Is Roon slowly “dying”?

The blog appears to advise of new “partners” and little else, useful, am I missing something?

Updates generally deal with things that don’t “just work fine” and new “things.”

Chris, I see your point but even if Roon remained static the world around it would change — new DAC’s and other endpoints. Other HQ streaming services to integrate with — most notably Amazon Music HD. Amazon HD integration should be a priority for 1.7 in my view.

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Amazon HD Music integration is not something Roon can just decide to do. It’s much more complicated than that. Amazon would have to want to play too. If Amazon does not want to play, it cannot happen.

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If you want Amazon integration then the roon team have suggested you let Amazon know as it is up to Amazon.

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Roon will never support UPnP according to Mr. Dulai, see this post:

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I don’t really have an opinion on whether Roon is “dying” or not (and what that exactly means). However, I do know something:

When I discovered the software the first time, I was impressed. I was moving towards high Rez music, and it did a lot of things right for me. There were gaps, bits that didn’t work as they should, basic stuff sorely missing, but hey, it was a work in progress. I liked it so much I turned my subscription into a lifetime purchase, and man that was expensive.

Today, I don’t feel much as changed. Maybe it’s unfair, maybe support for a bunch of stuff I just happen not to have any use for has improved dramatically. But Roon is meant for me to be my “one-stop shop” for my - entirely offline - music, so really basic stuff like smart playlists, being able to rate individual songs, having changes reflected in the files without having to export-reimport, heck, helping me handle my external player are all things I’m missing.

Qualitatively, it was a huge jump from iTunes, and I guess sound quality is the most important thing. But I’m missing too many basic tools I used to have, it’s frustrating. I added a big classical box-set last weekend, and the process was miserable compared to what it would have been under iTunes; it took me literally 2 hours, and that’s not good. Maybe it’s my fault, and I misunderstood what Roon is trying to achieve, but I’ll admit I’m very disappointed with the speed of implementation.

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It does seem that Classical=pain with roon for the enthusiast.

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Everything around us is dying…the only question is how fast.

All Things Will Die by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing
Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing
Over the sky.
One after another the white clouds are fleeting;
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating
Full merrily;
Yet all things must die
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.
[…]

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What, only 5 billion years till the sun turns red giant and consumes Roon Labs totally? Get ready…

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Perfectly condensed into 1 sentence.

Sad but true.

Just before the „Roon is wonderful, stop complaining“ brigade starts. Yes there is a lot I like about it, that is why I paid 500 USD for it, but for classical enthusiasts there are a lot of problems, that could have done with bugfixes in the past months. I am not even talking about a great new release, just a 1.6 that actually works great for all kinds of music.

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The Classical problem is far deeper than a “bug fixes”. First, there are 8000 different ways Classical folks like to organize their music. Second, the metadata situation for Classical is really bad and ties back to the first item.

Roon certainly can improve their system to better handle the needs of users with a large Classical library, but “bug fixes” aren’t the solution.

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Whatever the perfect word for it is, it needs to be fixed, mended, rethought, upgraded etc :wink:

If metadata that actually works well, is so hard to come by, atleast make the editor a better tool. Sometimes sorting tracks takes about 100000 clicks, since selecting more than one track to move up or down is not possible ( a truly basic feature)

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Roon remains excellent. Two years in and I have never listened to more music. I am planning more endpoints. I constantly recommend it! I just want people to enjoy the music as much as I have in no small part to Roon.

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I have only a few hundred Classical albums in my library and I always sort them and look at them as albums. I don’t sort them or them based on the tracks. So I am not the person you need to persuade…

The editor was actually designed by the same team responsible for black ops torture regimes. Thankfully I have no real interest in correcting my metadata/weird album spillages so I only use it occasionally.

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I also do not sort them by tracks.I think you misunderstood.
Scenario; Identify your album and then it shows tracks in wrong order, with about 10 empty tracks between, clearing that up literally means hundred clicks or more. Since you have to move every single track instead if many at the same time.
You obviously never had to deal with this you lucky guy. It is tedious

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Agreed. When I suggested Amazon Music HD integration I realize it is likely more of a business challenge than a technical one. Roon should get on the phone with Amazon and try to figure it out. It’s a great fit. Roon is the purveyor of HD audio aggregation and Amazon has jumped into HD as a provider of a subscription to source material. BTW, I subscribe to Amazon HD Music and I have put in a suggestion to Amazon that they work with Roon to integrate. I told Amazon I am very bullish on Roon.

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See my other reply. I subscribe to Amazon Music HD and I did put in a suggestion via the Amazon Music App for Amazon to work with Roon on integration. Please make a request to Amazon as well.

Why is that a problem? Surely people should be able to organize their music however they want. It’s not difficult to make software that allows this. J River have done so for years. The problem isn’t “classical folks” it is arbitrarily restrictive software.

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