My Year with Roon: Week 0

[Reuben_Grote (Reuben)]

Hey Everyone,

This is the start of what I’m calling “My Year With Roon: A weekly dive into my Roon Experience” which in [laymens] terms, is my way of giving weekly feedback centered around my experience with Roon and more-so, Roon ARC.

I’m doing this for a few reasons,

1. I have not committed to one streaming service for longer than 2 years at a time
2. I want to fully utilize my lifetime subscription to roon
3. With that, and being an active student @ Kent State (GO FLASHES!), using roon with Qobuz is cheaper than either Apple or Spotify.

And when it comes to those two services, alongside Youtube Music, which I was an early adopter of between the Summer of 2017, and Fall of 2018, all three have things that are missing for me, things I’d like to have. Things that subjectively, roon does better than other services, but also just does things others don’t!

Those include:

• Streaming Local files alongside streaming tracks
  – Spotify & Apple does this ‘ok’, but Roon takes the cake IMO when it comes to bit perfect streaming on this side, and Metadata!
• A Powerful DSP, no other mainstream service having the capabilities roon has
• For now, that’s all I can think of

Now as for rules I’m setting for myself:

1. I cannot switch to another service for the next year (Until 12/6/2026)
2. For now, I’m only going to use Qobuz with roon, but I may see about adding on Tidal
   3. I report all my findings, pros, cons, and more, back here to the RLC

Anyways, with this being week 0, I will leave this weeks report here, and I’ll see you all next friday for Week 1 of this year long journey!

Thanks everyone, and take care!
-Reuben

[Mr.Flibble]

Hmm!

I Have Used Roon for the better part of a year. Here are my thoughts

Hi Y’all, hope you’re all doing well. Well It has been about a year all told since I made the big switch from Apple Music to Roon. Since then, while I’ve made attempts to go back, I’ve stuck with roon in one form or another for a years worth. So, here’s all what I like, don’t like, and what I think can be improved. Pros ARC One of the main reasons I’ve used roon. When I first started my roon journey, I was running on an old burner iMac that could only run roon 1.8. Since then, I’ve only ran…

[David_Snyder]

It sounds like you’re not new to Roon…you’re taking this year to rededicate or to findally be deliberate and intentional about your exploration of what it has to offer. If so, I can certainly accept that. Everyone probably has a subscription or membership that they started months or years ago that they’ve never really used.

The Roon Mastery series is worth paging through. If you look at ten a day, you’ll finish it in less than two weeks: Roon Mastery Series - Tips, Tricks & Advanced Features Guide | Roon

Here are my recommendations for a great experience with Roon after watching folks struggle for years in this community:

• Simplify Your Network
  Roon likes a simple, flat, reliable, low-latency network. Wi-Fi mesh is a popular topology these days, but making this design work with Roon is not always obvious. For example, connecting Roon Server directly to your ISP’s router while endpoints and controls are connected via mesh nodes will disrupt Roon’s discovery protocol. If you must use a Wi-Fi mesh, connect everything having to do with Roon to one or more mesh nodes. Ideally, use one big, unmanaged Ethernet switch. Hardwire all Roon zones, Roon Server, and your NAS, if you se one to this switch. Directly connect that switch to one of your mesh nodes, and things will work very well. If you’re not using a Wi-Fi mesh, use the same design but connect the switch to your ISP’s router instead. The closer you can come to this topology, the more stable Roon will be in your home.

• Run Roon Server on Roon OS
  There are other “convenience” solutions for running Roon Server, including as a background process on a general purpose Windows or macOS PC or other packaged solutions from 3rd party vendors. But Roon OS was developed specifically by Roon Labs to provide the best appliance-like experience. You’ll get there eventually, so my advice is to shortcut the process and start out with Roon OS instead. Buy a Nucleus One, do a ROCK (Roon Optimized Core Kit) build using supported hardware, or do a MOCK (My Own Core Kit) build using less expensive but community-verified hardware. Conect this 100% Roon-dedicated computer to that “one big switch” and forget about it. It will just run, leaving you more time to listen to music and explore Roon’s rich user interface.

• Don’t Underspec Roon Server
  You don’t need a particularly powerful computer to run Roon OS, but make sure that what you select can handle your library size, number of zones, and DSP requirements. Running Roon Server in a Docker container on a NAS or on low-power 3rd party hardware (like Innuos) often results in an unsatisfactory user experience. Don’t consider anything less than an Intel Core i3 (or equivalent) unless you know what you are doing and you’re willing to accept the consequences.

• Transport Quality Matters
  There’s a vocal contingent in the community who will tell you that a $89 WiiM mini sounds exactly the same as a $15k Grim Audio MU1 when connected to the same input on the same DAC. If that works for them, I’m happy for them, but, annoyingly, I have found that this is not the case. And, it highlights two important aspects of a good streaming transport: software quality and sound quality. You want both. Without good software, including updates and support, your streamer becomes an expensive doorstop after a few years. But, without great sound quality, you’re not getting the performance out of your DAC that you paid for. Focus on Roon Ready solutions from companies that have developed software ecosystems that collaborate with Roon Labs rather than compete against them.

• Local Library Hygiene
  If you have a local music library that you want to import into Roon, it helps to understand what Roon is trying to do behind the scenes. It’s reading your files and grouping them into complete albums that it can match with an online metadata database. If a group of tracks matches an entry in that database exactly, you get high quality album art, album reviews, artist bios, and hyperlinked credits. Plus references to versions of the same album on Quboz or TIDAL. However, say that you only ripped your favorite tracks from each CD. It may not be possible for Roon to match the tracks you have to the correct album. Things get worse if you edited track numbers to put some of your albums in your favorite playback sequence or split classical music into one folder per composition or composer, etc. The more the layout of your music files matches what was on the original CDs, the easier it will be for Roon to identify them and match them to online metadata. A simple folder structure with Album Artist / Album / Disc # / Tracks will be a lot easier to parse. There are utilities like SongKong, Media Monkey, and others that can be used to help you reorganize your local files into a Roon-friendly structure.