Understanding Roon design choices and limitations

I am two days into my Roon trial and have number of questions. Not quiet sure if this is the right place to post them. I am Mac Amarra and Audirvana used so familiar with music mgmt software. Roon is truly something special so hats off … but I do have questions and couldn’t find answers in the FAQ.

  • [ ] I miss a “Now Playing” button so I can see the cover art of what’s playing, accessible from any screen.
  • [ ] The music lyrics feature is amazing and very useful but what would take it the next level is to be able to see classical music lyrics, e.g, Bach Cantatas; Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde, opera librettos, etc
  • [ ] Is any Mac system optimization used? e.g., shut down Spotlight. This is done in Amarra and Audirvana so that all CPU cycles can be dedicated to music playback. Useful for hi-res streaming to avoid occasional dropouts.
  • [ ] Once I’ve named a DAC that can deal with DSD natively and indicted that I want DSD files to be sent to this DAC using DoP, why do I still get menus offering choices for DSD to PCM conversation?
  • [ ] When should I use the other optimization choices offered in the audio setup menu?
  • [ ] It seems that when scanning music folders Roon just ignores mch files (as they are not playable) as none of mine show up. Is that correct?
  • [ ] Roon sets output levels much higher than other music mgmt SW. I have to reduce the system output from 100 to 30 to equalize levels. Why the big difference?
  • [ ] What is the difference between choosing System Output and choosing the DAC that is connected to my Mac Mini Server?
  • [ ] What is the difference between play Genre and Radio?
  • [ ] Why can’t I see a list of tunes Up Next in the Queue - which is empty?
  • [ ] Why can’t I see cover art of the currently playing track when playing a genre?
  • [ ] I need to switch to System Output to play DSD. Why? Signal chain says that’s it converting to DSD to PCM. Why when my DAC can handle DSD64 and DSD128.In looking at the Playback Chain button accessed to the right of the Play buttons, I see that I can select my DAC (OPPO 105 - a DSD capable blu ray and media player) or System Output. In selecting the OPPO player as the DAC, the chain says it’s using Core Audio. If I select System Output the chain shows that it’s using the OS Mixer and will convert all DSD to PCM. What’s going here? Why are they different since System Output is supposed to send the audio signal to the default DAC selected in Settings-Sound on the Mac.
  • [ ] Any and all music I select to play, including hi-res music starts playing instantly. This would imply that Roon does not use a caching strategy such as that employed by Amarra and Audirvana, the two other media players I am familiar with. Why does Roon not use caching?
  • [ ] Is there any way to search and display all of my hi-res files? Right now they are intermixed with my 16/44.1 files. I dealt with this iTunes by creating playlist subfolders that contained, for example, all of my hi-res jazz music. How can I easily find all of my hi-res jazz files or all of my DSD128 classical files, etc? Audirvana deals with this by allow sorting by bit depth or sample rate - but only in list view so this difficult to deal with.
  • [ ] I really miss a display that shows me the cover art of “Now Playing”. I can see the Play Bar but not the cover art.
  • [ ] Is there a way of changing the size of the cover art so I can display more (or less) than the default?
  • [ ] I was happy that Roon was able to import my iTunes playlists but it seems that it can only display contents of the playlist in track list view. This is suboptimal as I usually want to see album (cover art) view to quickly see the contents of the playlist (e.g., all hi-res jazz) and easily click and play any work with one click. This is because many of my playlists contain whole works and not just individual tracks.
  • [ ] What is the difference between the Play Genre button and the Radio button?
  • [ ] I downloaded the Roon app for my iPad but was not able to use it as it couldn’t find my Roon app which was launched on my dedicated Mac Mini server. What now?
  • [ ] Some Roon screens scroll horizontally and some vertically. Why?
  • [ ] I use a dedicated Mac Mini as my music server. I use my HDTV has the monitor and from across the room 1080p is hard to read so I generally use 720p for better viewing. The is not possible with Roon as the play controls are then off screen. Any work arounds?
  • [ ] When playing Genres and clicking Queue I get and empty display. What I was expecting is to see is a list of the tracks that will be playing next. What’s the point of showing an empty screen?

Ctrl-S is Now Playing (or Screensaver) [Alt-S on a Mac]

  • [ ] What is the difference between choosing System Output and choosing the DAC that is connected to my Mac Mini Server?

System Output is whatever is the current default audio output stream on your Mac; best to choose your DAC.

  • [ ] I use a dedicated Mac Mini as my music server. I use my HDTV has the monitor and from across the room 1080p is hard to read so I generally use 720p for better viewing. The is not possible with Roon as the play controls are then off screen. Any work arounds?

Use the Mac’s IR remote (The same as the one you get with the (Now old) Apple TV)

Welcome to Roon Gary - that’s a lot of questions two days in… :smiley:

It reminds me a bit of my trail, lots of questions build up as its a pretty different UI experience, but you’ll find that most things you can pretty easily find answers to on the forum or will just become clearer as you go.

Too many for me to answer and Riks done some… I’ll add a couple more:

Never noticed that in my system.

Do you mean in Radio? If so, I dont think that feature is there yet. Any playlist you make should be visible.

Focus, and bookmarks will open up a whole new world for you in this area. Have a play….

Best of luck working your way through the rest of the list…. If you stick around for a while you’ll find a very knowledgaeble and friendly community, and a wealth of information already here….

Is its sound inferior?

1 Like

Hi Gary,

I shifted your post to Roon Software as a lot of the questions are more general enquiries that other users (like me) can assist with.

The above, however, is a playback issue and we will shift it into Support as a separate issue for dev attention if we can’t fix it quickly. Do you have an Exclusive Mode check box in the Output Settings for your DAC ? If so, try checking it and seeing if that solves the issue.

About the volume level: check in audio setup if the DAC Is set up for Disable volume control or Enforce max volume. This is generally recommended because the computer doesn’t do a good job of volume control, better sound if you adjust the volume later, in the DAC or preamp. That might explain why Roon plays loud, and your other software may be set up for computer volume control.

Thanks all for your helpful answers and suggestion. Below, I’ve pruned the list of questions I had so as not to waste people’s time answering questions that have been resolved.
New Questions:
How do I switch to Now Playing on iPad remote view?
I do I force the iPad view to conform to view on my Mac?
How do I go to the focus menu from any screen?

Remaining old questions

  • [ ] The music lyrics feature is amazing and very useful but what would take it the next level is to be able to see classical music lyrics, e.g, Bach Cantatas; Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde, opera librettos, etc. Any plans for this in future releases?

  • [ ] Is any Mac system optimization used? e.g., shut down Spotlight. This is done in Amarra and Audirvana so that all CPU cycles can be dedicated to music playback. Useful for hi-res streaming to avoid occasional dropouts.

  • [ ] When should I use the other optimization choices offered in the audio setup menu?

  • [ ] It seems that when scanning music folders Roon just ignores mch files (as they are not playable) as none of mine show up. Is that correct?

  • [ ] Why can’t I see a list of tunes Up Next in the Queue - which is empty? For example, if I pick a work, click Focus, narrow the focus by selecting, for example DSD64, and click queue, I would expect to see a list of all the upcoming tracks that will played (shuffled) that meet the focus criteria. But all I get is an empty queue and of the right of the screen and a view of the next work up.

  • [ ] Is there a way of changing the size of the cover art so I can display more (or less) than the default?

  • [ ] I was happy that Roon was able to import my iTunes playlists but it seems that it can only display the contents of the playlist in track list view. This is suboptimal as I usually want to see album (cover art) view to quickly see the contents of the playlist (e.g., all hi-res jazz) and easily click and play any work with one click. This is because many of my playlists contain whole works and not just individual tracks.

  • [ ] Some Roon screens scroll horizontally and some vertically. Why?

Hi Gary,

Can’t answer all of them, this is what I know:

Tap the bottom footer bar to access the Queue, square icon mid far right.

This is not supported. Remotes don’t share states.

Focus menus are available only in Menu/Collection screens

This was recently the subject of a feature request thread. No plans have been announced.

Don’t know.

Click the little info icons next to each option.

Mch files are not in the list of supported formats. Roon is currently stereo only, but multichannel support is contemplated as a possibility.

You can see songs that you add to the Queue, but not songs that Radio will play. Once you have focused on tracks you need to select all (ctrl-a or long press, menu at top left option), Play or add to Queue. The empty queue and up next mean that Radio is playing rather than any Queue the user has selected.

Settings/General/Allow for More Covers and Photos will increase the display to 6x3. Otherwise, no.

Playlists I have made in Roon have clickable Artist and Album items for each track, but not cover art. I haven’t imported any iTunes playlists so can’t say what happens there. Adding cover art to the queue or playlist sounds like an interesting option, but it would probably reduce the viewable size of the onscreen list.

Lists and Browse screens are vertical, screens and sub-screens of albums are horizontal. I don’t know why but suspect it’s an aesthetic choice in UI design; the devs think the UI looks and works better that way. An option to enable vertical scrolling throughout has been requested but no announcement has been made. I quite like the horizontal scrolling, particularly on a tablet, but am happy for others to have the option. I think there are plenty of other things with greater priority.

Hope that helps !