In my ongoing love-hate relationship with Roon, I’m trying to figure out a way to hide the intrusive, opinionated reviews that pop up whenever I open an album.
For example, Roon gives me this as the first thing I see when I open up a Peter Gabriel album: “Almost every one of Peter Gabriel’s best-laid plans winds up going awry.”
If I went to somebody’s review page, or wanted to browse reviews on Amazon or the like, this would be fine. But as an integral part of my personal music program? You have to be kidding me.
Is there a way to listen to my albums without being subjected to other people’s extremely opinionated statements about them? I realize Roon has to justify their high price by pulling all kinds of information from the net and throwing it in my face, but surely there has to be a way to turn this off. Objective information is one thing; some random person’s opinions about my music is NOT something I should have to see when I just want to throw an album on.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I am not sure if you are just trolling but if you don’t like Roon or think it is overpriced then just find another program that better suits your needs and budget.
That is not a reasoned answer, and it could be argued that you are the one trolling.
@Zachary_Braverman1, I have to admit I am not drawn to the revues. I read them when I am interested in some aspect of an artist, particularly those new to me. And I do occasionally disagree with them when they pass judgement in a way I don’t like but they go mostly unnoticed by myself and I see them as an enhancement much as Roon probably intended. What I do is go to the ‘what’s playing view’ which only gives me the cover, what track is playing and what is up next when using my console. When using my tablet I switch between Roon and emails plus surfing so even less of an issue.
If you don’t like the reviews just ignore them. They’re not written by some random people, many have been written by people with encyclopedic knowledge of artists in the genres they review. In recent years there have been a number of terse and harsh reviews of albums I like that I’ve not agreed with. Still, it doesn’t detract from my listening nor my Roon experience.
We all like a good review, it validates our experience but a bad review can feel like a personal attack.
Personally I would like the ability to add my own reviews. I listen to a lot of less well known artists and very worthy people do review this material. The ability to include this or even write my own would be good.
I write a blog review for our concerts at www.littlerabbitbarn.com and would like to include these with the relevant artists as a reminder of the gig. I understand it would only be relevant to me and others who attended but this feature would make Roon even more personal and relevant.
At least for me, I can’t not read a review. Maybe I’m just a weak-willed simpleton, but if I see a wall of text, I’ll read it.
Amazon could make it so that top reviewer opinions about each book was displayed in our Kindle devices. Do they do this? No, because they know that “Hey, you own this piece of media. We’re going to push people’s opinions about it in your face every time you want to access it” is a bad user experience.
Being able to read a contradictory opinion to your own without getting triggered should be seen as a sign of emotional maturity. Always take the IDGAF option
That’s odd, because every one of the 12 Gabriel albums that I have in my collection has its own, different, review. Many of them written by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, who seems not to pull his punches. I usually just listen to the music.
It’s not a big deal to me, and I don’t have any plans to write my own reviews (unless somebody wants to pay me), but the ability to hide/show reviews as a Settings item seems like a reasonable suggestion to me. I’ve seen folks complain about the presence of the reviews, and I’ve seen others complain about having to scroll “too much,” so Roon could make two groups of people happy/happier by adding this feature.
Myself, I’ve identified a very few critics from whose reviews I derive some benefit (go Thom Jurek); the rest I mostly skim and try not to get upset about.
