I see from time to time people post about the quality of the search. I have found it to be really lacking as of late. Quite simply it is not very predictive. Shouldn’t it be able to show me hits even with misspellings? Here is an example, search for Sargent Peppers. I didn’t know it was spelled Sgt. I would have thought it would have returned or auto populated the Beatles album. This is an example of what I have noticed lately. I use search to find songs as I go on my evening musical journeys, and I find if my spelling is not exact it returns esoteric results.
It is much more forgiving these days with typos than it was in the past, when it was very strict. Things like this work now for instance:
I guess replacing a whole misspelled word with a somewhat unrelated abbreviation (the word isn’t spelled Sargent even if you don’t know they used the abbreviation) may still be beyond what it can do.
However, fuzzy searching in principle is very flexible regarding the word distance that you want to have included in results. If you cast the net too wide, you’ll include all kinds of unrelated stuff, and I, personally, don‘t like this at all because it makes me wade through stuff I don’t care about.
E.g., should the Pesky Serpent by Art Pepper be in the results for Sargent Peppers? Maybe, maybe not. On the other hand, I’d argue that searching for Sergeant Pepper should probably find the Beatles album but it doesn’t, although the search would be able to refer to some good hints:
But preferences differ between people and it may be difficult to find a balance that suits everyone. If you don’t just want to discuss about it, you should post in Feedback for Roon Labs to see it. And provide more examples.
I’ve got to agree with the OP here, you really have to know what you’re looking for in order to have any chance of finding it. However, I think Roon is secretly aware of the shortcomings and are quietly working in the background to fix them. Therefore, exact examples are very useful 
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I have to agree that roon search is still frustrating and has a long way to go but this example is more tricky than it looks. Qobuz gets it wrong as well.
The spelling “Sargent” is an English surname. So if I search on that I get Malcolm Sargent, the conductor and various other artists which is what I am looking for. The military rank is spelt “Sergeant” which is the meaning of “Sergeant Pepper’s”. If I do a search on that then roon (and Qobuz) are not quite off the hook as they return covers by the London Symphony Orchestra and various other tribute and Karaoke bands. At first I thought it was a clumsy way for covers bands to avoid royalties but other Beatles tracks are not usually spelt alternatively so it just seems to be some kind of exception that has become embedded in the metadata roon is drawing on.
If you have the album in your library why use SEARCH, have you tried the Filter Tool
Go to Albums on the side menu, in the top right is a white text box next to “By Artist”
Enter “pepp” and voila the album
You don’t need the full name which BTW is Sgt, Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band so Sergeant or Sargant would both fail
Search is a blunt tool ,
The Filter is very quick it works for Artists as well , just pick a part of the title/name that is “vaguely unique” eg David Bowie , use Bowie as there will lots of Davids
Search should just work. Using the filter, and searching different parts of a name are workarounds that we learn to do through trial and error after regular searches fail, and users shouldn’t have to go through that process. The title of this thread, “Roon search lacking” sums it up.
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But why search the whole catalogue of Tidal and / or Qobuz and / or Local Library and all the processing that entails when you can filter the local library in split seconds on a 3-4 character string
I am not defending any shortfall in the search performance yes it should JUST work . I am just suggesting a much slicker way to get to the desired content. This is Roon not Google 
I don’t regard Filter as a workaround rather as a more efficient tool for the job at hand. I use Search when I know that what I want isn’t in the local library ad will have to come from Tidal.
My usage is probably 98% Filter 2% Search , why put yourself through the pain . Just to prove a point ?
I mostly use Artists>Filter> Individual artist>Discography >Select> Play Easy Peasy
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Our needs are very opposite. 95% of my searches (and listening) is content outside of my local library, on Qobuz.
Not sure what you mean with „local library“ in this case, but filter works for streaming albums as long as they are in the Roon library.
My reference was to Mike’s comment that filtering on his local library runs very quickly. But let’s move on — this thread is about issues with the search function itself.
And I’m just saying that the local library in this context - filtering - includes Qobuz. It has nothing to do with where the files are stored.
In places like Discography, the filter even works for albums that are not in the library. Search and filter are simply different tools with different purposes.
Yes I tend to be mostly local with a small top up from Tidal
It could be searching Qobuz that is the rate limiting step
Here is something that sometimes catches me by surprise. I will search for something specific, but Roon assumes that I actually wanted to search for something else.
For example, I searched for pianist Alexander Kobrin (2005 Van Cliburn Competition winner) and I typed “kobrin”.
Roon did find him, but listed him as the 3rd result. Why wasn’t he at the top, being an exact match for what I had typed? It’s clear from all the "Robin"s in the list that Roon thought I actually wanted to search for “Robin” instead. I had entered a search, Roon found two exact matches, then ranked mismatches higher! When I opened “See all results”, I had to laugh. The Top result searching for “kobrin” is Robin Ticciati. How could that be?
I looked at Robin Ticciati’s discography and I recognized one recording that I have played, but he is not at all in my Roon library.
Another example – I searched for Aretha Franklin by typing “aretha”. Bizarrely, Roon’s Top result was Martha Argerich.
Say what? This made me laugh as well because it was so absurd. I do happen to be a fan of Martha Argerich and have a number of her albums in my library. I suspect that it somehow influenced the search results, but it makes no sense at all.
I have a colleague who would call this smart-ass software. There is “smart” software, and then there is “smart-ass” software that thinks it is smarter than you. I know that some of you will say that in the end, Roon did find what I was searching for in these two examples, just that the presentation wasn’t ideal. Well, it does matter for the user experience and for the perception of quality about the product. Imagine customers getting such bizarre search results from any streaming service, or at websites like Amazon, eBay, or Google Maps.
None of this will have much effect here in Roon Software Discussion. Post in Feedback if you feel strongly that Roon should be able to read your mind
Results seem to vary by library. When I search on “Kobran”, I get Alexander Kobran as the top result and no Robins. The other results seem reasonable as well:
A search on Aretha Franklin also gives the expected result:
I have no idea why our experiences would be so different but it does seem to be user library related in some way.
If you use Aretha Franklin you get Aretha Franklin
If you use just Aretha you get Martha Argerich
If you use Franklin you get a range of artists with Franklin surname (most not in my local library) and no sign of Martha Argerich
Looks like an (inaccurate) attempt at on line typo fixing Aretha being a mistype for Martha
I have both in the local library
I don’t
As I kept saying years ago when fuzzy search was being demanded, it will necessarily mean that Roon has to guess what you wanted to find. And it will try to use various criteria on global and personal libraries, histories, etc., and sometimes it will find better hits and sometimes worse. (Personally, I‘d simply prefer to type correctly and getting the results I typed, not guesses).
How it should infer with 100% certainty that „Sargent Peppers“ must surely mean „Sgt Pepper“ is still beyond me.
And if I give Google insufficient context it can also only do its best. If I type „kobrin“ into Google, this is what I get:
This is a much better example of what I experience often with the search. My misspelling of Sargent Pepper might be another example for questioning where is the fuzzy logic. Shouldn’t the search respond with something like” did you mean Sgt Pepper” instead of returning some really esoteric hit? As of late misspellings don’t return anything close to what it could be such as Google does. (I do understand Roon is not Google) I feel like the search was working better in the past. I will add, I am a Roon fan, I became a lifetime user shortly after Meridian Sooloos became Roon. It is the most incredible piece of software for people really into music and high end audio. And I am grateful for it as a companion to my musical explorations.
Do you have any Martha Argerich in your library, I do and quite a lot but very little Aretha Franklin 2 tracks to be precise
So maybe it’s looking at my library or my listening history to “best guess” what I am looking for
I too would prefer accuracy over best guesses
No. So if you do, it doesn’t seem crazy to me that she’s included in your search results but not in mine.