a Roon Ready amp in my main listening room and Sonos speakers around - works flawlesslys.
Also the UI itself is better on Roon. It gives me such enjoyment when I’m able to sit down in front of my speakers with the IPad and just browse my library (and playing music)
Me too. During my 8 yrs i have had a desktop and a NUC 3 ISP 3 routers
All were plug and play
Nearly every support thread I read (most, even if I don’t comment) where the network-related problems are apparent eventually ends up as discovering said network problems, but often you have to keep watching through the long phase of denial.
Now, maybe Roon should work across subnets and have other resiliency features, but if it works in one functioning LAN that conforms to Roon specs then there really is no reason it wouldn’t work on another, and most likely something’s off in the LAN if it doesn’t.
For servers on slow/congested WiFi, RAAT will never work unless they add a large buffer mode (which will not be possible on all Roon Ready devices).
Yes, I see the error in my wording on this 
Inherently dual band with separate SSID names would normally be on the same subnet, agreed 
I generally agree with everything you wrote 
My only thoughts to the above is that Roon designed, poorly some may feel, a product and set out their recommendations for the network architecture it works best on/with.
I could throw multiple analogies at this. I’ll use one.
All petrol cars run on petrol. A performance manufacturer designs their engine to run on high octane fuel and use a specific high grade engine oil.
It can/should run on lower octane fuel and oil is just oil so the cheapest will still lubricate the engine.
You decide to use a lower octane fuel and the cheapest oil. You find the engine runs rough and components appear to wear quickly.
Who’s in the wrong?
Should the manufacturer design the engine to run on lower quality fuel/oil or should we follow manufacturers recommendations.
Just playing devils advocate here 
Not all products are equal.
My flow control is disabled on my switches and Roon works fine.
I wonder if I enable it if it’ll improve sound quality 
You use a roon ready endpoint via Ethernet?
Yes
I also have some on WiFi
I understand you’re trying to help, and it’s great that your UniFi setup is running smoothly. But posts like this, while well-intended, can come across as dismissive and actually add to the frustration many of us feel.
The issue is that not everyone with Roon problems is running a “flaky” or overly complex network. I, for example, don’t have multiple subnets, mesh systems with Wi-Fi backhaul, or mismatched SSIDs. My network is clean, wired where it matters, and well-configured yet I still run into persistent Roon issues like slowdowns from one day upon the other. And I’m far from the only one, many users with issues have left the forum because everyone always seem to blame the customer.
Saying “Roon recommends a simple network” doesn’t change the fact that Roon remains unusually, I would even say EXTYREMELY sensitive compared to virtually every other audio solution out there, which work just fine under the exact same conditions. That’s the core of the frustration: it shouldn’t require a network engineer’s toolkit just to stream music reliably.
So while your setup advice may help a few people, generalizing the cause of issues as “flaky networks” shifts the blame to users, and that’s a big part of why posts like this can feel alienating. Roon should be more robust — and it’s okay to say that.
Yeah, but this does not sound like a network problem. I think that most problems we see in Support are network problems, but of course this doesn’t mean that there are no others.
It sounds like the background tasks for metadata updates using too much of the available performance and starving the interactive tasks, which @anon77144803 rightly complained about frequently. As posted elsewhere, I saw these occasionally as well and it’s annoying, though not so terrible in my case that it posed a critical problem. However, for me this has gotten much better with the recent update where they announced performance improvements.
IMHO this depends on the definition of “exact same”. Other player software that I am aware of does not maintain a cross-linked credit database, for instance, so the other software has no maintenance performance problem by definition.
Yeah. But it’s also OK to say that many people who end up in Support with problems caused by apparent network issues in fact do run networks that are not entirely healthy, to slow with WiFi, or setups beyond their comprehension with subnets etc.
And although it’s true that we only see a small subset of users and issues here on the forum, I don’t believe that there a 300k silently suffering Roon users out there, either. More likely, it works for the overwhelming majority.
Anyway, this is getting a bit off topic. The various issues that the OP reported over the months/years do very much smell like an undiagnosed intermittent network problem, the existence of other Roon issues notwithstanding.
I certainly am not generalising the cause of many people’s issues as flaky networks when in use with Roon.
When folks say devices drop off the network (Roon discovery) or expect a continuous PCM stream from one node to another node on WiFi and wonder why playback stops randomly, then yes, it would at first hand suggest a network issue when in use with Roon.
Is this generalising when I am writing from personal experience. No.
Yes, Roon could or should look at this. But will they. No. Roon is 10 years old and this type of improvement is unlikely to happen.
If you subscribe to Roon and have a network that doesn’t quite fall inline with Roon’s recommendations and it all works, great. But if things don’t work, devices drop off, playback randomly stops, then yeah I’d be looking at the networking side of things to ensure it was improved to Roon’s recommendations. I refer back to my car analogy.
I’m not being dismissive. Let’s get this out in the open. Until very recently Roon over the last 18 months or more was a pile of crud for me. Multiple issues on and off. But not one was network related nor expressed itself as such. It was UI, Qobuz and library management issues.
Roon fixed these, but there are many more longstanding bugs yet to be fixed.
If you buy a flat pack set of shelves from IKEA and don’t follow the instructions, then you can’t blame IKEA if it falls apart because you don’t use the recommended screws.
Roon recommends what it does, and if a user doesn’t follow their product guidelines then I cannot see how Roon can be blamed.
Most likely not network related but something else. There you go, I didn’t blame your network 
FWIW - my Roon server is a N95, 8gb tiny cheap as chips PC running DietPi. Alll my music is locally stored on USB SSD’s. I have 77707 tracks. My server connects direct to my UniFi Router (Roon’s recommendation) and all but two devices are connected via Ethernet back to a central switch which runs back to my router. Since the last Roon update (I’ll jinx myself now) Roon is running the best it has for about 24 months.
Good its improved, but too little too late for me. The amount of time taken to take the issue seriously was the last straw for me. The 2nd time I really needed a support I didnt get it and after 8 months to be brushed off with thats expected behaviour! Now they apparently fixed it so may be not then.
That’s OK too, and I agree that it took too long and too much prodding by you and others to make something happen.
But again, this is not what the OP‘s past problems look like.
And @anon77144803, I owe you a big thanks for being so tenacious and helping improve it for me, even though it’s too late for you.
I’ve been a Roon user for 5 years and have nothing but positive experiences to report - in fact I am so pleased that I purchased a lifetime license at renewal a few months ago.
There must be something with your networking set up or other components that is causing problems for you.
There are many here who can advise.
I use an Intel Nuc running Rock and RPI4B as end points. Clients are Windows desk top, windows laptop, iPhone 15 (recent) and Samsung Tablet (ancient S2)
Server is connected to router by fiber, end points use either fiber or wireless endpoints.
I have maybe 24 hours total of downtime in the past 5 years. It’s been incredibly reliable.
Exactly. There are problems with Roon, but if you post on this forum people act like you are doing something wrong. I keep seeing that it runs great using a Mac as a server. Have tried two different Macs and I have to reset the server a couple of times a week. It drops speakers or just fails to play otherwise. It’s probably because I let the Mac sleep, and people here say you shouldn’t do that. Not letting it sleep is not an acceptable fix for me.
My Sonos speakers stopped working with Roon last October and still don’t work. It might be Sonos’ fault, but they still work with every other service I use.
I posted about a problem with metadata that Roon was getting wrong. They moved it to the support forum. It got locked and still is not fixed months later.
I really like Roon, but all too often it feels like I need to fix something to get it work.
I also have Sonos devices. Not from the Era range nor a Move 2, but when others have had so much trouble with their Sonos devices in use with Roon, I have had none. Bizarre to say the least.
Roon recommended you add them to your Apple Home app, but you wrote 
You then complained in multiple other threads about Roon not fixing the issue, but they cannot add your Sonos devices to your Apple Home app for you.
When Roon moved to AirPlay 2 support, I’m guessing they had to follow stricter rules set by Apple. My Sonos devices are added to my Home app but I also only use Roon via the Sonos Streaming Protocol with my Sonos devices.
And
Did you mean this