What am I not getting about Roon?

Roon Software Discussion
21

To expand on what @James_I and @Shawn_Costello wrote, I’ll quote what I have written on these questions before.

In 2011, I read that Paul Motian had died. Motian was a bad-ass, he broke new ground. I looked at my albums with him. But of course, being a drummer, most of Motian’s albums are not published under his name, even though being a celebrated drummer and bandleader and composer, some where. But in Roon (yes, in 2011 I had Sooloos, Roon’s precursor), when I looked at Motian, I could see all the seminal albums that he played on in the 50s and 60s, like Bill Evans’s Waltz for Debby . But I also had Live at Birdland with Lee Konitz, an album that was released a few months before Motian’s death – ooh, this one also has Brad Mehldau, didn’t use to be fond of him but this is great stuff, let’s see what else Mehldau has done. And Motian had played with the Italians like Enrico Pieranunzi, and with Scandinavians like Bobo Stenson, and on and on. Most interestingly, he had very recently played with young musicians I love, like Anat Fort and Samuel Blaser. But looking at the library, I noticed very few recordings with Keith Jarrett, which is odd because I have lots of Jarrett. Click, looking at Keith Jarrett – of course, now I remember that they played a bit together in the early days but didn’t get along, and Jarrett mostly played with Jack DeJohnette, in fact I recently heard them play in Seattle. Click on DeJohnette – the same profile, he played on seminal albums in the old days but also recently with Esperanza Spalding and Rudresh Mahantappa (and Sting). And look what Mahantappa did…

Of course, this exploration took the entire weekend, listening to all kinds of great music. And with Roon today, it would involve discovering and playing stuff I didn’t have on Tidal.

The point is, very few of these albums would be discoverable on a conventional system because they would be listed under Bill Evans or Keith Jarrett or Enrico Rava or…

And this is active discovery based on what I have and what I know and am interested in. It isn’t some service suggesting things that are “trending”.

The Motian story was about a jazz classic, but I did a similar exploration of Hélène Grimaud after reading in the New Yorker about the cadenza kerfuffle that lead to the break with longstanding collaborator Claudio Abbado. And the April, 2017 album of Bach Trios with Yo-yo Ma and Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer – Thile is a MacArthur award recipient who has played folk and bluegrass music, also did an album with Brad Mehldau and took over NPR’s Prairie Home Companion after Garrison Keillor (yes, even this info is in Roon!).

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22

As others have already said, you will find the iPhone remote interface limited in its functionality. I am pretty sure the Roon team have stated elsewhere that they will eventually tackle this issue but whether it will ever have the full functionality of an iPad or PC I don’t know.

I am lucky enough to have a 12.9” iPad Pro. For me this is the best option for controlling Roon. I run a headless server for many of the same reasons as you do, the iPad Pro screen gives you full functionality and the new now playing screens offer you a really beautiful and simple way of interacting with Roon.

There are some really helpful responses for a new user in this thread, as always they come from the usual suspects and as per usual, plenty of really useless one line responses that will not help endear a new user to Roon. :exploding_head:

If you can get a tablet or laptop to use as a remote and you have enough time left on your trial, stick with it. It takes a while for you to adjust and work things out, especially if you are coming from other software. You almost need to forget what you have already learned.

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23

@andybob Perhaps this could be moved to a more appropriate thread than Apple iPad and iPhone…maybe Roon Software?

24

As another example, since I got Qobuz integrated with Roon, a combination of following links like this and seeing what Radio brings up got me to discover a lot more about Ralph Alessi, Lars Danielsson, Leszek Mozdzer, Zohar Fresco, Mats Eilersten, John Turville, Dave Liebman, … Listening again to Danielsson’s Tarantella, which is now in my steady rotation. IMO, Roon is best for directed exploration, not for generic popularity-based recommendations. In my day job I’ve been involved in some of the most widely used recommender systems around, and speaking professionally I’ll say that I’m very impressed with what Roon has accomplished in seeded recommendations with such limited resources and (relatively) small audience.

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25

Yeah, its a bit frustrating when you scratch away at the surface and see the potential in the Roon product.

Still, the guys are working hard on it all the time, and the implementation is solid, and still offers more than anything else i’ve seen as regards a complete package, integrating curation possibilities, multi-zone aspects, and excellent hardware support.

It’s a long slow journey and in some ways, several years in now, just begun!

For my part, I agree with you on the presentation of art and text side of things; a lot more to do here. I’m also lobbying strongly for the ability to add our own textual information to the bios and reviews so we can add personal notes or reviews we’ve found ourselves, anecdotes, etc. This would transform the whole experience for me.

Each iteration gets better and better with more and more features which may not please everyone all the time, but it’s a good progression :slight_smile:

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26

Thanks to everyone who last night took the time to explain things much better, and not just answer with snarky one sentence answers, and assumptions about my experience in hifi.

An update: Once I loaded all my ripped music from my PC to the Mac Mini and let Roon read and catalog it, the experience has really transformed. I can see myself really liking this and it being my new hub for music listening and exploration.

Still, I think there are simple fixes that should be addressed:

  1. User preference of which version of an album plays from streaming services without adding to library. I.E. I prefer the sound and tech of Qobuz, and so if I search for an album in the search bar (that is not in my library), when I click on the album, I would prefer it to view (by default), the highest res Qobuz version that exists, rather than Tidal 16/44.1, which has been consistently the case. The consistency in this behavior alludes to active decisions being made by the software to sort the albums. Please open up this sorting functionality to user choice. In this way, I can comfortably “add to library” without drilling down into the versions to see if I am missing a better version. This would save a lot of time and frustration dinking around on the tiny screen.
  2. Add dynamic range info to the iPhone app and make information about the mastering, like when it was done, who was involved it’s own section outside of credits. This is really helpful, as I assume most users of Roon are audiophiles, and frankly, poorly mastered music sounds really bad on great revealing equipment.
  3. I am happy to hear there is likely to be more work on the AI side for the Discovery tab. The use of AI in the Radio section works REALLY well, up there with Pandora, who I feel are the industry leaders in predictive radio. The art needs work too, but I assume that will be something that is tackled down the line.

Again, thanks for all the hints and tips, I have leveraged several and the experience has improved. Assuming this continues to get along well for me, I will get an ipad this winter to make the software even more enjoyable.

Best,
Kevin

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27

I’m lucky enough to use a Roon Nucleus with an internal SSD, with both Qobuz and Tidal subscriptions. My ‘endpoint’ is a Roon-ready Lumin, and my remote is a twelve-inch iPad Pro.
It works absolutely flawlessly, and in the last few weeks of getting this kit assembled together, it has literally transformed my enjoyment from music.
Yes, one could argue that it’s a pretty hefty outlay, but it’s worth it IMO.

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28

Yours is the setup I am aspiring too. A Roon Nucleus with a Lumin U1 Mini. I just couldn’t justify the outlay given I just spent a significant amount upgrading DAC, Pre and Power Amp. Maybe someday.

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It has taken me a little while to ‘get here’, with all sorts of changes over the last couple of years, which also includes a couple of ‘dead ends’ along the way. I would just advise to take your time, and just get the right kit you can afford at the time.
By far the best investment I made a couple of years ago was the Lumin D1. Ironically, I ‘chanced’ upon the Lumin whilst looking at the Linn DS. At the time, the Lumin appealed over the Linn primarily because it could play DSD. The Linn couldn’t. Since then, Lumin have provided MQA, and Roon support via RAAT. I loved my D1 so much I upgraded to an A1.
Another great thing about the Lumin is the control app. Apart from Roon, it is probably the best control app I have used, and before using Roon it worked perfectly. And then when I used a Roon trial membership for a couple of months with the A1, I thought ‘This is IT!’.
So I would just say to ‘Chill and enjoy the music’. There’s always tomorrow to make some changes :grinning:

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30

Absolutely! I have bought into the Schiit eco system, which rejects concepts like DSD and MQA. It is nice to get a taste of MQA through the first unfold in Roon/Tidal though, so I will take it. I can say for sure, I have never heard this much of the music. The soundstage is immense and deep, almost like I can walk around inside it. Super happy with what I have now, and not feeling upgradeitis at this point beyond small tweaks like cable upgrades, room treatment, power tweaks and resonance/vibration isolation.

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31

Awesome! :grinning:
I think sometimes (or a lot of the time!) we spend too much time looking for the ‘next’ thing, rather than concentrating on the music?
The great thing about Roon is that it is focused on the music and not necessarily the technological ‘stuff’ it takes to get it into your room. I love that Roon ‘makes’ my other endpoints in the house ‘work’ in exactly the same way, with exactly the same interface, and I’m not having to use different control apps for different devices.
I hope you get on with Roon. It’s worth the effort, IMO.

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32

yes its been a great experience getting roon to work with a myriad of different room setups, kitchen, living room, office. Heck, ive even got 2 options in my kitchen, a lifestyle speaker and a pair of decent studio monitors; all being Rood fed.

Also the fun is in how I can restart and reconfigure Roon (ive done this so many times now, lol); like for now Im trying something new to excite some new discoveries…

I’ve configured a 2ndary Roon setup on my desktop PC and not allocated any HDD’s to it, but am starting with a pretty random 1 album on Qobuz and using Roon radio to add albums organically to make a Qobuz collection. Much of this Ill have already on my HDD’s but deep in the collection and not really exploited, so it will be a journey of discovery.

Roon makes it all fun again.

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33

This thread is a really interesting and informative read. I assume the developers really benefit from this sort of case study showing how a new user interfaces with Roon and where the pinch points are. I’m glad it generated a lot of valuable discussion.

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34

My 2 penneth…

The best trial of Roon is the “expensive” one year one

Buy a year and I dare you to give up :nerd_face:

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35

Didn’t take me that long (a year). I purchased the lifetime within the first month. You do need to immerse yourself in how to use the program. Some features you may never use, but the Roon program is well thought out and continually developing.

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36

Not sure what last longer the 4 yr break even or me !!

Getting old isn’t for cissies

I’ll probably go life next time out

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37

Just be careful…you can spend a lot on tweaks that do very little, then look back and realize you could have afforded to upgrade your speakers if you hadn’t chased that dragon. Room treatments and speaker placement, I very much believe in. The rest, well, YMMV IMHO LOL.

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38

Your most important piece of hifi equipment isn’t the DAC or the cables. It’s the petrol generator… :frowning:

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You can say that again , we had 2 power outages yesterday, 1 today each 4.5 hrs and worse to come

I think a generator would stuff the S/N ratio a bit

Africa is not for cissies :joy:

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40

And the sound-proofed out-house we all need to build to house the generator. That was a killer.