After spending just over 4 weeks with Roon, I will say that I am all-in.
This solution is the problem I’ve been trying to solve since I first started collecting digital files.
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It starts with stray files, loosely organized on a weak PC in the 90s… mostly mp3, with some exploration into wma. Mostly fiddling with more advanced “mixtapes” and enjoying WinAmp and it’s visualizers and playlist ability.
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Evolves with the discovery of XBMC (now Kodi). Kodi seemed like the solution for a long, long time. I was even an admin on the official forum, helping folks with their UX, and learning a ton. I still think Kodi is fantastic for local video libraries - Movies, TV series, etc.
All the while I’m building better and larger storage devices/systems. I’ve gone through a handful optical disc ripping schemes, all of the tagging softwares… my home has become semi-smart, and my equipment to make noise has been upgrading incrementally.
While my collection is small when compared to some out there, I’ve managed to gather about 2000 albums in mostly flac, with some legacy mp3, wma being weeded out. Everything is at least redbook quality (flac-wise), with lots of multichannel recordings in the mix as well. I would say that I was the ideal Roon customer.
So after briefly using a RoonServer docker on my unRAID machine - with Chromecast methods for the main listening room - but without the ability the cast multichannel recordings, this was not going to be a sustainable method.
I have always been a fan of forums, and i found this community immediately, even before installation - Mama didn’t raise no dummy! While perusing, I noticed “ROCK” a few times. Finally read more about it and saw the bit about “multichannel over HDMI”. Eureka!
- Now I’m running a ROCK on an NUC7i5 and life is good.
This could very well be a forever product for me. I do miss some aspects of playback on Kodi, mainly visualizers and more fanart incorporation into the UX. I’m working on a solution (read: workaround) to getting a visualizer integrated into my experience, but I don’t see a way to get more fanart into the mix.
I’ll post again when I’ve got the visualizer worked out… 
tl;dr - Roon is great! Multichannel forever.