In my experience with 4 zones Roon is a s bug free as anything else. It just works.
Do I use DSP? No, I don’t need to with decent endpoints that sound great.
Do I use multi room? Yes and it works great.
Do I have a decent size physical library? Yes
Does Back up work? Yes
Is Roon fast and responsive? Yes
Have I ever had issues? Yes, but mostly too little RAM was the cause (Not Roons fault) and a core reboot fixed it.
Have I had network faults? Yes, switch reboots fixed it, again, not ROONS fault…
Not sure what to add, I’m probably a typical user, call me lightweight if you like, but I’m happy… even my I pad pro works without crashes…
Can you define what you mean by “a lightweight user”, or alternatively what would constitute a “heavyweight user”?
I’m also interested in your view of what constitutes a “lightweight” Roon user.
I too have 4 Roon zones which operate completely flawlessly.
I have a library of just under 3,000 albums of which just over 2,000 are ripped locally to my local NAS and the rest added to my music library from Tidal.
I use both Win10(desktop and touchscreen laptop ) and IOS (iPad Air) devices to control Roon in my 4 Roon zones.
Two of my 4 zones are not able to handle 24bit/192kHz files. Roon automatically detects this and converts any 192kHz files on the fly to the highest resolution that the system can process.
Similarly, only one of my systems supports both MQA and DSD. Again, Roon automatically transcodes any MQA or DSD files on the fly to the highest supported PCM resolution on those other 3 systems.
Other than this, I deliberately make no use of DSP or alternative digital filters - is this why you might class me as being a “lightweight” user?.
All of this runs flawlessly on the systems in each of my 4 zones
I did have one fairly long term issue involving intermittent missing metadata when playing Roon Radio, and like some others I was initially not particularly fond of some of the aesthetic design changes made by Roon for version 1.8. However, my missing metadata issue has been resolved, and the ability to make bespoke changes to the appearance of the Roon app (as described in one of the ‘tinkering’ threads) has allowed me to customize the appearance of the Roon control app (on Win 10 devices) to my satisfaction.
I also run a pretty standard and straightforward recommended Roon setup compared to some others whose setups are perhaps more exotic or dare I say possibly cobbled together on sundry bits of available kit. My implementation of Roon core is Intel Rock installed on a suitably specified Intel NUC 8i5. The NUC is dedicated exclusively to Roon Rock.
I would not have any objection to being called a ‘lightweight’ Roon user, but it would be interesting to find out why you would consider yourself (and presumably anyone else who is experiencing serious problems with Roon) to be a ‘heavyweight’ user!
I guess I am heavyweight then with at least 12 zones, several different core machine options, 270K tracks and at least 6-10 remote devices (including my wife’s iOS devices) plus several ropieee displays around the house, 2 OSMC remotes and a roodial remote too. Oh I’m a lifer too of 5+ years now
I support the comments of many here who support Roon. Yes it’s not perfect but show me a software platform anywhere that is? Initially I was concerned to learn that Apple were launching their version of high-res music but on further consideration I doubt they will make a serious penetration into Tidal or Qobuz customer bases. Over time I’ve become somewhat disillusioned with Apple. They are so big these days that the customer voice is never heard. They have some great ideas but they have no hesitation in abandoning products like their network hardware and more recently with the Home pod if they are deemed as not significant contributors to their business objectives. They also have a love/hate relationship with customers on their software applications ie iTunes now rebranded as Apple Music. As many criticisms there are about Roon’s software there are equally if not more about Apple’s software. The difference is that Roon do listen to their subscribers even if not to everyone’s satisfaction. I like Roon warts and all and I intend to stick with them and Qobuz/Tidal because Apple will never come close to offering the same quality product as Roon (Qobuz/Tidal) regardless of Apple’s corporate reach and size.
Lightweight in the sense you’re probably not doing much with using metadata to drive your experience, rather just quick search of point and click and you’re running a puny library. How many endpoints you stream to concurrently is irrelevant as it’s principally a matter of network bandwidth unless using DSP also.
How could you possibly know this about another user? I use a lot of metadata to guide my listening and find roon to be superior to any thing else I have tried (which includes Audirvana and JRiver, both of which I find impossible to use). I find the focus / bookmark tools very helpful and use them nearly every day. Most of my listening is in my workroom which is a much less than ideal acoustic environment so I have not invested in any high end equipment for it instead using Chromecast and an old JVC UX-1 bookshelf set. Still music played through roon sounds much better than that through any other player.
So, perhaps you could enlighten us with some detail of just what you use metadata for that we lightweight users are not aware of? We’re obviously missing out!
If you do this, then we can try to emulate what you do and let you know if we experience your issues.
I feel I’m kind of in the middle in the discussion. I discovered Roon recently and I never bought a software in my life. I still download my music on a Russian website. I tried it and loved it. I was “yeah, totally worth it”. Then I was like, okay everything is working great and I even have a discount the first year. I didn’t ask for another discount instead I enjoyed listening to music.
However, I started reading the forum and I had a feeling there were an accumulation of complaints, everything turned violent when 1.8 was released.
Meanwhile I asked what was the TOP 10 Feature Requests but no one from Roon answered. Of course I’m not entitled for an answer and that’s not my intention at all but a bit of consideration (apart from we listen to your feedback) would have been better from a communication perspective. Now I’m like “but is it worth it”.
Then I agree with the post above on the iOS app but of course I will not express it as clusterf*ck. Instead I would question “why such a price for such a great piece of software on MacOS but “not great” for iOS? I’m starting to question now the direction of Roon. But instead I would redirect you to this thread on that topic. I apologise if this is flagged as “axe-grinding” in the forum rules.
6 years of using Roon tells me that anyone that’s not encountered missing albums or artists in search, duplicated artists, incorrectly conflated artists and so on either has a puny library, hasn’t delved into their music or both. These are among a long list of known bugs. They’ll never be addressed.
@Emile_Lemmer - I truly feel bad for people having ongoing issues with Roon on one platform or another as they are undoubtedly frustrated with what should be a great Roon experience. Troubleshooting network issues can be a nightmare and metadata will never be 100%.
I also have been using Roon for 6 years yet have encountered very few of the issues you cite. I’m running Roon on a NUC with ROCK with a library of over 3500 albums and I use Qobuz. I’ve got 5 endpoints in the house plus my ipad/iphone on occasion. Roon is certainly not perfect, but the only serious headaches I have had were occasional dropouts streaming hi-res music, but that turned out to be a problem with my network and the endpoint I was using and not Roon itself.
So yes, Roon seems to have its share of nagging issues for some., but not for everyone. To cast it as having a long list of known bugs that’ll never get addressed just undermines the credibility of software that works extremely well for many. Just my 2 cents worth…
Heavyweight user here. Very, very heavy. How so? I started streaming my local digital music library using the Squeezebox line of streaming devices back in 2006 and switched to Roon in late 2015. I have over 60,000 albums and 850,000 tracks, about a dozen endpoints and a dozen control devices. Roon is running on a way over speced Windows 10 computer and most of my endpoints use Ethernet. Most of the control devices use Wi-Fi.
So does Roon work perfectly? Yes most of the time with some occasional issues which are more often than not resolved with a simple system reboot. Has Roon lost an album or two? Don’t know and don’t care since I probably wouldn’t miss it anyway with such a large music library. I also subscribe to both Tidal and QoBuz so if Roon “lost” one of my albums then perhaps Tidal or QoBuz might find it. Does Roon help me to interact with my music library (and the libraries of both Tidal and QoBuz) in a meaningful and helpful way? Most definitely and delightfully!
I haven’t read nor do I intend to read the Apple Music thread. I will offer this observation: In the world of technology and Internet we are way too used these markets being dominated by a few big bad giants. However there are and always will be many many niche players, such as Roon, Tidal and QoBuz. Think of high end audio versus consumer home audio. Did the introduction of Amazon Echo speakers destroy any high end audio manufacturers? I think not. There are plenty of people out there that care enough about how their music sounds to keep these manufacturers in business.
So look at the bright side, if Apple and/or Amazon ever introduces a high resolution music streaming service then their hardware will have to support high resolution audio, which would then make that hardware more likely to support Roon! To which I say: Bring it on! The more the merrier!
11 Likes
AceRimmer
(Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!)
39
I had similar views as the op a while back but even though my experience with Roon has been and still is impeccable I don’t think I would go so far as to say I love Roon…
Having an inordinately large library and multiple endpoints doesn’t mean you’re automatically diving in beneath the surface of Roon’s capabilities, nor does following the breadcrumbs of similar artists, collaborations etc (and that aspect of Roon is great).
And yet, despite things being perfect for you, here’s a chap also running Roon on Windows having endless, persistent issues. I think it’s reasonable to assume he’s not having a great time using Roon:
Nothing has changed here. For many criticising Roon (constructive or otherwise) and asking them to lift their game to address bugs and shortcomings is a cardinal sin met by a barrage of posts implying that the complainant is negative or hallucinatiing or that their network is to blame (which in some instances is correct, but in many instances it has absolutely nothing to do with the problem).
Roon is a business. Your subscription is a business transaction. Things should work as intended and bugs should be fixed. Rather than move things in that direction this community puts the product and its creators on a pedestal and fights to keep them there. The only purpose that serves is to hamper progress which will in the longer term cause customers to churn in favour of other solutions.
7 Likes
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
43
I like how it was put above - I am a loyal Roon user but not necessarily always happy. Roon does things I could probably not do without it, or at least it would be much more difficult.
But seriously, enough people struggle with it being flaky, have posted they suspect a resource leak, etc., that there is clearly something going on. Should NOT have to try to change DNS, etc.
I’m hoping that the recent admission that using Qobuz creates a resource leak and that Roon is working on a fix will address at least some of the flakiness.
I have over 20,000 local albums, and rarely have problems. And what problems I do have started after my miserable attempt to try Audirvana Studio. Roon, imho, is light years ahead of AS.
I have long wondered myself why there is so much antagonistic posting. Roon is high priced software? Really, $10 per month ie 2 fancy coffees? As a tea drinker, I don’t buy fancy coffees. It fills a need in my household and I am happy with its performance. It admirably looks after my various SONOS devices and I no longer have to deal with SONOS, gives me a better interface with Tidal (my view) and seems more suited to me than JRiver (which I also use, but mostly for the video aspect). It runs very well on my systems. Occasional blips as with all software, reboot/update/refresh whatever and off you go.
The short answer is I haven’t to explain anything to you. But since you bother here’s an attempt. I just don’t like being treated like this by a business I pay for. So I dare to express my standpoint. Btw even if Roon worked perfectly for me I still would pay and therefore not ‘love’ a piece of software. Maybe if it was a GitHub project. And I will go for a better solution once available which is legit and logic. Until then my claims to get things fixed stand. May you like / understand it or not.
Would you love a car that works for the majority of owners while you’re the one bugged by a Monday version? Guess you wouldn’t. These lucky other owners btw would then blame you for not being an aficionado. Funny planet … love for cars and Hi-Fi gear.
