Thank you for your reply and that clears up my misunderstanding but it would appear to me that many roon users think that roon improves the sound quality but, as you say, it only affects sound quality if you enable dsp which may or may not improve sq.
That’s too general a statement.
There a definitely people who think it degrades sound quality and I guess there are others that think it improves it. All else being equal, both kinds are delusional. However, all else may not be equal and Roon may improve sound quality compared to specific other transport mechanisms.
I believe the large majority of statements about SQ improvement is related to using various methods of DSP, in which case they may well be true.
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The RAAT audio stream is bit perfect.
I choose to EQ my headphones only, individually within Roon but that’s a subjective preference.
@David_Snyder post mirrors my thoughts , I am on year 8 now , maybe I should have gone for the $500 deal , but I agree it’s not a good business model, I pay most other things monthly (or annually) why not Roon
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I have the same problem.
Earlier this year I had the alexa golf ball on whilst in the Kitchen. TREX get it on is a great stomper and MB could choogle and boogie like no-one else
The riff break really gets me. I remember how he always stomped, lips a puckering in the riff breaks.
I instinctively stomped on my stone floor . I could barely walk for a week afterwards.
I do get the air guitar out tho. Rock n Roll from LZ4 gets me. But its not easy is it with arthritis, bad backs, etc
Even so, i still boogie on when I am in the mood.
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ten characters
Wow! You’ve tapped straight into the Roon community’s anxiety over the take over, big time. Has someone suggested you can double your trial period by asking nicely? That might be a good way of taking the temperature of the new regime. I was well and truly at true believer level before my trial period ended, then someone said they’d give me the same amount of time again if I asked nicely, and they did.
I got lifetime membership mid 2022, and like so many others, I’m worried about what the future will bring. We don’t know. The best intentions of the developers are no guarantee, but if you love this system, you love this system. The only certainty is change. Do what feels right for you. Lifetime subscriptions might not continue to be offered, and who knows how long they’ll be honoured. The developers won’t be able to control how the future of their creation unfolds as they would have done before, but there are also a lot more resources behind them now. It depends on whether Harmon wants to grow the system, or bought it because they saw it as a threat to something they have or are planning, and want to kill it. I’ve seen a lot of excellent systems murdered by companies that bought them, even when those companies had nothing comparable to offer. The amount of waste and malicious destruction is extremely frustrating. We’re all hoping that isn’t where Roon is headed, but no one knows.
Good luck!
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I’ll second this post. I purchased an annual subscription in June of 2015 and quickly followed up with a lifetime purchase in October of that same year. Though I broke even some time ago, if I had it to do over again, I would strongly consider continuing my annual subscription. That gives me the chance to re-evaluate the value for my $ as well as making an ongoing contribution to the maintenance and development of a product I enjoy immensely. Looking at my last.fm statistics, I haven’t listened to this much music in at least 10 years. I’ve said it in other posts, Roon is my music now. iTunes was for a bit, but Roon is now. Might something replace it in the future? Certainly. In the meantime, my recommendation to newcomers would be an annual subscription. I pay a lot more for television than an annual Roon subscription and don’t ever find myself scrolling through crap, unable to decide what to listen to, the way I or others in my family do with the TV. Enjoy your music!
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9 posts were merged into an existing topic: Roon acquired by Harman International [Feedback]
I have moved a number of posts to a more relevant thread.
This discussion is NOT about the Harman/ Roon acquisition.
Plenty of existing threads to discuss that aspect.
Thank you for your cooperation.
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I’ve looked for alternatives.
Now based around Apple (with Linux based servers) and a variety of endpoints.
- The nearest I’d come to a High quality setup was via Audivarna (which despite having recently paid for an upgrade then after only a fes months got stung for a lerg annual sub)
- Squeezebox had worked well. but due to a large library, and despite a valiant user community providing ongoing support, it was becoming slow and flaky.
Sound quality, range of endpoints and user interface (as you probably have trialed) are excellent
- the “discovery” I most liked was “my live radio” - which helped me re-find great albums and tracks in my collection.
- the most annoying “discovery” was the regular disconnects caused by micro-internet outages.
We live in a rural area. For Broadband >10Mb you have to use 4/5G. The speed is great, the issue is frequent dropouts. sadly not only does this disconnect all the music/ radio playing. Whilst this is apparently protecting Roon’s revenue. It is very frustrating they failed to provide any auto-restart.
Seriously dis-chuffed to only discover this after I’d finished my trial and paid for lifetime. I don’t think I’d have purchased Roon if I’d known (or been warned) as it is we’re promised fibre by 2026 - only another 2 years before I can reliably play my music…
TL:DR
- my use case and yours might vary
- is your internet reliable?
- whatever you pay for (like my example above) nasty commercial decisions can happen.
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FYI, you can stream Spotify though Jan’s libraspot entry point. I use it for my record player and my Bluetooth guest music player. Jan did a great job with this and you should take a look.
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right, but if I understand correctly it doesn’t really integrate it into Roon, it essentially makes Roon a Spotify connect target. So you still need to use the Spotify app. Looks like it mostly makes sense when used for room correction and other dsp.
Should be around now that the OP has to make. a decision about his subscription…
What has @jonasti decided to go for?
That is indeed a very good question!
After some agony over the fact that I would initially was looking for a ‘no internet required solution’ and the fact that I wanted Roon mostly for my local files it felt like a bit of an expensive overkill.
But after reading all of the posts in this thread, testing and playing with Roon and also watching the interview with Enno Vandermeer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xo2jogRY-s&t=928s I must say that I like the attitude behind Roon and the engagement and spirit of the community and, most importantly, the capability och possibility with Roon itself. There are many things that I will test and use down the road…
Naturally, posting a question like mine in a forum like this is a bit like going to the church and questioning the existence of a God. Clearly, the bias is significant. But on the other hand, when it comes to the details of things, I think the audiophile community is very picky, so I expected bad things to surface 
And some things have!
I don’t consider myself an audiophile. I just like good music played on a good system, a thoroughly thought through interface and underlying database computational machinery — in short, I just want a quality digital music system that is fun to use. I thought that my requirements were not that big, but it turned out that Roon is the first solution that I have tested that ticks (most of) the boxes and that feels great!
So here we are. I am testing both Roon and Qobuz and I discover new things every time I fire up the system. Qobuz will basically be my main ‘record store’ as I plan to purchase many of my favorite albums that I have been streaming (on Spotify) for years. And Roon… well, there are many things I want to do. First of all, I am leaning into the project of setting up a decent computer/NUC for the Roon server, but that will be another thread… 
And after that I will probably reconsider my amplifier and loudspeakers. Somewhere in the middle of it all I am probably eager to get into room correction…
Hence, in the end it was an easy decision for me and I am in it for life. If Roon will be massively changed under Harman — so be it.
Many many thanks to all of you for your thoughts and comments
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You are correct but what else is roon really for? The meta data is occasionally nice but certainly not worth the premium price. The real value is the high quality sound, multi-room synchronization of audio, and an easy to use player on any device. If all you want is to listen to music in one room using a streaming service I would not buy it.
It may not be for you but it is for many people like me. Not just the metadata (which is spotty but there don’t seem to be better sources) but the crosslinks between the metadata and the Focus features to explore it. That’s my main reason for Roon anyway. The cool thing about it is that it can be so many different things to so many different people’s needs.
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Definitely. I use the versions tab a lot & go exploring through the credits and through focus a lot. To have my own music plus Qobuz to browse through in one place is superb.
I was just considering posting a question about how others view Roon support. I doubt I have ever been as frustrated with support as I am here. Why is that? I am sure the support technicians are quite capable but we can’t talk to them.
They expect us to know how to go into our computers and fix things that are not always explained well. It took me weeks to locate the Roon server on my computer. They probably could have done it in a few minutes. They told me to rename it and then start Roon again and it would fix the problem. It did not. I changed the name and Roon still will not connect.
Over a month has passed since the update (when I coincidentally changed my modem/router) and lost Arc. Not too bad I suppose, but then I lost my controller (an IPad). It refuses to locate the Roon core.
Now I have spent over a month on this, have done what was requested and have no Roon at all, unless I change the Roon core name back and see if that restores the Roon connection.
Why does Roon maintain this customer service model? Does the company even care? When I heard it was bought by Harmon I was excited thinking that maybe they would bring the Roon tech support to a satisfactory level of operation. I hope Harmon discovers how bad it is and insists upon improvement soon. I don’t know how much more frustration I can take.