Why I’m Still Raising a Glass to Roon

Roon Software Discussion
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Why Roon?

My annual Roon sub is coming up for renewal, and like a lot of us here, I found myself doing a bit of an audit and been thinking less about the what and more about the why.

For me, it’s about the evolution of a journey that started with a Columbia House “12 CDs for a penny” deal in 1991, and it’s been a winding road to the 2025 version of my listening room.

A music journey

I’ve tried so many ways to keep the music playing while life got busy with work and family.

It’s been a fascinating transition from an integrated receiver and a dual cassette deck in the early 90s to watching my family now listen almost exclusively on iPhones and AirPods. I’ve gone through the Sound Blaster phase in '94, the first portable MP3 players in '96, and then the long stretch of iTunes, iPods, and eventually Sonos.

The timeline for me looked something like this:

  • 1991: Nakamichi gear and Columbia House CD hauls
  • 1994: Sound Blaster era - WAV files and PC speakers
  • 2004: iPod years carrying thousand miles worth of music in my pocket
  • 2014: Convenience is king - Bluetooth, Chromecast, Spotify
  • 2015: Apple ecosystem and trying to hack together Android to AirPlay solutions
  • 2024: Modern digital transport, DAC, and amp setup
  • 2025: Roon - high-res streaming meets a curated, unified library

Why I’m sticking with it

When I broke down what I actually need versus what Roon is doing for me, it came down to a few specific things that are hard to replicate elsewhere.

  • Metadata: I don’t just want to hear a song; I want to know who played the session, what else the producer has touched, and where that artist is from. The cross-linked credits is a rabbit hole I like falling into. Smooth music discovery with machine learning powered Roon Radio, new releases, “…for you” mixes/genres/artists.
  • Muse DSP superpower: Using convolution filters for digital room correction has been the best bang-for-the-buck upgrade to my hardware setup.
  • Unified Experience: Whether it’s a sketchy bootleg MP3 from 1998 or a 192 kHz Qobuz stream, Roon treats them with the same respect with no jumping between apps.
  • Zone Management: Being able to sync and handoff music from kitchen, car, train, office, gym, and listening room speakers without losing my place is a luxury I wanted but had little success achieving until now.

I really like how Roon reduces friction. I’ve spent years jumping between apps, but having Qobuz and my old local files (everything from middle school mix tapes to high-res stuff) in one unified library that looks good and is easy to use, is huge.

It’s also just nice to have album artwork, lyrics, and credits synced up on a TV or tablet while I’m on the sofa.

The Tinkering Side

So far my time with Roon looks pretty vanilla with an out-of-the box experience. I’ve been lurking in the Tinkering section lately and it’s clear I’ve only scratched the surface. Folks there are doing somre really neat integrations and customization with software and hardware.

What I’m interested in What Roon can do
API for extensibility and 3rd party integration Roon Lab’s API is open and available for experimentation
Run Roon on more types of hardware Offical Docker support with Roon maintained images
Stable, efficient server Feedback from the community is heard and updates made available with Early Access releases

How about you?

My journey took me from Columbia House to a dedicated digital transport and Roon. But your story is likely different.

What was the specific gear or pain point that pushed you over to Roon, and what’s the one Roon feature that keeps you from going back to a basic streaming app or media server/player?

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Brilliant post as it encapsulates so many common experiences over the years……

I would add goodbye to HiFi racks, bundles of cabled interconnects, more than one power strip and the imposition of multiple silver boxes festooned with aggressive LEDs buttons and dials.

I use a self-managing Nucleus into Meridian Active speakers. I pipe high resolution music into any room and beyond. Roon catalogues and curates.

Audio isn’t limited to music. I will happily play my front doorbell into my speakers should and when that is made available.

For now just make available a Podcast aggregator.

I look forward to more developments; if a feature doesn’t appeal I just don’t use it.

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LOL - so many of us remember Columbia House. Thanks for the smile.

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I did Columbia House and BMG. One of my many finds was the time I randomly selected some CDs and one of the ones I remember was a Conway Twitty album and the second one was the first Wu-Tang album….LOL.

Good times…..

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In the continuous debate of vinyl vs digital the vinyl advocates often say they enjoy having the physical object in their hands. They can read the liner notes and discover the artists that played on the album. Roon provides that for me. Liner notes aren’t readily available, but critical reviews often with background information not provided in the liner notes is available. And something a physical copy of the album cannot provide are links to other music and artists and even recording studios and publishing houses. I used to enjoy listening to music, but my vocabulary was fairly small because I had limited access to variety. Now with Roon the access is essentially unlimited and I listen to much more and varied music than I ever could have if I just listened to vinyl that I bought.

I’m not trying to denigrate vinyl or vinyl fans. I admire the dedication. I’m just pointing out that Roon has been a boon to me.

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Interestingly, I never thought of roon being an alternative to a library of physical media. Although I agree, it is giving the best replacement for LP covers, liner notes and alike.

Made the same experience, since I use roon to browse discographies, composition lists, recording lists per composition and alike (and the metadata is sufficiently accurate), to discover new albums, compare recordings, and read about compositions and artists.

The strong points of roon are its multi-dimensional database character, as well as well integrated metadata, Wikipedia, discographies and browsing methods. In my understanding, this is what sets it apart from all other solutions, so I see the future of roon mainly among music lovers with a complex library, combination of local library and streaming service, or will to discover new albums.

Let us face it, the technical side of roon is not as unique, as it used to be 11 years ago. Native apps of streaming services have improved, server-based competitors have improved, and it is not rocket science anymore, to get a hires stream quickly to a streaming device, thanks to Tidal, Qobuz, Chromecast and Spotify. The importance of a huge local library has diminished in the eyes of many, many music lovers I know. Even those who were deeply into setting up their own server, curating libraries and endlessly improving metadata some 15 or 20 years ago.

So, thank you very much at Roon Team, for continuously improving the technical base, as well as handling of metadata and browsing experience!

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Roon is great, but I still tap other solutions for playback and the management of local libraries. That said, I’m 100% digital (interestingly, my fellow-collecting children have turned full circle to physical). I don’t see a narrative to all this: I’ve embraced lossy, abandoned it, then been seduced to managing an iPod and such again with a new energy thanks to Roon’s suggestions. Oh, and this very forum has provided guff for at least two very useful digital music applications over and above Roon.

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I haven’t thought about my Columbia House subscription(s) in many years. It’s inconceivable to me now that at that time, I could have bought a dozen LPs for a penny. :exploding_head:

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Nice story. Similiar to mine, but add another 30 years.

Though I never did anything like Columbia, and my starting equipment was a lot different. It’s been a long journey for sure.

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I went through the normal Vinyl, CD, Cassette - amp -speakers route starting around 1970., I ended up with Quad 44/405 /LP12 /and Quad ESL62 in 1986

I am not sure what Columbia House was but I used the “Long Playing Record Library” run by Ivan March, the man behind the Penguin Record Guides. With UK Post you got a set of LP’s kept them for 4 days , sent them back and repeat. This expanded my knowledge of classical music no end

and then there was Radio 3 , FM is not to be underestimated , I grabbed the Radio Times every Thursday and went through highlighting what I wanted to listen next week.

when I emigrated to South Africa in 1996 , the nasty movers couldn’t find space for my vinyl, so that went the way of the world , secretly I don’t miss the faffing around

I spent the next 15 years quitely on CD and cassettes, a Nakamichi CR7e and a 582

in around 2012 I discovered digital via JRiver and started ripping my CD’s

I had several iPods as I spent a lot f time away from home at that stage (I even had a Sony DiskMan for a while) as well as the bane of open plan offices

10 yrs ago I bought a AuidioQuest Dragonfly Red for mobility and with it came a 60 day Roon Demo . , the rest as they say is history.

For 10 yrs nearly I have been pretty close to 100% Roon. We are a media-less household, no books (except the odd cookbook) ,no DVD’s , no physical music

Minimalist taken to extreme nowadays I have no speakers etc just a base system of a NUC/ROCK (hidden away i the study) , a Naim Uniti Atom HE and 3 pairs of headphones and a nice chair.

At 75 probably my end game with the possible addition of more headphones my trusty 12 yr old HD800’s are at the menders so …

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Like Book of the Month Club I learned very early about algorithms. Join. Instantly buy one regular priced item. Quit. Count to ten - “We want you back offer arrives” - repeat.

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I think I know the style it was on the back pages of Sunday supplements , get one free, get hooked for ever (ish)

At least the LPRL was a simple lending library :innocent: If I remember rightly you lodge a sum of money and pay per LP borrowed, it was great way back in the 70’s

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We had one in Montreal - borrow 6 LP’s tape - return - repeat.

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The way Columbia House worked is they sent you their album of the month. If you didn’t want it, you had to opt out by sending back a postcard saying you didn’t want it or selecting an alternative. If some of you were like me, you frequently forgot to opt out and you got an album you may not have been interested in. In that way Columbia House introduced me to jazz. I think one of the first was Pat Metheny and I thought alright, I’ll give it a listen. Of course I was hooked after that.

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You forgot the key element (:joy:) They offered something like 10 LP’s / CDs for $1 to join.

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Children! Some of us began our music journey with The. Beatles et al in the early 6i0s. Before Columbia House I had Lane Music down the road. Then I graduated to Tower Records and J&R Music in Manhattan, followed by the cutout service. Like Columbia House in album days. They and others cut out part of the album cover and then sold them at a discount of about a dollar per album for a totally random artist and album. You never knew what surprise was coming next.

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I always loved the cut out bins. I found some great albums there that I wouldn’t have normally listened to.

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I learned something new today @David_Siebenheller

Had no idea this was a thing…

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Does anyone remember the Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders albums? (Example The Big Ball (1970): Features a diverse lineup including Fleetwood Mac, The Kinks, Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, and Neil Young)

Used to send $2 and get a sampler single of double album of new and some old stuff.

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What about the K-Tel compilations! That is how i know the hooks to so many 70s tunes…