What Features are Unique to Roon?

That’s great info. Thanks all for the input.

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Perhaps also unique to Roon: company executive participates in forum. :slight_smile:

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Something else that I think is unique to Roon (as far as I know) is great support for grouping tracks of an album as movements of a single composition (think concerto, symphony, etc. which are meant to be heard together). This applies mainly to classical music but probably to other genres too to some degree.

Once tracks are grouped, they behave as an entity in Roon Radio so they are queued together, and you can also queue them up manually or add them to a playlist in a single operation.

Anybody who has streamed classical music through Spotify can probably appreciate how great this feature is…

For me, this capability is the one feature that made me a lifetime subscriber.

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Tracks, as you go you will favourite tracks you really love.
Now go to Tracks, select the heart and then randomly swim through your favourite music.
From this, you can intervene and go on a musical journey if you wish.

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And dont forget it uses its own streaming tech called RAAT.

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This helpful community, with its support threads, and with the “What are we listening to” thread for exchanging/discovering new music.:slight_smile:

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The architecture: Core, Control, Output;

The options for hardware: buy it (great partner support)
or build it (looking at you, ROCK/NUC and Rpi/Ropieee)

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The integration of clickable metadata into Live Radio. Provided the Internet station is streaming metadata you can add a Track or Album that you are listening to on an Internet radio station into your own Library with a few clicks.

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This really is so true.

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Raat protocol, seamless tidal/qobuz library/playlist integration, roon radio, recommendations.

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Is this a new feature? I’m not seeing the same result… I would love to search for a track/artist and have both Tidal and local options available next to each other

What Danny said - many of Roon’s capabilities are found in one form or another in other players, but for me, the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.

Add to that the excellent design (client/server architecture and the Core, Control and Output components) coupled with Roon’s USP: the RAAT protocol, and it’s a product that I am very happy with.

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I must add a couple of things:

  1. Roon just works! I have a multitude of Core’s and Endpoints and i never ever hesitate to try a new combo! And that stability and compatibility i have never seen elsewhere!

  2. I know @danny mentioned it, but the combined library of streaming services favorites and local files is amazing! One place to go when wanting to listen to a favorite or search for a new reccy!

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4 posts were split to a new topic: Using Roon Radio to create a playlist

From an audiophile perspective, if you have Roon Ready gear, the ability to stream music from a server to that hardware with a customized driver for optimized sound quality.

That was my reason for a lifetime membership. It just sounded better than anything else I had ever tried.

I would amplify what @Chrislayeruk said about links.
Many people focus on direct navigation, enter an artist, then an album. Or more flexible search if you don’t have the exact name.
But that is for playing something when you know what you want, and that assumes you have your entire library, and the library of the streaming service, in your head.
I find that I often follow links: I listen to an album, look at the artist, that’s a really great sax player, let’s see what else he has done, oh he played with that piano player, what else have they done together, what can I add to my library from Qobuz or Tidal, what other saxophonists has that pianist played with — and suddenly it’s Monday morning.

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For me there is not one standout killer feature unique to Roon, rather it is the overall experience of having a single unified app that can control my PC, Chromecast Audio, the DAC connected to my main hifi, my phones etc coupled with the fact that my local music library, Qobuz and Tidal are treated as one seamless entity.

Add in the ability to use R Pi’s as bridges, hook into things like HQ player etc and there isn’t really anything else as compelling.

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I also like that roon just does music. No video, podcasts, audio books etc etc. It’s a blade not a Swiss army penknife.

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Yes, just yesterday I was listening to a live album I’ve heard so many times before. I found myself anticipating the background vocalist’s parts - she’s has so many great parts sprinkled throughout the concert. So I clicked through some links and then discovered she has a bunch of solo records. Now her stuff is part of my library. Before Roon, I would still research, but it was a pain, involving Wikipedia and other sources.

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For me Roon (plus Tidal) has been absolutely brilliant for exploring music and discovering people and their music I was ignorant about. My latest excursion began with playing an Allman Brothers track, being drawn in by a brief bio that described Duane Allmans two year window of work between recognition and his untimely death. Then listening to everything he was involved with in that time. I was able to do my reading and searching in Roon. A near ideal experience in my opinion, and an over all experience not replicated elsewhere.

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