But if you take away the tight integration and metadata requirements that allow Roon to offer its unique product, then what’s the point of using Roon. You are left with a product whose only value is that it offers DSP. This may be of interest to you, but it’s of no interest to me or many other Roon users out there.
There are many other products out there that offer DSP, but none that offer the tight integration and and metadata driven functionality offered by Roon. Take away that, and you might as well just use the apps provided by Spotify, Apple or Amazon.
You posted:
“however, i have little use of the roon meta data because i know exactly what i want to listen and what i need to know”
In which case, I am at a loss to understand why you use Roon at all?
I suspect that credit metadata for the album (“Be right back”) released in May 14 will be present pretty soon! If not, ask Roon developers to rectify the situation.
It is a very sad fact that two of the most popular music related applications are showing such a poor product management. This is where Tidal’s (and Qobuz’s and Spotify’s and so on) mediocre applications will win by far: they can’t do worse than they are now and they can only surprise you in a positive way!
I can sort of understand people who like the physical aspect of selecting and playing CDs (I use vinyl in this way), and prefer not to take on board the many advantages of streaming. I feel differently and got rid of my last CD player many years ago.
I do not understand why someone would choose to subscribe to Roon and then choose not to make use of the functionality and many features that Roon metadata provides.
Because everybody here swears that they’re in for the music not for the meta! (I’m exaggerating of curse, but you’ll be surprised of how many said exactly that…)
What really are Roon metadata? They are just reviews, ratings, recording/release dates, photos, and lyrics, right? I need none of those. I just need music, how Roon plays music, where to play music, how to play music, how to start and stop music, what music to play. In another word, I am in Roon because I like how Roon plays music.
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
1073
The point of subscribing is to make that choice available. Not to make it mandatory.
I would hope Roon will integrate Amazon HD Music - it is natively integrated into the Bluesound Bluos app already. Would be strange, and disappointing, if they are not willing to work with Roon also.
Roon in conjunction with its metadata allow me to explore and discover music in so many ways that really are not possible with other applications.
Sure, Roon metadata provide reviews, ratings photos and lyrics which are nice to have for many of us, although apparently not really for you. However Roon’s rich metadata provide album and track credit information along with links to artists, composers and others who appear in the credits allow one to seamlessly branch out and discover music that I would otherwise never have encountered.
I have lost count of the number of times I have listened to a piece of music via Roon, wondered who might be playing a particular standout guitar or saxophone solo, clicked on the appropriate link in the credits and found a whole new set of tracks, albums or sometimes even genres to explore. With Roon it’s just click on a link and you are instantly there. With other applications you might switch to your Internet browser, and carry out any number of Internet searches in order to obtain that same information and decide whether or not to explore further via your music playing application. No application I have found other than Roon provides a means of exploring music in anything like such a seamless way!
Like you, I also happen to enjoy the way that Roon plays music, and the way that Roon seamlessly delivers music at the highest possible resolution each of my 4 Roon based music playing systems can accommodate. However, it was the whole visual experience of Roon, along with the rich metadata and the way in which they could be used to explore music that instantly appealed to me when I first encountered Roon and that inspired me to become a subscriber.
I am pretty sure that few long term Roon subscribers share your view that Roon metadata are not important.
Blockquote However, the point of my post was that I don’t need Roon and Amazon to play together. By sending any audio output from my computer to JRiver’s WDM driver, including that of Amazon Music HD, I can use JRiver as if it was Roon and use all of JRiver’s capabilities, which are considerable, with any audio app. I can also access my own ripped music collection simply by switching windows from a streamer to JRiver.
Once processed by JRiver, the app sends the output to the driver of your choice. The process does not have the elegance and seamlessness of Roon but it gets the job done in a high quality way with perhaps even more functionality.
I might be wrong, but I think everything you’re describing there is desktop-based?
I use a desktop to listen to music when I’m in the office (away from my local network and not having access to Roon or JRiver; I rely on web browsers then; it’s not ideal).
When I’m at home? Very little of my music is desktop based. Almost all of it involves me using a phone or tablet as a remote to tell what set of speakers or headphones what and when to play… for me and my use case, Roon is extremely useful.
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