I’ve been spending some time at local stereo stores lately. While all had a passing familiarity with Roon, none had it running on the floor, and only one had substantial knowledge of Roon integration options.
I hope this changes, and that it becomes more normal to be able to go into a store, and use Roon (& Tidal) to audition/demo products.
My favorite store - Music Lovers Audio in (SF & Berkeley) - tend to promote Amarra (or, Aurender), but were aware of which of their products were roon-ready, and had a copy of roon installed.
The salesman I was working with brought out a Roon remote for me to use, while comparing some roon-ready products.
While I was using the remote, I was prompted for whether I wanted to upgrade the server. Then I noticed that some USB-connected DAC’s weren’t in exclusive mode, that roon-volume-control was enabled (which the salesman /didnt/ want), that DSD options needed tweaking, etc etc - and I helped the salesman with that stuff.
But his main purpose was to leave me alone in the room to listen to some stuff, with - at best - the ability to tweak a personal playlist while I was comparing gear.
I think that would be the typical “use case” in a store.
They would not want customers to be able to edit device settings, remove albums from the library, install new software, etc, etc - all of which I had in my hands with the iPad remote.
I’m not aware of a way to configure/restrict the remote’s capabilities - is there one? If so, I apologize for this verbose prologue. If not, I suggest it’s important to offer that.
At most, unprivileged users should be able to edit the queue, and perhaps adapt a playlist (nice-to-have, but not required) - but they should not be able to change the library, change server/device settings, install software, etc.
I think this “limited” remote would be a must-have for dealers to be comfortable with having Roon on the sales floor - which I think is important for us (customers), Roon, dealers, and roon-ready vendors. (My dealer didn’t realize the setup was so exposed until I walked him through some settings to change- he was thankful, but rightfully alarmed.)