If you’re going to quote me, please keep the original context. I was explaining that the features you reject are indeed Roon’s unique selling proposition. I think this motivates most of Roon’s customers to purchase their product/ service. But I could be wrong.
Yes, there are plenty of bit perfect players. I’ve tried a few and music sounded great on all of them once setup correctly. However, they all fall short when it comes to presenting my music collection. Roon has done something different and exceeded my expectations, especially by bringing TIDAL into the mix.
The reason I’m posting is because I don’t think your suggestion is a good one. It waters down the Roon experience and implementing this would be a poor product decision. And, I have as much right as you do to express my opinion.
There’s nothing going on in here about how magical Roon’s metadata is and how it changes your life. In fact, it’s the other things I stated before.
And I never even said that its metadata is bad as a whole, I’m just not a fan of editorial ratings and would like the option to hide them. Disagree that it’s a bad suggestion, extra customizability is always a good thing to have. Also, your argument about it watering down the experience is very flawed. We’re talking about an OPTION here. If you don’t like being able to hide editorial ratings then you can always not use that option.
If every request turned into an option what would we have? Adding options to satisfy every whim would be the thin end of the wedge.
It’s because reviews and their ratings are a crucial part of curated content that I don’t think this is a good idea. And yes, this is just my opinion. I’m not trying to convince you of this; I’m simply introducing my views to the discussion.
They’re not anonymous, the rating is based on the album review by a named music critic from AllMusic, e.g. Stephen Thomas Erlewine. You can replace these ratings with your own.
And you can remove / add Picks as well. The only option which cannot be changed is the Review and the Best Album checkmark near the star rating… There have been calls to make these editable/remove-able since the first month after Roon’s launch.
I have no problem with allowing people to turn them off if they do not want to see them. There are many that do not even have a review. While nice to have, I do not see the Review, the Picks, or any of the editorial data as being central to Roon’s value. In fact, it can be detrimental. If the review is at odds with someone’s very favorite album, then that user can become upset and that feeds back onto Roon.
The meta-data which is central to Roon’s value, imho, is the credits which create a web of relationships between albums, performers, etc. It is this that allows me to discover gems in my collection, or connections between albums and artists which I never know existed.
I’m not sure the rating is connected to the review. But if it is you are correct, it isn’t anonymous then. But still, I don’t like ratings like this. No Arctic Monkeys album is worth five stars.
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
29
Look, I’m sure they are a fine band. The point is this is the problem with ratings like that.
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
31
Well their first two albums were very very good and their third wasn’t bad. After that I got pretty sick of their sophomoric lyrics and they really sounded like they just wanted to be rock stars.
I think your point is, and I agree with it, no one wants their Roon system to tell THEM how much to like a given artist, album, or track. I have read a few reviews of albums I really love and gotten pretty frustrated because Mr. Erlewhine doesn’t like them.
That said, at least when it comes to looking at Tidal albums, I use the stars as a proxy for which albums to sample first. Since the browser interface provides so little information, at least that is something to go by.
Ratings are based on artistic merit not whether you do or don’t like an artist. Like all critical reviews, they are simply (expert) opinions. You don’t have to agree and you can change the rating to reflect your assessment or simply ignore them. But they are useful when listening to new artists and deciding what to play first.
I still don’t understand why it’s “frustrating” to see 4/5 stars next to the likes of Abbey Road, The Slim Shady LP, The Score, The Number of the Beast etc. Whether or not you’d enjoy these albums can’t detract from the fact that they are critically acclaimed albums.
Likewise, Never Let Me Down, Leather Jackets, Dylan, and Hot Space probably deserve one or two stars. All from my “physical” collection … sometimes it’s wise to read the reviews before purchasing.
since i’m 15, i simply hate the so called “top ten”… i think that any kind of “vote” (like 1 to 5 stars) is simply meaningless and absolutely non-objective.
in music, i simply do not rely on such things.
in cinema (i’m a big fan of), i use some experts “guides”, with stars and so on: they are all different one from another. that’s because it’s… subjective. so, at the end, i have ONE main reference, that in the years has shown to be the best for me.
here for my music in roon, an ANONYMOUS stars vote is a FLAT, UNINTERESTING, UN-PERSONAL, COMMERCIAL, characterization, i’m not interested on.
i can live with it, it’s not a priority…
but i would like the possibility to disable it.
i would prefer an implementation in own ratings (i’m not an expert here). for example, in logitech media server there was an (optional) mechanism changing stars depending on the number of “plays”, besides a “per track” vote. and the possibility to filter albums/artists according to (personal) stars, if they have or not have received a vote, and so on.
Would like to have the option to disable/hide editorial ratings as well.
Or even better, be able to also write a personal review/comment (based on the comment tag) and have that as the default view (with the option to switch between them on the album page).
I was explaining that the features you reject are indeed Roon’s unique selling proposition. I think this motivates most of Roon’s customers to purchase their product/ service. But I could be wrong.
, to make sure everyone knew I was joking.
