New Roon user, trying it out, with a ROCK connected to my NAS, streaming to a Sonos Port.
All I really want is a reliable way to play my thousands of ripped CDs. Roon does that pretty well - definitely better than Plex, which was flaky as heck. But…
I do not want discovery.
I do not want “enhanced” (often incorrect) metadata replacing the metadata that I carefully curated.
I do not want to see confusing duplicates when I search for an artist or album that is in my own collection and also on streaming services.
I definitely do not ever want “autoplaying” of related material after the last track of an album completes.
Basically what I want is a robot CD player
How can I configure Roon to suit my goals as closely as possible? I did tell it to use file-based metadata in preference to its own, which helps with the metadata part. Are there ways to
Type what you’re looking for in the search field, then either tap on ‘See all results’ below the suggestions or simply hit the return key (they do the same thing).
In the search results screen, tap on the My Library icon button to the left of the ‘Filter’ label. This is an on/off toggle button that when turned on, will filter the results to display only items in your Roon library (in your own collection, plus items you have favorited in streaming services). When the toggle is off, all results are displayed.
Thanks, Suedkiez. I’ve explored a number of different options and so far Roon is the only one that seems to work reliably, have good support, and do what I want. It’s just that it does more than I want and I’d like to simplify. I’m completely fine with paying an ongoing subscription fee to support the development effort; I’m a software engineer and I understand that software takes maintenance, especially if it is to be secure. It’s just that I prioritize security, stability, and reliability over new features.
It’s just that Roon is what it is and doesn’t have a lot of options to turn stuff off. But you don’t have to use them as @s73nm wrote
mjw
(Here I am with a brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper. Call that job satisfaction? I don't.)
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If you want Roon to use your metadata, there are a couple of things you need to do. But there are some compromises.
I only add physical media to my library, and have streaming for music discovery / discographies.
Here’s what I do.
Make sure your ripped CD collection is identified in the MusicBrainz database. If not, take the time to submit your release. Roon will pickup your edits within a day or so.
I think you answered your own question, stop using Roon, stop ripping CD’s (that so ‘last year’!) and get your self a CD player or transport!!! You can pick up really nice units for under £500-700 these days and then you can have the fun of real media again…
I’ve been tweaking my system lately to be able to do without Roon Muse PEQ (involved adjusting damping in my speakers and a few acoustic panels around the room hidden under wall hangings) and now Qobuz Connect is here (and works flawlessly with my Lumin streamer) Roon may well become redundant. With a tasty CD transport I can actually rescue thousands of CD’s from the loft and listen to albums I haven’t rediscovered for years, because they are buried somewhere in Roon.
In fact I’m using Roon for exactly what you don’t need more recently, checking out versions of albums, comparing classical works by popularity - but then Qobuz does some of this, it just isn’t as complete when it comes to the metadata. It is better at suggesting old albums from my library I haven’t listened to in years though and the ‘radio’ feature is miles ahead of Roon at finding appropriate content in relation to the seed album or track.
So Roon has become my metadata checking tool rather than my primary playing system lately… hmm food for thought…
I remember having very similar expectations from Roon when I first tried it. I came to Roon from LMS, where I had painstakingly curated my metadata, tweaked the settings, etc. As the other posters showed you, most of what you need can be done with Roon. However, once I learned the Roon “method” I accepted it as the better solution. My suggestion is that you do the same, namely let Roon do its thing. It does a really good job managing your music collection and presenting it to you in a very unobtrusive manner, a near-perfect analog of spinning CDs.
I believe most of those options are configurable in Roon. Certainly autoplay similar bugged me for ages until I found out to turn it off at the device level . The others will live in settings if you look up each one individually I’m sure you will find instructions.
I just use a few features with Roon. I have curated a couple of dozen Playlists, Tags, and a few Bookmarks.
Other than these I will go to Albums with the different options filters, search and ignore the rest of Roon. I don’t go thru Overview, Genres, Discover, Tidal, Radio. Radio is turned off. For Tidal I use the Tidal app and if I like something I will like it and it shows up in Roon albums. The Tidal integration is Roon is useless to me. I also use tagging software prior to importing.
So in the end I use Roon just as player and I know I’m just scratching the surface for Roon can do and also offers.
I use the Roon player for fidelity, whole home integration and ignore most of it.
That’s how I get fewer features. It would be nice to hide what I don’t use but that’s not possible.
I also only want the core functionality of playing the digital music in my local library inside my multi-zone house and worry about Roon software getting bloated with other functionality.
But I also understand that Roon has many other customers who have very different desires such as using high definition streaming services. Or playing their digital music selections from anyplace in the Internet.
That’s all fine, as long as Roon doesn’t forget to maintain the core functionality for which I bought my lifetime membership.
