We are incredibly excited to announce that Roon 1.2 is finally live.
With months of work and over 600 changes big and small, this is our biggest release yet, with new platform support, new apps, new features, and lots of refinements based on the feedback we hear from you guys every day.
What’s Changed
Roon’s audio architecture has been rebuilt from the ground up, with playback on Windows, OSX, Android, and now Linux all using the same RAAT technology we use to stream to Roon Ready devices.
Roon Bridge is now available for OSX, Windows, and Linux, letting you turn all sorts of devices into full-fledged Roon zones. This means you can now use Roon for bit-perfect, remote-controllable playback in every room of your house.
You can also group any RAAT-based zones together. Group your USB device with your Roon Ready DAC, or your Raspberry Pi with your Android phone. The possibilities are endless.
All of this is possible from the desktop and tablet version of Roon, but we’re also proud to announce, at long last, the release of our new phone app! Roon Remote has been released for compatible iOS and Android devices, and will be available for free download shortly.
Roon 1.2 also lets you play your favorite Internet Radio stations around the house. NPR in the office? BBC in the kitchen, dining room, and basement? It’s all possible in Roon 1.2.
Finally, today marks the release of Roon for Linux. We have tested on several recent linux distributions and look forward to hearing all the ways you’re using Roon for Linux to build your own purpose-built Roon Core and output devices.
Other improvements include more stable zones, support for DSP volume, ganged volume controls, WASAPI volume control for ASIO zones, improved gapless playback, more configuration options for buffer sizes, and support for exaSound’s ASIO drivers on Mac OS X.
Roon also now supports WAV 64 files and 32 bit content. Roon’s custom graphics engine has been tweaked for better performance, and remotes on all platforms should load data faster. Library management has also been improved with better performance when using NAS drives, better editing of multi-disc sets, and easier integration of iTunes libraries. Phew!
Year One In The Books
With Roon 1.2 live, we’re looking back on a very busy year – since we launched on May 12th, we’ve improved our TIDAL integration and search features, implemented an initial round of editing functionality, added support for iPads, iPhones, Android devices and Linux, released an initial round of RoonReady devices with lots more on the way, added support for DSD, Squeezebox, HQPlayer, ASIO, and bit-perfect cross-platform multi-room audio with full remote control and linking using RAAT.
We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished over the last year, and grateful for everyone who’s joined us on the journey so far. As we look to the future, we really want to thank everyone who believed in Roon during our inaugural year.
It’s hard to believe it hasn’t even been a year since we launched, but we’re not slowing down or resting on our laurels. We have so much planned for Year Two, and we’re motivated every day by the comments and feedback we hear from you all. Enjoy Roon 1.2, and remember, we’re just getting started.
Thanks all!
The Team at Roon Labs
Major New Functionality:
- Roon Remote for Phone (Android and iOS, pending app store approvals)
- All “Roon” audio handling is now based on RAAT
- Roon Bridge builds available for Mac, PC, Windows, Linux/x64, Linux/armv7hf (CuBox and Raspberry Pi)
- Zone Grouping is now possible between all RAAT-based zones, including RoonReady hardware, and audio outputs connected to Roon Core, Roon Remote or Roon Bridge
- Internet Radio (Beta)
- Roon Server for Linux (x64)
New Audio Functionality:
- All Connected outputs use RAAT for audio playback
- Improved Zone Grouping interface, with group naming
- 64bit Dithered DSP Volume Control
- Ganged Volume Controls
- Redesigned Volume slider
- Redesigned Audio Settings UI for connected outputs
- Expanded buffer size settings
- ASIO outputs can use WASAPI/CoreAudio volume controls
- Improved handling of S/PDIF, AES, and I2S “locking” behavior
- Ctrl-T (or long press on pause) reliably releases audio hardware
- Recognition of MQA files (w Focus support) + display of “original sample rate” on album details
- WAV64 Support
- Better gapless playback with certain files
- Volume leveling for DSD converts to PCM
- Added support for 32 bit WAV/AIFF files and DXD files
Ongoing documentation of Roon’s audio functionality is here
Performance improvements:
- Improvements to album clumping algorithm
- Library management performance improvements
- Improved support for newer AirPlay devices
- AirPlay transport controls now behave more like iTunes when used not during playback
- Improvements to RAAT improve reliability of high-res streaming, especially on less than ideal networks
- Maintain connection between Core and NAS if either device wakes up from sleep
- Improved responsiveness when loading screens, particularly for users with larger collections.
- Improved artwork loading algorithm
- Improved artwork caching on Android and iOS platforms
#Other New Functionality:
- Undo Play
- Track Grouping Editor has been fully redesigned
- Better handling of Style and Genre tags in DSF files
- Better handling of multiple track level Artist tags in FLACs
- iTunes library in arbitrary location
- Improved indication of the power on/off state of a Meridian endpoint
- New manufacturer and product links
- Roon Ready: IQaudIO signal path branding and line art
- Roon Ready: exaSound signal path branding and line art
- Roon Ready: Musica Pristina signal path branding and line art
- Roon Ready: Sonore microRendu signal path branding and line art
- Squeezebox signal path branding and line art
- LH Labs USB signal path branding and line art
- dCS signal path branding and line art
- Improved handling of NAS drives
- Warning message for DACs/Drivers that don’t support required formats
- Warning messages for DACs/Drivers that aren’t communicating with Roon properly during configuration
- Easy Installers for Linux
- New and improved generic images for items with no artwork
Issues closed:
- Signal path reflects TIDAL content
- Windows builds check for Media Foundation CODECs at startup instead of crashing later
- Fixed high-resolution playback issues with Windows machines and Roon Ready devices
- Losing connection with NAS no longer triggers re-import in some circumstances
- Composer Page no longer forgets state
- The list of zones is now alphabetized
- Fixed clipping file paths on “Track Info” popups.
- Smoother volume slider
- CIFS backends automatically scan for changes every 4 hours
- Fixed high-resolution playback issues with Windows machines and Roon Ready devices
- Fixed incorrect “Radio starts in” copy when radio is already active.
- “Radio starts in X:XX” no longer shows when Queue is in loop mode
- Fixed issue playing artists that have genres, but no albums
- The bookmark button is no longer incorrectly insensitive on the queue screen
- User added composer images are used correctly
- Fixed crashes when exporting play history
- Display Zoom now works on iOS
- iPad Pro supports portrait display
- TIDAL Collections feature no longer selects “Essentials” by default
- Fixed a bug that caused Roon Ready devices to misbehave on machines that have Roon’s Squeezebox support + LMS turned on at the same time.
- Fixed some import-related bugs for AIFF files
- Up to 150 albums can be merged together now.
- Fixed issues where Radio was inappropriately including holiday content
- Genre dropdown selector fixed on touch
- “Wrong Album” takes account of long track names
- Merge Albums writing files to previous album resolved
- Export: Deformed non-square album covers fixed
- Genre mappings does not display last entry in Roon list
- Discover gets out of sync after server restart
- Network timeouts don’t cause TIDAL library to disappear
- "File identity” fixes for TIDAL content that was deleted and reimported
- Albums favorited on tidal prior to being added to Roon now appear in library
- Roon sees airplay devices when installed on a PC with two active networks
- Play Genre respects the user’s Genre display choices
- Squeezebox touch: tracks with no cover art now display metadata properly.
- Select All/None works with bookmarks now
- album/artist details: select all can select content other than the first list
- Tags can no longer have spaces at the end
- Standardized tooltip formatting
- Composers from TIDAL no longer contain ‘Add Tag’ button
- TIDAL playlist contents no longer displayed in incorrect order
- Roon no longer adds tidal albums to ‘clean up’ section when account is disabled
- Fixed display flickering during import
- Fixed issue where multi-disc set symbol isn’t displayed after albums are re-clumped
- “Clean Up” can now clean up content in disabled folders as well as removed ones
- Fixed some reliability issues surrounding duplicates functionality
- The queue now supports “Select All”
- When volume leveling is enabled, DSD content is converted to PCM so the volume adustment can be performed.
- Added signal path support for I2S, AES, and S/PDIF outputs on Roon Ready devices.
- Fixed issues with “Wrong Album” search
- Fixed issues with remembering position in the navigation stack after the back button has been used.
- Fixed display issues with the signal path popup on the screensaver
- Windows installer no longer says “Welcome To The Roon Setup”
- Upgraded sample-rate conversion code used for very low sample rates (i.e. low bit-rate internet radio streams at < 44.1kHz), and also for cross-family re-sampling for AirPlay devices.
- When duplicates are present, work is no longer queued twice
- Improved rendering of non-roman characters on mobile platforms
- Improved storage behavior when files are opened exclusively on windows platforms
- kHz is now spelled out in more cases instead of abbreviating
- “Bookmark” audio file links from other apps are ignored
- Improved “last selected zone” logic that attempts to follow endpoints as they are linked/unlinked
- Zone info popup shows device name
- Display “Studied With” information on artist page when available
- Albums lingering after storage device was disconnected
- Help link for adding paths
- Works display composer in Search Results
- Lyrics popup scrolls to the top when changing to next track
- Improved error message position when album isn’t available
- Better feedback when deleting tracks/albums
- Volume slider no longer shown when fixed volume is used
Notes
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If you’re having trouble with the update, first check Settings > About to confirm that all your devices are running the latest version of Roon (1.2 Build 23)
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If your main controller is an iOS or Android device, note that 1.2 updates have been submitted to their respective app stores, but are currently awaiting approval.
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1.2 features significant changes to audio configuration and settings, so you will want to want to make sure you have Roon installed on a Windows or OSX machine for configuration while we all wait for mobile updates to go live
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Because Roon’s audio architecture is now based on RAAT, you may see firewall popups after upgrading, and you should ensure Roon is given full access. If you run Roon Server on a headless machine, you may want to log in and confirm your firewall settings.