Scott G is correct
I use JRiver for exactly that , plus customized box sets with individual artwork
PM if you need help, I have done it " all before"
PS MConnect is a good remote with Tidal and Qobuz thrown in
J River is not at all perfect for that because it doesnât integrate Qobuz. So it would be useless. I used it for many years, but I left it when Qobuz became my prime source of music.
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ScottG is incorrect because he hasnât understood my requirement for Qobuz integration. Would gladly PM you if you can indeed integrate JRiver and Qobuz. Somehow I doubt it.
You canât integrate a Qobuz in the way Roon does but with MConnect you can run JRiver server with access to Qobuz from within the same app. Not as slick as Roon but access and running through your hi fi rather than a mobile device
JRiver will never support on demand streaming , JimH doesnt believe in it
Donât you use JRiver already?
No use to me. I want all my selections from Qobuz to be unified with my own rips in one searcheable library which I can organise any way I like. LMS 8.0 seems like it might offer at least some of that. I am familiar with J River, it does what it does very well, it just doesnât do what I want it to.
LMS? At first I thought of London, Midlands & Scottish Railway (obviously not), then realised itâs that Logitech Media Server that darko recently put out on Youtube. Itâs free and he was very enthusiastic about the service, albeit missing the metadata bioâs etc that Roon provides.
Iâm not going to look at it (doesnât seem my kind of thing), but still find it interesting that some alternatives have zero cost. Are they the same? No. Is it a viable alternative system? According to darko it is.
You of course are right , nothing integrates streaming services like Roon. I guess thats why are all still here warts and all 
I use JRiver but maybe 20: 80 with Roon being the 80 . I need DLNA for my soundbar and for Video thatâs where JRiver fits in . To do the structured approach I did required an enormous amount of manual tagging eg Composition and Movement etc which Roon (mostly) does for us
LMS has been around for a very long time, (ie since 2001), it was way ahead of itâs time back in the day, and still holds its own. It was associated with hardware such as the Logitech Squeezebox Touch and Transporter, so offered a complete software and hardware solution. Very flexible, now open source and actively developed and well supported. Many, many features. Few of which Darko is smart enough to appreciate, and many of which Roon doesnât have. Also a very good remote app called iPeng. The forum is here Free.
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Blockquote Sam_King
My exact sentiments. Roon is ok, probably better than other options, but the way that it limits what I want to do is just not worth the money. I wonât be renewing.
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You can get the allmusic artist bios and album reviews via LMS plugins - thatâs been available for many years already.
It handles convolution and more audio formats than Roon.
It doesnât have the same level of metadata integration, but it does display lyrics and link track performers to their discographies and other appearances in your library, provided the performer metadata is present in the underlying file tags. On the whole itâs a very competent replacement for Roon if you donât care about performer bios and album reviews.
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@Jez
Thank you Jez for more information here.
HmmmmâŚthatâs really what I use Roon forâŚthe bulk of my 67k tracks or ~5555 albums, I have Roon using my metadata. I spend years long before Roon sorting my metadata & when I buy digital music I ensure all the metadata meets my needs.
Wait - you do or dont get album reviews? I do like them, but itâs somewhat neither here nor there as I am more than capable of finding reviews.
Regardless it is interesting to hear of a free product that has many features that Roon charges a high price yearly subscription.
Cheers!
It was the integration of Qobuz with my own rips that was decisive in my choice to subscribe to Roon. Now thereâs another product that offers that same integration, which moreover is free and may well do some useful things that Roon does not, I will try it out and re-evaluate before my next Roon sub is due. One thing I will say about LMS, which I used years ago, is that the forum is very supportive and you will typically get a helpful answer from a dev within a day. They donât kick things into the long grass like Roon seem to.
I really like Roon and find it allows access to more of my (and Tidalâs) music which is a good thing.
I do think they are poor on making the software simple and intuitive to operate. I have mentioned before the dificulty of setting a mono output. Simply:
Select âPathâ
Select â3 dotsâ
Select DSP
enable âProcedural EQâ
Add filters
select left/left -3
right,right -3
left,right -3
right left -3
and âpay attention to headroom managementâ
Or you could have a mono button?
It almost seems the interface is designed to be extra complex to put off casual users.
This is minor stuff in itself of course, but does illustrate a liking for complexity that is not helpful and puts off people who want it to âjust workâ.
To me at least ease of use is just as important as features.
Itâs a bit like vinylâŚyou need to be fanatical if you want the best playback. You need to wash & let dry, replace the paper sleeves, clean the stylus, check you TT is leveled, take out your vinyl meticulously, carefully place on platter and add clamp. Antistatic and fine brush, all before you get to playing that beloved record.
Itâs all about engagement. 
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Yes, i still have a vinyl ritual!
I think Roon is great. For me though I think it would be nice to have a way to control the volume on my Android phone and sometimes certain files donât play but will play elsewhere. That said though as much as I love Roon, the price is problematic for me in this current pandemic and long term and therefore I will use Volumio which covers all the basics I really need and is half the price of Roon and sounds terrific.
Interesting thread with a number of pertinent points raised, albeit one of a number of similar threads!
I have been a Roonie since inception in 2015. Let me begin by stating that I think that Roon is excellent and for me, worth the cost (early lifetime subscriber). I also think that the support for users experiencing problems is very good.
Having said this, I echo the thoughts of many of the above posters including @bluhska. I had expected more from this app in terms of development over the years. As I have stated elsewhere, my impression of late has been that the Roon team have focused on expanding the spread of Roon via various integrations with streaming services and compatibilities with various endpoint devices - perhaps at the expense of development of the core functionality of the app itself. This brand affiliation and accruement of business partners will no doubt attract new users to Roon, and also satisfy @ennoâs wish to back up his claim that âRoon plays with all your hardwareâ. He did however state a couple of months ago that this has now been achieved - so hopefully the development team can now focus more on the app itself.
Many useful features have of course been added over the years, though many features which are deemed essential by the user base (according to the forums) have not. The latter as mentioned above includes such features as proper box set management, the ability to add artist bios and album reviews, remote playback and for me personally improvements in the album art side of things. Many more excellent suggestions are to be found on the forums.
Before using Roon I went through pretty much every alternative app, the last 2 being JRiver and Foobar2000. These apps have a much more standard windows-based UI and lack the polish of Roon as well as some of the features, though they are much more flexible in terms of user customisation and handling of metadata. Currently I think Roon is still the best app of this kind out there - but it is also the most expensive by a wide margin.
I think that a significant part of the problem, as has been mentioned above and in other threads, is the lack of more direct input into these threads from the Roon team. There used to be more input, thought it seems that this has decreased over time to being primarily into the troubleshooting section. This has led to some users feeling that the Roon team are indifferent to the wishes of their user base. I remember a thread from some years ago where it was discussed at length whether the Roon team should publish their âblueprintâ for the app in terms of future plans, and the overall consensus was that they should not (I believed otherwise and still do). This lack of clarity in terms of future plans combined with the lack of Roon dev input into the forums only adds to the frustrations users feel when yet another update of Roon is released without any oft-asked for features added. There has long been talk of a âUI overhaulâ as mentioned by one of the devs, though it has now been years without any significant improvement in this regard. Part of the problem with the UI might be the cross-platform nature of it. In a way it is great that I can use Roon on my 24" PC monitor, and then use it on my iPhone with the UI remaining familiar and intuitive. This is also a limitation however, as a 24" monitor has the potential to present a much more rich and immersive experience than a 6" mobile display.
One thing that I think would help is if the forums could have a kind of overhaul to add some structure to the feature request/bug reports, with users being able to vote on features and with the devs dipping in more to address the planning or progress of the issue. That kind of collaborative working between the dev team and userbase can only be a good thing.
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One of Roonâs âfeaturesâ seems to be more clicks than necessary to do anything. Maybe they think that makes it feel more full featured to some users, having to constantly open a menu, follow arrows here and there, click View All constantly, different looking pages for each item, often several different ways of navigating backwards, etc etc. I find it nothing but an unnecessary annoyance.
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Roon developers are paid by the users clicks! 
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You do, but not directly in the album page last time I looked - you clicked a link and itâd retrieve and display the allmusic bio or review within the app.
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