My Experience With Roon So Far

Last week I decided to try Roon, after hearing enthusiastic talk about it on Head-Fi. So after trying it for a few days, with the core initially setup on my PC, I decided to get myself an Intel NUC (7i7DNHE), 8 GB of DDR4 RAM and a M.2 SSD (Samsung 970 Evo 250 GB) and move the core to that device.

What I like about Roon is it’s ability to have all of my music displayed in a single program which is also able to come up with a myriad of information on artists, albums and songs. It feels like the old days, where you could go to a record store and physically hold the LP/CD, look at the sleeve before deciding to buy it, getting back home, putting on the LP/CD and just feeling immersed in the music.

So far so good, however there are also quite a lot of things that I dislike about Roon, over the past week, I’ve ran into issues like Roon not syncing with Tidal, even when manually synchronizing it, Roon remote not wanting to connect to output devices on my phone, Roon being stuck in fixed volume mode on my computer and it coming up with error messages like “TIDAL: This track is not currently available from Tidal.”

Now being a quite a tech savvy person, I was able to resolve all of these problems myself, however that doesn’t take away from the fact that I find Roon to be quite buggy. I’m doubtful that I’ll upgrade to the paid version, since having so many issues during the trail period combined with a lifetime license that costs $500 is a bitter pill to swallow.

During my time as an audiophile, I’ve seen many audio players, that are of better quality, like Foobar2000, Mediamonkey, Jriver and HQplayer, while some of them are even freeware. I really feel that for this price, quality control should be doing a much better job, to justify for paying for a license.

Other users may have completely different experiences while using Roon, So I look forward to hearing from them.:wink:

Edit: My Roon setup is as follows:

Intel NUC running ROCK (Roon Core), database stored on SSD, while my music is stored on a NAS. The NUC is setup to connect to the NAS. It is feeding a Schiit Yggdrasil DAC, a phone with a Chord Mojo connected to it and a tablet.

Yes my experience is very different. I am not good with technology and I would struggle if i had any issues. For me Roon has been hassle free. One or two small issues but all sorted with a little help.
Roon has totally revolutionized, the way I listen to music.
For what £350, and a £20 per month Tidal subscription I have a stable system for my music with a vast library on Tidal at my disposal. I had a lot of issues with my Devialet and AIR and Roon is a godsend for me.
For me Roon is like musical Utopia, and I would be lost without it

John, are you able to play the track of which Roon says “It’s not available from Tidal” within TIDAL’s own app?
I’ve found out that Tidal randomly removes tracks and suddenly they become greyed out on my “Favorite tracks” list!.
I was very surprised this happens but it happened a couple of times already in TIDAL itself.

I’m sure other (much more qualified) people will pitch in, however:

Track not available on Tidal is not a Roon issue; this is a Tidal issue. Often brand new albums only have a few tracks available as a sampler when first released.

Fixed volume mode: this is usually configurable in Roon. You should click the settings or configuration wheel next to your DAC and can configure it. The only issue/incompatibility I have found with Roon is with the Apogee Finite Elemente - the Apogee mixer software seems to have an issue with Roon.

Each one has a different set of ears, but in my experience Roon’s SQ/output to DAC is second to none and its user interface is unbeatable - nothing comes even close.

Personally, have been a user from the start, I’ve not found it buggy. Whenever I’ve had issues, I’ve usually traced it back to something else in my system. It’s currently running off a NAS (the core is on it), feeding a (very) high end DAC, various iPads, a laptop with a Meridian Explorer2 driving phones, various iPads, a Naim Mu-so, a B&W Explorer - not a Roon glitch anywhere. I’ve had glitches recently, but that’s due to IP conflicts in my network.

I suspect that if you’re having issues that you look at your network/setup - the problems are very unlikely to be within Roon itself.

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Yes, I’m able to play to play those tracks in Tidal. Also when I attempt to play the same song for a second time in Roon, it will play it without issue.

Cemil, this even happened with tracks that have been on Tidal for ages. Also, when it was stuck in Fixed volume mode while feeding my Schiit Yggdrasil dac, it would simply not let me select another mode. I had to reinstall Roon in order get it to switch modes again. Also the computer that the DAC is connected to, has been completely reinstalled by me last week.

I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with my setup, as I have been using it for a long time without issues already.

It is tough to say anything constructive as you do seem to have made your mind up, but I will pitch in with my experience. Roon works pretty consistently for me, three end points and a mix of commercial and home brewed components. It took some time to ‘tune’ my setup to eliminate issues like track skipping and slow access but it works solidly now. I have all source elements, the Roon core (ROCK), NAS and internet access in the same place at the ISP router. I have a single Ethernet cable to my TV room for distribution via a four port unmanaged switch and the same in my listening room. It is very simple and works near flawlessly.
What I would earnestly suggest is that you do what I did which was to go for a year subscription and spend some time tuning things. I saw the value in spending more time with Roon and upgraded to lifetime before the twelve months was up.

Same her 6 endpoints and works really well.

Had similar issues here at the beginning. At my place it was an instable Wifi network which caused the problem. All components are connected now by AQ Carbon or Diamond and just one Wifi network is now being used.
Never ever a problem any more since.

My start with Roon was a bit bumpy, at the beginning, I didn‘t grasp Roon‘s concept and I was somewhat lost. But with the help of the Roon Community, I slowly got into matters and I now enjoy Roon to the fullest. I did have to adjust the wireless, from Airport Extremes to Netgear Orbis, and since then streaming and remote control work almost flawlessly. I‘ll have our house hardwired with Ethernet next week, just to eliminate Occasionswagen crackling during streaming.
I also observed ‚Track unavailble‘ and it‘s a good suggestion to check availability in the Tidal app. Another issue I noticed was when re-playing a Tidal playlist, Roon tells me that the playlist is empty, but it does play the tracks perfectly. I thought this to be a problem with Tidal, but it could be an issue with Roon.
I am very pleased with Roon and that tells something when coming from Aurender with its Conductor app that itself is pretty good!

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