We’ve been listening to feedback about Roon Radio’s repetitive selections for a long time, and we really appreciate everyone taking the time to let us know about your experiences.
We have a number of changes and improvements planned, and the first one is now live — this round cuts down on repetition within a radio session, and we believe it does so in a way that doesn’t impact the overall quality of the selections.
Before we proceed with additional changes we are looking for feedback! Does Radio feel less repetitive? Are the picks better, worse, or about the same? In some cases, less repetition can mean the selections wander a bit, so if something feels off we want to know.
When you report back, make sure to tell us:
What was good, and what was not so good – which selections worked (or didn’t), and whether your Radio session felt less repetitive than in the past
What you seeded radio from — the exact album, artist, track, or genre, or what was in your queue if radio started on its own
Confirm that “Limit Roon Radio to Library” is switched off before giving feedback (it’s in the Radio settings on the Queue screen) — that’s a different selection path we haven’t touched, so it won’t tell us anything here.
Seeded Radio from The Guess Who – Live at the Paramount with Limit Roon Radio to Library turned off.
My first impression is very positive. The session felt noticeably less repetitive than previous versions of Roon Radio. Instead of cycling through the usual classic rock hits, it consistently selected deeper album tracks from artists I know well but don’t always explore.
Some of the highlights included deep cuts from Steppenwolf, Bachman-Turner Overdrive (Down Down from Freeways), James Gang, Foghat, Edgar Winter Group, Traffic, and a Zombies track (I Remember When I Loved Her) that I didn’t know but really enjoyed. One of the nicest parts of the session was hearing songs from familiar artists that I wasn’t thoroughly familiar with.
The recommendations stayed connected to the original Guess Who live album without feeling repetitive or wandering too far stylistically. A few familiar songs, like Three Dog Night’s live version of One and The Hollies’ Bus Stop, fit naturally into the flow.
The only selection I skipped was Jefferson Starship’s Crazy Feelin’. I’d already heard one Jefferson Starship track earlier in the session, so that felt like a bit too much of the same artist in one session.
Overall, this was one of the most enjoyable Roon Radio sessions I’ve had in quite a while. It actually made me want to revisit albums I’d largely overlooked—particularly later James Gang material—which is exactly what I hope a recommendation engine will do.
As a bonus, after updating to Build 1671 I experienced no playback dropouts during this session. I’ll continue listening over the next couple of weeks, but my first impression is that both Radio and overall performance have improved.
One additional observation after several more hours of listening: I actually found this more enjoyable than shuffling my entire library. Shuffle is still great, but this Radio session maintained a musical thread while introducing me to deep cuts and songs from familiar artists that I hadn’t really explored. That’s exactly what I hope a recommendation engine will do.
Had to laugh when I started testing this and selected roon radio with Vince Guaraldi as seed - still, despite the work on avoiding Holiday Music at the wrong time the first track selected was “Christmas Time is Here” - I’ll keep listening to radio and hopefully this will be isolated!
Dear Roon Team,
I don’t need the radio feature and would like to hide it completely from the queue to free up more space for my songs.
I would appreciate it if you could add such a feature; I remember an older version of Roon where this was possible…
Thanks and best regards, Michael
a few weeks ago I ran a comparison of various DSP’s PL algorithms, using Miles Davis’ So What as a seed. I included Roon Radio, and the results are here:
I reran the comparison today, with considerably different results. First, here’s “Old” Roon Radio:
Miles Davis
So What
Dave Brubeck
Take 5
Cannonball Adderley
Autumn Leaves
Herbie Hancock/Norah Jones
Court and Spark
Oscar Peterson Trio
You Look Good To Me
Joni Mitchell/ Wayne Shorter
Don’t Worry 'Bout Me
John Coltrane
Blue Train
Getz/Gilberto
Girl From Ipanema
Bill Evans Trio
My Foolish Heart
Chet Baker
Alone Together
Ella Fitzgerald
I’ve Got a Crush On You
Kenny Burrell
Chitlins Con Carne
Diana Krall
Temptation
Chick Corea Trilogy
How Deep Is the Ocean
Oscar Peterson Trio
Sweet Georgia Brown
Here’s “New” Roon Radio
Miles Davis
So What
Miles Davis
Bitches Brew
Herbie Hancock
Palm Grease
Oscar Peterson Trio
Summertime
Dave Brubeck Quartet
Three to Get Ready
Bill Evans Trio
What is This Thing Called Love?
Stand Getz/ Joao Gilberto
So Danco Samba
John Coltrane
What’s New
Chet Baker
That Old Devil Called Love
Christian McBride
Consider Me Gone
Norah Jones
Nightingale
Keith Jarrett Quartet
My Song
Nancy Wilson
I’m Afraid the Masquerade is Over
Gonzalo Rubalcaba
Promenade
Wayne Shorter
Wild Flower
I’m not sure this is an improvement. Setting aside the repeating artist question, stylistically, it’s all over the map. Bitches Brew is “miles” removed from So What.
I did a similar comparison using a mildly obscure Steely Dan track, The Caves of Altamira, from The Royal Scam album. Old Roon:
Steely Dan
The Caves of Altamira
Steely Dan
Time Out of Mind
Dan Fogelberg
Heart Hotels
Phoebe Snow
Electra
Doobie Brothers
Long Train Running
James Taylor
Fire and Rain
Christopher Cross
I really Don’t Know Anymore
Paul Simon
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
Fleetwood Mac
Dreams
Toto
Africa
Donald Fagen
Ruby Baby
Santana
Black Magic Woman
Boz Scaggs
We’re All Alone
Van Morrison
Moondance
Steely Dan
Do It Again
Michael McDonald
That’s Why
John Klemmer
My Love Has Butterfly Wings
Doobie Brothers
Listen To the Music
James Taylor
Something In the Way She Moves
Joni Mitchell
Help Me
Paul Simon
Kodachrome
New Roon:
Steely Dan
The Caves of Altamira
Stevie Wonder
Love’s in Need of Love Today
Steely Dan
Dirty Work
Dire Straits
Water of Love
Carly Simon
Just Not True
Doobie Brothers
Another Park, Another Sunday
Toto
Slipped Away
Paul Simon
Take Me To the Mardi Gras
John Klemmer
Hey Jude
Fleetwood Mac
Silver Springs
Carol King
Jazzman
Donal Fagen
Ruby Baby
Van Morrison
Irish Heartbeat
Christopher Cross
I Really Don’t Know Anymore
Steely Dan
Black Friday
Dire Straits
Love Over Gold
Stevie Wonder
HIgher Ground
Doobie Brothers
Steamer Lane Breakdown
James Taylor
That Lonesome Road
Paul Simon
Armistice Day
Toto
99
once again, old Roon seems more stylistically cohesive. You’d have to slide the similarity slider way to the left to get John Klemmer’s Hey Jude (which is nothing like “Touch”, for instance) from the initial seed.
I tried it out today by just playing an album where I roughly remember that it ended up giving me the same songs again and again. There seems to be a difference, but it is so small that I am not sure if I am just imagining things. It seems to me that the Radio function doesn’t repeat specific songs anymore, but it still sticks to the same small choice of artists.
Edit: It seems that it works better after I restarted the RoonCore server. The range of artists and songs is a bit larger now, but there is still a focus on specific songs from specific artists.
I had 3 very different experiences with Roon Radio since the Update:
For the first try I was Using a Song from Saori Minami as Starting Point. There were a few Songs I had to Skip (Mostly from Male Singers) because I didn’t like them, one or two Song repeats and from a few Albums multiple different Songs were played. but overall it was better than before.
For the second try I chose a Song from an Artist which is not on Qobuz. (Also not on Tidal, but I’m not subscribing, so doesn’t matter.) Roon radio Completely refused to Play any Qobuz Content in that round, local files only.
For the third try I Chose “Little Things like that” by Suzy Wallis as the Starting point. Roon radio played “Tell him” from the same Album and then “Little Things like that” again. After that, it turned itself off! That shouldn’t happen.
yesterday I queued up two Dan Fogelberg albums in sequence. Souvenirs, followed by Nether Lands. When Nether Lands finished, Roon Radio’s first choice was “Part of the Plan,” which is the first song on Souvenirs.
I’ve had the worst experience in this short session.
After 1 track which was ok (“Is This Where It Ends”), the album version of “By Your Side” (last track of the EP) was played again. The tracks are identical (since it’s Unidos is a split EP).
After that, Roon Radio played “Si Te Portas Bonito (Edit)” which like you can imagine is exactly the same as the EP version.
So 2/3 were repeat songs according to human ears.
I can understand the technicality that these might be different from a machine’s perspective, but honestly that’s my biggest gripe with Roon Radio since it was released.
I believe Roon Radio completely misses the mark because humans don’t listen to metadata. A shared producer (or any other sub credit) is not enough to warrant joining up two tracks into a playlist. Playlists (and Radio for that matter) are an emotional concept, not an analytical one. Humans listen to vibes. Songs should be added to radio based on their musical qualities not their descriptors. BPMs and genres (as a proxy for similarity) are infinitely more important than matching artists and track credits.
This is especially the case when listening to my local country’s music, specifically the indie scene. It’s clear that Roon doesn’t have enough metadata to create meaningful connections between obscure artists and the radio sessions are either exact copies of each other (regardless of seed) or littered with kid songs because that’s just what happens in my home when listen to music together as a family.
Having said all that, the Roon Radio algorithm should at least have a rule based exception not to play the same song title in the same session. That’s just bad form.
I hope this feedback helps, I love Roon and would love for this feature to take off. At the moment Roon Radio is too bad for me to use.
EinTo.Shuffle
(// Evolving "MixTape" on Shuffle with Roon //)
13
In my set-up it seems like Roon Radio still repeats itself on tracks/artists in one session and also across sessions.
Sessions 1 and 2: comparing Old and New version of Roon
Seed is from an own created album for use with Roon Radio:
Proposals
What about adding a feature that leans the session more toward Discovery / Deep Cuts / “Last Played = Never Played”?
.. and add options like
Prioritize old vs. new releases
Filter by genres
Prefer personal library over streaming catalog
Create and refine custom radio stations for different moods or occasions with more defined seed and thumb up/down for this station isolated… get rid of todays thumps which is not according to industry standards …
You can turn off roon radio by going to the end of the queue in any zone and using the toggle “Automatically pick roon music based on your queue” to off. This needs to be done per zone. There is also a setting to “Enable roon radio notifications” in settings → setup, you should turn that off.
I don’t thing radio in any significant way limits you.
Roon Radio repetition — before/after feedback (with data from my own server logs)
Short version: yes, noticeably less repetitive — roughly 5× fewer repeated tracks within a session, and I didn’t notice a drop in how well the picks fit.
I’m in a slightly unusual position to answer this: I run a bridge in front of some of my endpoints and I still have RoonServer logs from before the change (May, on my old Core) and after it (this week, on the new Core). So rather than go on impressions alone, I compared what Radio actually did across the two.
Settings check: “Limit Roon Radio to Library” was OFF in both periods — Radio was pulling from Tidal/Qobuz as well as my library throughout. So this should be the selection path you’re after.
What I seeded from: mostly jazz / vocal-jazz / folk — Vince Guaraldi (the Charlie Brown soundtrack), Cat Stevens’ Tea for the Tillerman, Chet Baker & Strings, and similar. In several cases Radio took over on its own after an album finished.
What was good
Much less circling back to the same tracks. In the old behavior a small handful of songs kept reappearing within a session — one in particular came back again and again. That’s largely gone.
Sessions wander across many more artists without feeling random — one ~100-track session spanned ~78 artists and stayed on-genre.
Picks felt about as appropriate as before — less repetition didn’t obviously cost relevance.
What was not so good / worth watching
The occasional pick is more of a stretch, but nothing off-genre. No “it’s wandered off” moments in my sessions.
The numbers (for what they’re worth)
Before (old)
After (new)
Sample
6 sessions · 521 tracks · ~16 h (20–25 May)
11 sessions · 606 tracks · ~43 h (14–16 Jul)
Repeated tracks/hour within a session
~11
~2
Share of tracks unique
~67%
~86%
Worst single-track fixation
220×
39×
Three different measurements all landed on ~5× less repetition.
Honest caveat: before/after samples are on different Roon versions and include a lot of unattended playback, so treat exact figures as indicative. But the direction is clear and matches what I hear: less repetitive, picks about the same quality.
