What’s the point in the certification process if so many products still get shipped with uncertified unfinished Roon code. Surely they should forced to hold back on this and update via firmware when it’s ready to go that could even be at launch if it’s ready in time. Its not doing Roon any favours having products out there that don’t work as Roon advertises, it causes more support tickets and not so happy customers who may not be customers for very long. Apple are very strict with airplay 2 so perhaps, Roon needs to be?. After all it’s damaging their reputation.
Admin Edit
Clarification about uncertified Roon Ready network player changes:
Small maybe but many are high profile manufactures and in many cases not cheap devices or devices that have users who are perhaps as ready to mess with things in their setups - wanting plug and play experiences.
So who do you hold responsible for those, and who’s door do you bang on to get it fixed? Making Roon aware helps clearly. But you also need to make strong representation to the manufacturer via the dealer or whatever their process is.
So they are not small – but Roon Labs LLC still is. Might this be part of the problem? Testing needs time. While manufacturers like NAD and B&W might have the manpower to develop a whole series of new products at a time, is the Roon testing department able to do the same? If not, will the manufacturers hold back their products until Roon finishes testing? Unlikely, I guess – see the example of the B&W Formation series. And it seems that there doesn’t have to be any real problems in using the device at all to antagonize customers. They (we) just got fooled too often by pre-sales marketing-red herrings from big brands for their mass-market products.
I think it’s compounded by a lot of the newer users taking advertising, dealer recommendations without doing any research of their own; then being, rightly, confused and disappointed when things don’t work.
Also the early’ish adopters would look at the marketing and having tried other solutions would meet “seamless, instant, complete” with Yeah Right!
And given the price of roon compared to the competition I guess that is also setting expectations.
deliver the highest possible quality audio but sometimes there’s more possible but because of false self-advertisement of capabilities you won’t get it (Google Cast) or the manufacturer restricts input formats over network (only stereo on multi-channel receivers for example).
and even allow volume control right from the Roon user interface! should there be a volume control at all and the manufacturer made the volume control accessible through RAAT.
But no more than the available drivers allow, which depends on the OS and might not be what the device is capable of.
For the Bluesound 2i series and the KEF LS50W/LSX, the best user experience possible might be unusable. Also Devialet users might get consternated.
It’s hard for users to find out about possible restrictions even if they do research. The only way to get reliable information seems to be to research for other users experience as one will mostly not find these information on manufacturers product (selling) sites. The early-adopters seem to be the losers in this game.
To be fair though early adopters have been up the wazoo in all tech, laserdisk, betamax…
As a really early adopter of roon it’s actually been amazing how much more it now does.
But I do get your point. And given the “my dealer said” threads on here, some right dodgy advice is being handed out.
Trouble is you need to have a solid IT and hifi background to be at an advanced roon level.
That is not limited to dealers only. If one does research in user forums one will stumble up on such advice all over the place. But as other resources are no longer available (dealers die out in favour of internet shops) or untrustworthy (dealers, manufacturers), where else should the unsettled customer search for information?
I guess most of the users (here) were operating IT/Network equipment in their homes for already quite a while before they started to use Roon. So they should actually have the needed IT background. But as the situation (manufacturers and their pre-sales advertisement-red herrings) in IT is (since decades) much the same as in HiFi (now), many (wanted to) believe in the fairy tale of the magical device that resolves all problems and just works as user expect it to (instead of as they were designed to) without any further knowledge about the matter. They should have better bitten in an apple themselves. Maybe some others should have enjoyed the look out of their own windows instead.
As my teacher used to say: “Even the simplest pocket-calculator is of no use if you don’t know the rules of arithmetic.”
I dont think having Roon Ready and Roon Tested helps much either as these two constantly get misinterpreted and both have different levels of integration and control.
Where Roon Tested is usually used for USB connected devices (where it doesn’t guarantee that a device’s capability regarding max. sampling frequency is supported) but seems to also get stamped on devices that include support for a network streaming protocol other than RAAT supported by Roon (like e.g. GoogleCast, AirPlay) – and sometimes even that is not true (see the example of the Roon Tested Devialet Phantom that don’t have AirPlay support linked above).
This will make life much harder for people who try new equipment. You have just put yourself on the back of the curve with early adopters. It that where you want to be.
Good news but will no doubt upset a load of users of Nad and Arcam that are still not certified. They needed to raise the standard as it causes them more support issues.
