Logitech Vs. Roon

I can recommend Logitech media server.

  • Spotify
  • Dezeer
  • songs ratings
  • stability
  • both “core” and endpoint can easily run on raspberrypi
  • bt
  • airplay
  • upnp
  • chromecast
  • free
  • great community like here + fast contact with delopers - fixes for plugins are released very often.

Material looks ok but not so great like Roon. Statistics? Some are as plugin, some I can check via Lastfm.
Artists info. Unfortunately "all"music api again but works ok. I noticed that lastfm has more information IMHO.
Lack of tags and focus feature…

I’m going to use LMS during next month and then return to Roon to compare.
For sure Roon looks perfectly. Unfortunately stability is not so great recently (mac mini and ios)

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Thank you for new topic :slight_smile:

Unresolved issues exist with any software and this one has a long history. Some consider this product already dead, other enthusiasts will always use and defend it.

To each his own…

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If you are going to use LMS, try it with Material Skin.
It dramatically lifts the GUI quality.

IMO, LMS is not perfect. The software has plenty of bugs, little support, but typically works pretty well if you want the basics.

LMS lacks any of the sophistication of Roon, its GUI, user experience, PEQ/Convolution/Crossover control, AI radio engine, etc…so many other things. Roon is clearly playing in a different League…

But LMS is free - so there’s that.

Check out snakeoil, Picoreplayer for RPI4 implementations.

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True. I use both Material and Picoreplayer. Tbh less problems than I had with Roon on my Mac Mini. With 50 ripped CDs and Tidal it’s sofficient solution. Unfortunately artists info plugin also uses Allmusic like Roon so it’s not the best source of information about “international” music…Lastfm is better for sure.
I will return to Roon soon to decide. It’s a bit too expensive for someone who has only 1-2 endpoints, is happy with max 24/96 and doesn’t need MQA and sound processing.
Maybe if database would contain more information than only allmusic. Maybe if I could rate each track 1-5 (when users asked about it? 5 years ago?). And for sure stability for ios should be improved :slight_smile:
I really liked UI. But for sure it’s not worth 2x Tidal price.

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I’m also a long time squeezebox user. Logitech abandoned the product years ago, but volunteers keep the software remarkably up to date.## And the core runs well on an rPi. piCorePlayer has been a real game changer. Squeezeboxes were way ahead of their time 15 or more years ago.

I set up an rPi3B+ running piCorePlayer for my brother. LMS runs on the rPi, and with an attached USB HDD, he can play his own music, or stream Spotify, to his Squeezebox Touch (attached to his main stereo) or his Squeezebox Radio (portable for his patio). He wouldn’t care about the GUI of roon. He just uses iPeng on his phone to control LMS, the squeezebox players, choose music, etc. He has zero idea how any of this works! He’s happy, and it just works without any intervention from him. About once a year, I update his piCorePlayer and LMS version, otherwise it simply runs 24/7 and he has zero issues.

##EDIT. For example, in the last year, LMS has been updated to be a sort of “poor man’s Roon” because LMS can now integrate music from Spotify, Tidal, Quboz along with one’s own music and show it all in an integrated way in the user interface.

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For me it has been never the question about using Roon or LMS, because I’m using Roon and LMS.
There are some situations in the past, where the Roon cloud had problems (Tidal, Qobuz or Internet radio) and so LMS can be a backup system.
Also I don’t use my six Squeezeboxes as Roon endpoints, because I prefer for radio stations the favourites (with the remote control) in LMS or for things like alarm clock or so.
Also you can navigate with LMS through the file system, which some people also want to have in Roon.

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I too was long time LMS user before switching to Roon in late 2015. There is really no comparison between Roon and LMS. LMS is the past and Roon is the present and the future.

Sure there were and are various third party additions to LMS to give LMS a Roon-like look and feel. The program Muso gives one a very nice GUI but doesn’t have the metadata handling abilities of Roon. iPeng enables one’s iPhone to act as a controller for LMS but doesn’t have the same abilities or features as the Roon mobile apps. And then there is the wide range of devices that can serve as Roon endpoints. Sure Roon cost money and LMS is free but as the expression says one gets what one pays for.

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Ok I can pay more for great UI and navigation and great music database. But Roon’s information are often empty for non mainstream music. I have no idea why LMS also uses Allmusic instead last.fm or both.

10$/month mainly for UI and some bells and whistles… Probably I will also use Roon and LMS but I hope LMS community will make the system great again :slight_smile:
It’s a reason why I’m not going to buy lifetime licence for Roon. For me it’s not ideal system. I won’t use some features and Roon as Music Encyclopedia failed for me. Maybe I’m listening bad music :wink:
I hope one day sth better will be released. Maybe Roon 2.0 with last.fm database support :slight_smile:

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As I stated it’s more than just the user interface and metadata that make Roon superior to LMS. Roon’s integration with Tidal and Qobuz and Roon’s support of the many different types of endpoints (Roon Ready, Roon Tested, Squeezebox, Chromecast, Roon Bridge, Airplay, etc) are just a few of the things that make Roon much more forward thinking than LMS.

Now all that being said, I don’t regret 10+ years that I used LMS. Using LMS taught me that good music library management started with me, unlike those unlucky souls who let iTunes mismanage their music library. When I made the switch from LMS to Roon I was relived at just how smoothly things went. Sure there were a few hiccups but Roon was able find all my music and correctly identify about 75% of my library. Over time I’ve been able to bring the percentage of identified music to just over 87% and to fix most of those import hiccups. And each new release of Roon brings several new features, which always adds to Roon’s value and utility.

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I moved from LMS 5 years ago. I tried it again recently, no chance in me going back.I stll use the one squeezbox I have that didnt die. It was ahead of the game years ago, but just ticks along. The adding spotify, etc to your library isnt great and there is no concept of versions to make it more manageble. it still has its merits and for free its the best software there is but only for Squeezelite. Never found the plugins for UPnP and Chromecast worked that well. Good to see its still around but I will never go back. You get what you pay for,

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I moved from LMS & Squeezeboxes, with a move to Naim Network players, replacing a Squeezebox3 & Pink Triangle DAC which was limited up to 24/48 (not bad for a 90’s Dual DAC7 design with custom and customisable filters).
The Naim exposed limitations of LMS running on my ReadyNAS Duo, with their iOS App, n-Stream, so I moved to Asset UPnP on a RPi for better library and album artwork handling (still have as a backup)
Roon was from 2015, but not serving as a Playback path until 2016, and the UPnP Bridge, which relies on the Squeezebox support mode in Roon, as the UPnP Bridge implementations are Squeezelite based.

Squeezebox and LMS broke digital music away from either individual devices (largely iPods) or CDs and introduced the “locally stored library, accessed by a server and then network streamed to multiple locations” architecture, is internet based streaming going to completely replace this?

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There has never been published stats to my knowledge but i would hazard a guess that most of the $10 goes on 3rd party stuff. Cloud costs, Metadata costs, lyrics download etc

Be interesting to see but most going towards the GUI i would doubt

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I’ve happily used my squeezebox touch for neigh on 15 years. Originally I used it to stream Spotify paid version. Some years ago Spotify decided not to stream to the squeezebox so at that point I decided to keep my squeezebox and drop Spotify. A very good decision in hindsight. I then used squeezebox to stream at various times deezer, tidal and qobuz and I’ve finally settled on yearly subscriptions to deezer and qobuz. I also own two bluesound node 2i and can confidently say that I can hear no difference between hires music streamed through the node or the touch going through the same external dac. Not being particularly computer literate it took me a little while to sort out LMS on my pc but now it works perfectly and I now stream deezer, qobuz and my own music library installed on my pc using LMS and Squeezepad on my iPad. A couple of years ago I took advantage of roon free trial and whilst I had no complaints about it and it identified all my hardware I found that for the way I play music it had no advantage for me especially for the cost involved, it added nothing to my convenience and listening pleasure. In many ways I enjoy much more the simplicity of the node interface and the LMS interface which gives me much more control of how I manage my music. If I want to know more about the music I’m listening to, my iPad is in hand and a simple web search reveals much more information than roon is capable of but I can appreciate that many would enjoy the structure of roon and are quite happy to pay for it which is how it should be, choice.

I recently bought an old squeezebox touch for my home system. I installed the latest version of the server and then spent about a week trying all different ways to get it to scan my music folder that is on my NAS. Failed every time at 15%. Squeezeserver can’t handle really large libraries (mins 4tb), unlike Roon.

That’s not true, if you don’t use LMS installed on the Touch itself and an USB HDD attached to the Touch or use a real old version of LMS (they’ve changed the database many years ago) or you’ve many corrupt files in your library.
You’ve to take a look into your logfiles…
I’m using the same library (over 10 TB) with Roon and LMS without any problems.
For users, which are not so familar with LMS, Pearl,… there exists for example Daphile (it’s like Rock for Roon) as a hassle-free system or many docker installations.
LMS is much more lightweight than Roon (you can let run the server on a raspberry pi or a real small PC) without a memory leak (which Roon had a long time).

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Well I have the NAS connected via Ethernet and I am running the Squeeze server on my PC. Roon just works, so I gave up on Squeezebox, sold the Touch unit and went back to listening to music.

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Roon and LMS are not the same, and Roon is more modern for sure. So I’m not pushing LMS by any means (I’m a Roon lifetime subscription holder!). But LMS and squeezeboxes can handle a million tracks or more. I have over 3TB of FLAC files on a 4TB HDD, and LMS and squeezeboxes handle this easily. It runs for months at a time with zero intervention.

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Tbh i just compared picoreplayer vs ropieee. To check cpu temperature (my nuc is soo loud…) i had to restart and login to bios. picoreplayer is a way more sofisticated software.
Currently I will use both. Roon looks better but LMS seems to be more stable and mature

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I can recommend Daphile, if you want an audiphile LMS solution.

But LMS is cludgy as hell at this stage. Roons end point solution with all those lovely and simple to implement tweaks, just beats all over LMS.

All I need is a plugin for room measurement and convulsion features and we are good!

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