After a rather disappointing search for a nice alternative for iTines on a Mac, I finally found roon . I have one more week to test it, and Iâm a bit hesitating subscribing for it.
I currently use iTunes on a Mac mainly for the followingâŚ
Organizing all of my music on an NAS.
Mainly lossless music files for listening at home.
Ripping CDs to tagged AIFF.
Occasionally buying music through iTunes Store
Converting selected titles (play lists) to mobile-friendly file formats like mp3 or AAC.
Synchronizing titles to iPod nano
I like the ease of use of iTunes and its visual interface. But it has two major drawbacks.
It can handle only very few file formats.
Separating title sets of different file formats for home and different mobile devices, e.g. car and DAP, is a mess.
At the moment, roon seems to be a very promising app which may be a real alternative to iTunes in the future. It supports many file formats Iâd like to use, like FLAC. It has a very nice user interface, although, I still fight with merging albums .
What I miss so much with roonâŚ
CD ripping. Not a big deal - could use separate ripping tool exporting to roon library watch folder.
No integrated file converting - essential for synchronizing titles with different devices.
No synchronizing with other devices.
No export of playlists as e.g. m3u.
For a real all-rounder roon currently lacks some very important functions that are important for listening music on mobile devices, off-line. To circumvent this you have to use a set of additional tools making it mor complicated to really organize your music for the different needs at home and on the go.
Currently, roon seems to concentrate on listening at home. And - Iâm not absolutely sure - it may not support more generic DLNA/UPnP renderers .
So, what are your plans here ? And what about âroon extensionsâ for Mac?
Two points with the user interfaceâŚ
Is there any way to play a title through the Mac client - with a single click?
Cover art is rendered a bit over-saturated in the Mac client compared to other music apps.
Iâm hesitating⌠a roon lifetime subscription is rather pricy⌠it looks nice, can handle many formats, but it is very limited in generating new music files for synchronizing with mobile devices, mainly concentrated on listening at home.
Iâve already found the âexportâ function. Seems to generate an Excel list or a complete 1:1 title file copy of a selected playlist - including a playlist file. But it seems to be impossible just to save a playlist file for the original files within a roon playlist.
File conversion tools could operate on the original music files in the roon library without copying gigabytes of input files that are deleted after conversion.
Thatâs a real pity. There are so many A/V receivers or digital amps for home by e.g. Onkyo, Denon, Yamaha⌠which can easily be used as DLNA renderers. Equipped with a nice set of speakers the sound quality is outstanding.
Look e.g. at Synologyâs own NAS DSAudio app. Itâs a nice music browser for e.g. iPad or Android devices. It tells Synologyâs music server to stream music to any DLNA compatible renderer, even to modern USB headphones, lossless .
This doesnât work as expected on my system. I get an .m3u playlist, but it only contains the tracks in the playlist that have matching files on my computer. The TIDAL tracks in that playlist donât get listed.
This is probably a result of the fact that the function in Roon is called âExport Music Files To Folderâ instead of âExport Playlistâ. Because in addition to the truncated .m3u file, in the chosen export destination I get copies of the music files that are on my system.
Iâd like to be able to export an .m3u playlist of all the tracks in my playlist, regardless of source or location. The .csv export option isnât that great, and requires me to select all of the playlist tracks before it becomes available.
I think thereâs definitely room for improvement here, both in user-friendliness and function.
As for my personal music library workflow, itâs quite straight forward.
Whenever possible, get the desired titles in (near) lossless quality, i.e. by ripping CDs or getting high quality downloads.
Organize titles and albums based on the high quality files, e.g. AIFF or FLAC.
Create playlists for mobile devices. In my case itâs one for my car, one for my Android based mobile DAP, and another one for my iPod nano.
My integrated car player reads from an SD card with limited memory. High quality files in a car are rather - senseless - so, I use AAC files here.
The mobile DAP has lots of internal memory and can use two SD cards with up to 256 GB each. I use the DAP with a good headphone. So, I want HQ sound with a bit less limited memory. Thatâs why I use FLAC in this case.
The iPod nano has internal memory only which is very limited. Itâs good enough for AAC.
iTunes simply cannot handle that. roon seems to be a future candidate for it .
An M3U playlist is a list of file paths â Iâm not sure how we could do better for TIDAL streams when generating M3U files.
You can still export the CSV list if you select all the tracks, like on other screens in Roon.
[quote="Matthias_Dauelsberg, post:5, topic:23389"]
There are so many A/V receivers or digital amps for home by e.g. Onkyo, Denon, Yamaha... which can easily be used as DLNA renderers. Equipped with a nice set of speakers the sound quality is outstanding.
[/quote]
Our issues with sound UPnP arenât about sound quality â have a read over the link I shared above.
[quote=âMatthias_Dauelsberg, post:4, topic:23389â]
Seems to generate an Excel list or a complete 1:1 title file copy of a selected playlist - including a playlist file. But it seems to be impossible just to save a playlist file for the original files within a roon playlist.
[/quote]
Thatâs true â if you put in a feature request we can look at this, but keep in mind that many users are running Roon in distributed, multi-device setups. If youâre on a laptop, but your files and Roon Core are on a Mac Mini in a closet on the other side of the house, an M3U listing file paths you canât access wonât be helpful.
The current export is designed to give you something you can drop into another player or into your phone or car and it will just work, but it could also work the way youâre asking. A feature request thread would help us gauge interest in that feature.
I agree in most of your points. DLNA, if being used, is only as good as its implementations on both sides. Thatâs why many DLNA servers offer a conversion to PCM. But, thatâs far more than nothing .
IMO, any other protocols are more bound to special H/W by isolated manufacturers, thus, even more proprietary .
As to UX of DLNA/UPnP implemented on compatible renderer H/W, I totally agree. But - I donât care about that. I use my iPad to let my NAS stream music to my A/V receiver. I donât press a single button on my recieverâs remote . With Synologyâs DSAudio for iPad itâs a pure joy.
Using HQ files for listening at home I donât need any DSP functions or fading. And many DLNA renderers offer enough sound improving functions for files with lower bit rates, if needed.
Maybe I had luck, but Iâm totally satisfied with my DLNA solution . Ease of use, compatibility, and sound quality are more than Iâve ever expected .