I am looking at taking the plunge to Roon from my existing LMS system. I currently have a great number of Squeezebox devices:
Transporter in main rig (connected digitally to Anthem AVM 60)
Kitchen Squeezebox 3
Patio Duet
Bedroom Boom
Bathroom Squeezebox Radio
I use a few plugins like AudioScrobbler, and Radio.com app to be able to stream a few of their radio stations.
My personal collection is about 20K FLAC tracks at mainly CD quality with a few Hires files thrown in. I generally control the system with either the Duet controller, my computer or my Android phone running Squeeze Ctrl which I find great.
I am looking at diving into Tidal and may get an MQA compatible DAC and streamer to replace the Transporter in my main rig. My main concern is I use ARC room correction in my Anthem and if I use the MQA DAC, I will probably have one more A/D -> D/A in the chain. I guess I can try without correction, but man it makes a difference.
Questions for people who have done the same:
Is it a big step up?
Do you miss any plugins?
I often used the Shuffle entire collection to get a whole bunch of music I may not have listened to in a while. I know there is a radio feature, but shuffle would be nice.
It’s a pretty big investment (I have Plex as well) - is it heads and shoulders above Plex and LMS commensurate with additional cost?
Roon and LMS are very different, it will take you some getting used to Roon.
Roon is a better interface and overall a better experience, IMO. You have the trial period, and if you contact Roon, they will extend it for you if you need more time to decide.
You can basically do all the things you want, it will just take some playing around with the UI to figure it all out. There’s now a good internet radio setup in Roon and you can manually add stations that aren’t already there.
You can also add Squeezebox mode to Roon- it will then run your SB devices, but without SB plugins and the interface on them will be different - but you can still include them in your multiroom setup.
The Radio feature in Roon works similarly to LMS shuffle, but it still needs some work. If you subscribe to Tidal, Roon also gives you the option of including the Tidal catalog in your Radio feature playback.
You should also learn how to use the “focus” feature. You can bookmark all sorts of groups/subgroups of your collection and shuffle within them. I find this works better for me than the Radio feature. For instance, I made a big group with all my rock, folk, pop, soul, and R&B - basically anything that isn’t jazz, classical, or world. I can call that up and shuffle it.
The “Discover” feature in Roon will also clue you in to music you haven’t listened to in a while.
I’m not sure how your correction setup works, but if you have independent correction files you can add them to Roon and run the correction via Roon. As far as an extra conversion in the chain: I’d try it. My experience is that the extra conversion makes little difference and having the DRC is well worth it.
Seems that danny2 covered many very good points so I will just add a few more things.
If LMS has been able to read and work with your music files, in other words LMS is able to recognize the albums, artists, tracks, etc., then Roon should be able to do the same. Check the Roon Knowledge Base on how Roon handles file tags, multi-disc sets, compilations, etc.
And very important:
Enable Squeezebox support in “Setting”
Turn off LMS before running Roon. You may also have to manually reset your Squeezebox devices or at least point to the Roon library. Again the Roon Knowledge Base and Community will come in handy if you run into problems.
I switched over from LMS about a year ago and haven’t looked back. I used muso with LMS and Roon is somewhat similar but bigger, faster and much more robust.
I have 4 SB streamers on 4 different systems…all running under Roon for 6 months now. While nothing is perfect, Roon is infinitely better than LMS in terms of ease of use, features and general enjoyment. Won’t return to LMS anytime soon…