James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
104
I don’t agree with the hardware comparison but last night I had another Roon-affirming experience.
Just looking for something to do before bedtime that wasn’t too heavy on the brain. I wasn’t sure I was in the mood for a directed listening session, but Edwyn Collins came up in a shuffle. I remembered that I had added one album and went back to look at his artist page. Read the bio then added several of his albums rated the highest. Enjoyed a few of those added tracks then decided to use the link in his bio to his prior band Orange Juice. Listened to a few of those albums and added the ones I liked, then surfed over to another album by a different band member.
Then I added them all to a Tag called “Artist Tree: Orange Juice” (I use that designation for groups of artists from the same “family tree” so I can listen to them all together in shuffle format, like for Pink Floyd I also want some Gilmour and Waters in there). Nice to get to know a new-to-me artist and build a way to go back and hear it all again. 30 minutes well spent, and time for bed.
Could have done that with Wikipedia, buy CDs, Foobar, embedded metadata, but this was definitely much easier!
6 Likes
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
105
First, if your system is already great there are no other demands on the budget, so there is no displacement conflict (other than the college fund for the little darlings).
More importantly, if your library is large, the value of a “meta-service” is greater. If you have only twelve albums, you don’t need much help with figuring out what to play. But with a big library — consider the example in my second quoted post, with Paul Motian and his friends. Some people say they don’t need Roon for that, they already know Paul Motian, all they need is a system that can play an album that you know you want. But that means you must have the metadata database in your head, you know everything there is to know.
And of course that is even more impossible if the library is growing, and it should be growing, there is an enormous amount of great new music produced all the time, now is the greatest time for music innovation, always has been and always will be. Last month, I said that was the greatest time in music, but I lied, this month is the greatest time in music.
Everyone who is of the mindset “you have to spend money on enjoyment. Roon is enjoyment so it makes sense” is right on. I agree. That premise makes sense.
Here’s my gotcha. I have so much stuff I initially used and then didn’t use it anymore or something better came along in like minutes that I threw stuff out. I threw out two Apple TVs, then bought another one because I thought i could use it as a display. It’s in the basement somewhere in a canister.
I had a pair of rare headphones that I hadn’t listened to in over 10 years but I couldn’t let go because I felt I would miss them. I finally found this really cool dude who loves them as much as I originally did and I sold them. But I have stuff that goes unused -
My Pioneer Elite receiver and speaker system
Other headphones
My Amazon Prime Music subscription
The DAC and amplifier in the basement
My sports car // it’s winter weather here in the States on the east coast and I just didn’t take the time to have the dealer put on winter/mud/snow tires
Those Apple TVs I spoke about
That Vitamix blender
Ok I’m having fun now. But you all are right.It’s about the enjoyment. I just don’t want another thing gathering dust so I have to be sure I want this or I’ll be kicking myself
My brother gets interested in lots of hobbies on a serial basis. A requirement seems to be that they require lots of “equipment” or stuff. He goes all in and loves the hardware, the activity, learning about it, doing it, etc. Then a year or two later, he’s on to something else. This has gone on for 30+ years at least. When I kid him about this (and the unused junk in his garage), he always says something like, "But I really enjoyed it. It was fun. Then I moved on. When I’m on my death bed, I won’t be thinking, ‘I wish I hadn’t done that really fun thing that I got bored with after a year’. Instead I’ll be thinking, ‘oh man, I really enjoyed doing lots of fun stuff in my life’. Anyhow, you get the point.
YES!! your brother and I are twins! I started with home theater systems in the 90s then went to audiophile stuff (head-fi.org). Left all of that behind- gathering dust. Then I went to digital slot cars and built a track with 50+ chipped cars (Slotcarillustrated.org); then I went to comic book statues (statueforum or something); then I went to cars and stuff (YouTube and other vehicles- pun intended) and now have returned to audiophile stuff.
So I think this was a therapy session. I’m not cured but I see the work that I have to do.
But I do want to get into travel hobbies but the misses is soooo busy at work. Ok I’m regressing already.
Love that story, being a Paul Motian fan (my personal collection – CDs and digital downloads I own, not Tidal includes 26 Motian albums, from 1888 to 2012, 5 appearances with Bill Evans, and 15 other appearances with the Jazz Composers Orchestra – including that underground classic Escalator Over the Hill --, with Joe Lovano, with Paul Bley, with Enrico Pieranunzi, with Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, with Carla Bley, with Charlie Haden in Charlie’s 50th birthday concert, …) from back when, and having been so lucky to attend one of his last gigs at the Village Vanguard with Joe Lovano and Bill Frisell. That’s for me one of Roon’s big values, being able to remind myself of all those connections between artists and think about things to play that I hadn’t attended to recently.
Even some of the less used features are really fun. Currently listening to a recent Mary Halvorson/Ingrid Laubrock atonal extravaganza, just clicked on Halvorson’s link for fun, and noticed the proposal that she similar to Marc Ribot. I had never thought of it that way, but yes, it makes sense, and why not do some Marc Ribot soon?
My personal collection is not huge, around, just getting towards 1500 albums (some multidisc) but finding my way around it is way beyond my already overtaxed memory. Roon makes this so much easier, even with the occasional unidentified annoyances.
Amen. Thanks to Roon focus: since January 2018, I bought 184 albums released at or after that date, out of 279 bought in the same period. I’m overwhelmed by the amazing music I barely have time to listen to, to add to the incredible live performances I’m so lucky to get to regularly.
Last 15:
Iannis Xenakis: Pléïades, DeciBells
Emanon, Wayne Shorter
Twio, Walter Smith III
Monks Dreams, Frank Kimbrough
Learn to Live, John Escreet
Insurrection, John Zorn
Circles: Piano Concertos by Bach and Glass, Simone Dinnerstein+A Far Cry
Ingrid Laubrock: Contemporary Chaos Practices, Ingrid Laubrock/Mary Halvorson
Seed Triangular, Robbie Lee & Mary Halvorson
Alive in the East?, Binker and Moses
Stravinsky: The Firebird & Rimsky-Korsakov: Le Coq d’Or, Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philarmonic
Code Girl, Mary Halvorson
Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun, Ben Lamar Gay
Terpsichore, Jordi Savall/Le Concert des Nations
To and From the Heart, Steve Kuhn Trio
A great list, thanks.
I have several of the albums and know most of the artists, but this illustrates the dilemma we face, there is so much great stuff out there.
Thanks — I’ll now be offline for a while…
Generally the ability to tag albums and tracks uniquely is for me one of the biggest USP’s of Roon and really one of the key reasons I remain on board.
It’s something Ive harped on about before, but the sheer volume of music we can access is really daunting and it’s essential to be able to compartmentalise it in to rational groups for future access or it just slips ephemerally away.
I’d really like to see this expanded on urgently as a concept.
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
120
Exactly. Back in the day, this was done by (1) making mix tapes, and (2) putting your records in the order that makes sense to you. I tend to rely on a version of #1 in Roon which is to tag content by mood and then have the big mix tape.
But that is pretty one-dimensional compared to what I was able to do with Foobar and what JRiver can do. I’d love to see Roon at least get up to that standard. This is about truly fleshing out the Tag functionality.
I genuinely think it’s why people say there’s no good music made today or since (insert year XXXX). Many people just don’t know where to begin with the huge catalogue available so they just dwell on nostalgia trips and claim it’s just not worth bothering with new stuff.
3 Likes
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
122
True enough.
What I have also realized is that, no matter how much I was into collecting music in high school, college, and beyond, there is still an amazing amount of music, even in my same chosen genres, that I was not aware of. Be it budgetary, the fact that the web didn’t exist, regional separation, or losing my prejudices against some bands or some eras of bands, there is just a huge amount of music even from those earlier eras that I wasn’t aware of that is there still to be explored.
It all depends on how deep you want to do. From my POV it’s virtually endless, from any era (1950s and forward), any genre. There is so much. Roon-Tidal is really a great way to dig back. It’s just a challenge to the “capture” it in a way that doesn’t lose the work to find it.
Well, my friends, after the therapy session I have decided to taking the leap with Roon. Still undecided on $120 or lifetime or $120 for a few months and then lifetime. Likely, option #3 sounds the best - just in case I something unplanned happens and thereby I stop listening to music at home-- which is possible with extended business travel and the like.
So, the crowd who may say "Roon is the best thing that happened to me since Jesus, my spouse, and the kids… and sliced bread+…"
have won me over!
+ - Or whomever you'd put in that classification.
Of course, I’m joking-- it’s the excitement and empowerment that Roon enables that made the decision.
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