I am running Roon on a laptop. I am finding it hard to see what the benefit of Roon is versus just using Qobuz directly. Since I am only streaming, what is Roon giving me for $15 per month. I only listen to classical. What am I missing?
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For me personally:
- Editing metadata for streaming albums/artists (although I try to avoid for streaming albums because sometimes they change, it is still often useful)
- Removes the pain from adding metadata where needed because although the automatic data is by far not perfect, it’s sufficient to make it feasible to enter the stuff I care about and that it does not know.
- The Focus feature to mine my collection for interesting connections, such as who engineered what, or lets me construct focus queries on e.g. labels, particular periods & genres, artist collaborations, etc., in my library.
- Info on artist/albums with TiVo and Wikipedia
- Tags. Show me only my vinyl. Show me only my CDs. Show me all artists that I saw live. Show me all album covers I like.
- More granular rating than a silly binary “favorite yes/no”. I want to remember many albums for a variety of reasons. That doesn’t mean I want them to clutter my real favorites.
- Bookmarks to remember specific selections like certain tags and focus queries, and bring them up with a click any time.
- DSP
- Multiroom, move a playing album from main system to shower and back
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Welcome, and what an unusual question!
I wonder if you are looking for the answer to convince you to continue your subscription, or if you are already looking for an exit strategy?
I heard about Roon, watched a number of reviews and then took out a months trial; before the end of the month, I had decided to go full fibre to the house, to install ethernet/network bridges and to update/invest in a number of zones in order to play music in various rooms around the property.
The added benefits are either immediate, or not, I’m not sure that there is much middle ground.
I think that you willl get dizzy by all these nice/complex options Suedkiez shows you while your simple question was: “what Roon can offer a person who is already happy with listening to classical music on Qobuz”.
To give you another perspective: it all depends of two things:
- the size of your house
- the (choosen) limits of your budget.
Let me explain this:
With your Qobuz subscription you already spent each month money for high quality sound, good choice, I pay Tidal for that purpose. On the other hand you save money by using the Qobuz app on your laptop. You connect your laptop to a decent DAC that feeds your hifi system in the main listening room and you are happy…
But during the silent passages of your classical music you get more and more annoyed by the noise from the van of your laptop…
This is where Roon enters the scene: You can buy a small system that can run Roon core and place it far away, for example alongside your router in the facility cabinet. Then a cheap RaspberryPi with free dietPi or free Ropieee will feed your DAC/hifiset in your main listening room.
Now a big warning: do not read all these messages on the Roon community forum because you will get lost like I did:
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you will give old equipment - every time with a small extra spending - a new life, like a combination of an old RPI2 with dietPi and an old Dragonfly DAC to feed my not so old headphone next to my bed for the very late hours. (In Roon you even can improve the sound quality of the headphone by using several “DSP” options as crossfeed and finetuning the sound characteristic of your headphone brand - called convulsion filter - and even set a sleeptimer in Roon!)
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On a sale I bought a Marantz with HEOS - yes, a complete different music system and HEOS app - for my workroom, where Roon can be used to overrule this HEOS music streaming system on airplay level… but with an extra free and clever plugin (called “extension” in Roon) I could raise the quality of the sound level to the maximum the Marantz can handle.
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I enjoy a very nice/modest Roon Ready hifiset in the livingroom, but when I was working in the kitchen corner I was always using an old JBL flip, that I must connect to my cellphone. With an old RaspberryPi 3 with DAC head I can now feed that same JBL flip “the Roon way”.
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with only one app on my phone or Tablet I can now control all my sound systems! …Was that not the dream of the Harmony distance control? (Oh yeah, there is also a plugin for people who still have such Harmony control to use it in Roon.)
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reading on the forums and in the online documentation you discover and learn more and more options and you grow in your skills but also in your needs… and in the end you expect wonders from Roonlab and you start to complain in these forums
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Thanks for your comments on my question. My situation is not a multi room house, but a small apartment. I have a large collection of high end headphones, DACs and headphone amplifiers. I am using Roon in one room. I guess I am asking if the added content features, (information on composers, etc) is enough to make Roon worth it if you are not in a multi room environment. I am beginning to think that a single room, headphone based system may not permit me to get the full value out of a Roon subscription.
Well, of my personal 9 points, only one has to do with multiroom
Ample playground for DSP
I can only recommend to try for a while. The 14-day trial is way too short to fully explore the possibilities, but you can get a monthly subscription that doesn’t break the bank and find out over a few months.
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I have a small apartment as well. My hifi is in the living room. My laptop in the Office is connected to a DAC and a set of active monitor speakers. And I have a small setup in the kitchen.
So I have 3 different endpoints in my place. My Roon Core is installed on a Mac Mini which I have installed in my office. It used to be in the living room.
Having 3 setups managed by a single server is what Roon does for me. Next to using ARC when at work.
Now I don’t just stream. Next to Qobuz and Tidal I do also have a local collection of music. Which Roon manages as well.
If Roon is worthwhile for you is something you’ll have to decide for yourself. What I personally really like about Roon is the way it recommends new music. It is generally pretty spot on here.
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As someone who used Qobuz for around 4 years and just got Roon a couple of weeks ago because I got a new network streamer (HiFi Rose) there is one hugely improved feature in Roon vs the Qobuz app (for Windows or iOS)…SEARCH!!!
the Qobuz search is atrocious. I’ve been in heaven using Roon’s search and search results and was in so much pain using Qobuz’s search that I almost switched to Tidal.
Not as impactful, but something I just started playing with is that I listened to a lot of obscure/underground/indie music and have a bunch of flac/mp3s of bands that are not on streaming services like Qobuz or Tidal. I can create Roon playlists mixing tracks from Qobuz and my local files.
Other features I’ve enjoyed that are improvements on Qobuz are;
- album Versions
- that other versions/recordings of a single track feature (what is that called?). I’m not a fan, but a friend was listening to the Beatles at my place looking a Roon and they could see that there were 808 other versions of the track “Come Together”
EDIT: About the only thing I like more in the Qobuz app is that you can visually see HiRes albums easily. To be honest, while Roon shows me right on the screen 96/24 or 48/24 It’s easier to see with Qobuz’s graphic. Would love if Roon added a different graphic (or the same graphic, that disc) with a different color for HiRes
EDIT 2: I forgot to mention, since you said you only listen to classical, the other versions of the track feature and Versions of the album feature would be doubly useful since there are many many recordings of the same piece. For example, I just looked at one of my favorite pieces, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major. I see there are 122 other recordings of that in Roon, can’t see that in Qobuz. This is heaven!
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What could be interesting for you is the DSP option in Roon for (headphone) convolution filters: I use it for my Simple Sony WH1000XM3
find the right filter for your headphones here: https://phones.killdozer.uk/
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Yeah I forgot that in my list, actually huge points for me:
- It has a concept of a composition and the recording of a composition being different things. For many important compositions there is separate info for the composition. And, as you wrote, it can show the existing recordings of a given composion.
- It also has a concept of the original release date of an album and the release date of a specific release being different things. No more 60ies album reissues being shown in the 2000s when sorting chronologically
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I have also a very small apartment in Amsterdam 67 m2 with now 5 endpoints.
Only not in the bathroom (and the toilet), but if someone has suggestions?
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Only you can decide if Roon’s features are worth the price for your situation. In case of a single room, there might be less value to it than if you had a multi-room setup. IMO, Qobuz’s discovery and search aren’t all that great, but if I only had Qobuz I might not have used Roon. With a large local collection it is more useful. For streaming only… depends on how much you like service’s own UX.
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I would like to thank everyone for such thoughtful answers to my novice questions. I think will certainly stay with it for at least a couple of months to allow time to explore some of the aspects of Roon that have been pointed out in this thread.
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A lot depends on your individual usage , things like do you build a library from Qobuz favourites or do you just pick music from Qobuz as you need it
If you have a “Library” then Roon’s interlinking metadata is a great feature , as are all the many ways to navigate to a work, composer album etc
If you DON’T build a library , a Library Management system (read Roon) is a bit superfluous. Just use Qobuz and Wikipedia
My use case for reference is a Single Zone , Naim Uniti Atom HE and ONE pair of headphones BUT I have a large local library and stream only say 10 % from Tidal . So its very different.
I have used Roon as my only real music solution for coming up 7 years.
Did you know there is a Monthly sub version (as well as Annual or Life) so you can extend the trial 2 weeks and see how you feel in 3 months
I know my answer.
I think in your use case it doesn’t seem to make much sense to use Roon. For many of us, we started with Roon because we had a large library of ripped CDs. Then Roon added on line streaming that integrated with our personal library. That was the icing on the cake. If you don’t plan to use multi-room or if you don’t have a local library, Roon is probably superfluous. The only benefit I can see for you is DSP for your headphone setup.
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I tend to agree. If you are just streaming then Roon is far less useful, and pricey, compared to just useing the Qobuz app for listening to music. Especially if you are only using a single setup.
I’ve started with Roon when I was already streaming and building up a local library since the late 90’s. But if I didn’t have a local collection or multiple setups, I would be very happy with just using the streaming app from either Qobuz or Tidal. Or the StreamMagic app from my Cambridge streamer.
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Personally I disagree. The annoying limitations of streaming service apps were what brought me to Roon. Once I had it, the option to rip and integrate my CD collection was the icing on the cake
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I like the Qobuz app, if I am underway and I often listen to classical music (Mahler, Bruckner, Sibelius, …). I use Roon only as core on my Mac ( no multi-room stuff). Okay, I have local files, which I also want to hear. What ROON gives me in a similar situation as yours:
- five star feature with more granular rating for the heart-rated albums
- reviews for artist/albums via “More reading” section with TiVo and Wikipedia
- tagging of all the favoured albums for a specific symphony of specific composer (e. g. show me all my favoured releases of conductors of First, Second, Third … Symphony of Gustav Mahler = 10 tags, each with the best 3-10 releases of different conductors)
- History, last activities (Recent listening) and statistics (see “Home”)
- Links (Composer, Conductor …) with helpful recommendations of other work
- Findings of other versions of an album
- …
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You’re probably right about that. I rarely use the streaming apps (only when I’m forced to) and they are very limiting.