I don’t like 1.8 - it feels like a massive failure

Whilst I understand this, what do you expect Roon to do? They’ve got to build business models that look to future revenue streams. I can’t see there being a great potential market for future curators, but I can see their being a great potential market for those who want to integrate Hi-Res streaming with local libraries/mutiroom/room correction etc. Whether you, or I, like it, that’s the future for Roon. It’s a simple supply and demand issue that is measured on a balance sheet. If new customers outweigh lost customers then it’s working.

As consumers we can look around at the things that are on offer and select the best (or least worst) for our needs. Personally I’m quite happy with Roon - not pefect but ticks enough boxes for my needs.

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And I thought Populism was on the verge of dying again…

@Tony_Casey

Hi Tony

As one of the most vocal box set protagonists …

There are a few things that 1.8 brings to help

I used the New Beethoven Edition as my Test , 118 discs

1). Filter allows me to put in Op.7 and get directly to the 2 versions in the set Gilels and Michelangeli. You don’t even need to know what disc no !!

2). Focus

Allows me to find a Performer in “no of performances order (xyz)” so I can pick Emil Gilels (82) it shows me where he is , then apply the filter = 106 and I see the Hammerklavier. Some standardization of names would help as ever as we see Emil Grigoryevich Gilels as a separate entry.

The filter slows down in big sets but apply focus first and its much quicker.

This is a big improvement , to me at least , especially in mega sets. It might even tempt me to put some of my really big sets back in Roon

I think its early days as I have only been playing a day so there is some light.

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I also find the use of the “Filter” function within a box set quite useful. Its one of those (too few) areas where 1.8 is truly a step forward.

@Mike_O_Neill does focus work for you with all boxsets? The reason I’m asking is that I have boxsets where the composer and composition are not selectable. This affects both identified and non identified boxsets.

The respective composition on those sets are clickable and lead to the “correct” compositions. However, they are not selectable in focus.

Some examples from my library below:

It has worked for the limited number I have tried . of the three you quote I have only the Claudio Arrau set but that’s not in Roon (I still maintain JRiver for real BIG sets). I will import it and see what I get.

I have tried the Beethoven set and a few Beethoven Sonata sets

It may be an Identification thing is the Compositions are set properly . My examples unfortunately (fortunately) all have Composition and Movement set correctly.

I’ll play with some more and get back.

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Roon is perfect for a mixed library, local and streamed. There is nothing to stop anyone buying and storing as much local music as they like. I would encourage this, but you can still stream.

If you have an old roon server app and remote app backed up somewhere you should be able use it for a while. If you have a database backup too it would eliminate a complete rebuild. But tablet and mobile support may cause a headache.

The issue arises if you use apple stuff (Android may be similar). Unless you have a copy of the roon.ipa 1.7 or a .deb file for iPad and iOS, you won’t be able to downgrade the devices. Apple doesn’t like downgrading apps, it’s apparently to protect you. I think they see old apps are all security threats, so no going backwards easily with them. Newer is better anyways, right. (Not always the case)

If you do have a copy of that .ipa on a drive somewhere iTunes may install it or a jail broken device could work too. But without the .ipa you’re screwed.

It was also possible to do something very similar from the composition view in 1.7. It wasn’t as slick and appears not to have been widely used but that was my primary interface for box-sets I could not split up for years. There is certainly some value-add in repackaging that functionality at the album level. So I also welcome this. There have also been a couple of posts from roon that they are fixing the Boolean AND/OR issue so this is really a step forward.

The issue I have is that none of the problems with the composition view were fixed and in effect have just been transferred over in this re-packaging of similar functionality from the composition to the album view.

  1. This functionality obviously relies on getting composition id’s a well as album id’s. Auto composition identification for Classical does not seem to have been improved as far as I can see. Roon will routinely get it wrong with Debussy, Handel, Telemann and much of the Baroque repertoire. I have been long of the view that for historical reasons, capturing Classical composition catalogue logic will need to be done on a composer by composer basis. Each composer is often a special case. I doubt roon has either the resources or the business case for that. Once into other genres, composition identification falls apart very quickly and I have more or less given up any comprehensive attempts. I do invest some effort in favorite corners of the American song-book, for example, but it is limited. Shame as there would otherwise be a lot of scope for interesting playlists and shuffles of unexpected and hidden gem covers in many non-Classical genres.

  2. The editing tools for streamed content and local content are not the same. In practice what this means is that it can be difficult or impossible to fix streamed content composition hierarchies or composition miss-identifications. There may be a reason for that. Copyright for example but I have never see any guidance from roon on that.

  3. The counts on the filters do not add up. Roon seem to double count works and parts. So, for example a 3 part symphony is getting a count of 4 (3 parts, 1 work) instead of 1 for the composition. Weird.

  4. In the composition view, “period” and “form” are editable but “instrumentation” is not. These tags remain just as sparsely populated in 1.8 as they were in 1.7 and none of them seem to have been brought forward to the album view focus options. I struggle to understand how in any meaningful way Beethoven fans will be able to search on “form, period and more” as claimed for 1.8.

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My experience is that with several composers with historically complex catologue systems roon will get it wrong. The catalogue handling logic on a composer by composer basis is probably just not there and I have found this leads to a great deal of manual intervention.

There are other things. Complete ballets and ballet suites are mixed up. Where there have been historically 3 or 4 suites, they are also mixed up (Tchaikovsky). Composition revisions are mixed up (Brukner). For some reason I have never understood, Beethoven’s 3rd symphony is routinely mixed up with Beethoven’s 9th string quartet. I could go on. The point is that if you want this focus logic to work you are probably going to have to be prepared to invest a significant manual editing effort and that is academic with streamed content as roon does not give you the tools.

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You mean DREAMING albums! (you can’t be a collector over the streaming services as long as their catalog constantly changes and anyway who the f… wants to collect somebody else’s things? :slight_smile: )

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It never was, it will never be. It just a fancy interface and a so so (for now) discovery toy over two streaming services. Once you get that, it may be an enjoyable experience, broken from time to time by some smart update (but that’s part of the fun).

[quote=“StopMakingSense, post:671, topic:141422”]
It’s a simple supply and demand issue that is measured on a balance sheet. If new customers outweigh lost customers then it’s working.[/quote]

Does it have to be either, or? Why look to deliberately shed part of your customer base when you could bring them, and more like them, along, generating an even more positive balance sheet? Much of the functionality being asked for by “curators” either already partially exists, showing at least some recognition of it’s value, and could easily be expanded upon, or was more functional in 1.7 and has been somewhat deprecated in 1.8 (the source of some of the current discontent) or doesn’t exist at all and arguably should.

One of the things that has struck me during my time as a Roon user is the glacial speed at which product updates arrive, and when they do they are almost always underwhelming in terms of new functionality. Most other companies using the subscription model are constantly innovating and regularly releasing new functionality to keep their products moving forward. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Roon feature requests going back years, but it feels like extremely few are ever implemented.

There’s an opportunity here to make both types of users happy. And, so, to answer my own question, it doesn’t have to be either, or.

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You didn’t get it yet? AND / OR it’s a very complicated thing with roon! :slight_smile: :innocent:

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Sadly that’s the truth. I’m a new user, a couple of month, I’m on a 3 month trial. I have a big and nice collection of FLACs files, and I use a streaming service. My intention is for Roon to manage these two aspect of my music experience. But from my short time using the platform, I can see the shift of priorities in the 1.8, and is tilted more towards the streaming, new discoveries, and other aspects not related to collectors/curators. Maybe that’s the future…don’t know.

I get it. I don’t understand it.

How weird, I have imported the Claudio Arrau Complete Phillips Recordings (same 80 discs) and I see exactly as you do no Compositions. Not all of the tracks are Identified , maybe that’s why?

I have checked a random sample and files contain [Composition] and [Movement] but they don’t show. I have just checked they also have [Work] and [Part] set although I don’t use them

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Thanks for checking, Mike,

I don’t know the reason for this. If I click on any composition in this set can navigate to the proper composition page, therefore I guess all compositions haven been identifed based on the files tags

BTW it is really a pain to make screenshots now, since there is so little information displayed on the screen at a time…

I have reported this as part of the “beta” testing period I was involved, but got no response yet from the Roon team.

*Citation needed.

*Citation needed.

*Citation needed.

It’s 57% positive, 34% negative. Let’s at least represent the numbers correctly.

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34% negative is a lot. It is expensive software and I expect quality and progress. I was fine with 1.7 and hoped 1.8 would be a better 1.7. Now it isn’t. Were there so many complaints? I read that requests are not implemented so often, so to change this big must have been done on a lot of info about what people did not like. And I think that keeping your customers happy is the best way to get your product to other people, I have lifetime, based on 1.7. Don’t know if I would have taken lifetime with 1.8.

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