I’ve used Roon for just short of a year and so my renewal will be coming up shortly. I decided upon Roon as, at the time, it seemed to be the only way that I could I could use Qobuz with DSP on a Raspberry Pi connected endpoint.
I’ve made a decision to reduce, and eventually remove, Qobuz. This will leave me with a local library, supplemented by a family Spotify account for “trial” listening of new material. I feel passionately that I should support artists by purchasing music that I like. It’s probably a fairly old fashioned view, but there you have it.
With my listening set up, I could run by headphone rig directlty from my Windows PC. As I’ll no longer need Qobuz, this opens up other options re:software. Added to this is the fact that Moode Audio (which I used to use) now features Camilla DSP - so full PEQ via a Raspberry Pi4 has become a possibility.
During my week of annual leave I have combined family time with “audio experimental time”! I’ve tried various options, including re-looking at Moode. I’m conscious that I don’t need Roon anymore, not in the way that I did 12 months ago.
But here’s the thing. Nothing that I’ve tried even comes close to the experience of using Roon. Yes, I’m fortunate, Roon works faultlessly for me - so that helps. Despite not using a number of the features of Roon I’ve reached the conclusion that I will be renewing. Is it value for money? At the start of the week I was questioning this, particularly in light of my changing pattern of usage. But now, as the week draws to a close, I can confidently say that (for me) it most definitely is. Here’s to another 12 months.