Lets face it Roon is a specialist product , it costs double annually what most players cost for life so its bound to attract only devotees who are happy to pay that price . It will probably always be that way so as a mainstream player .
As an example people like Cambridge Audio wont go out of their way to develop for that interface its simply not worth their while . Not may people will buy CA product just to get at Roon . Some of the more exotic DACs etc maybe but they are big bucks.
As such Roon must develop for as mass a market as they can get , do they accept they will never be BIG ,I donât know. See the thread âWhy My Friends dont Use Roonâ it says it all. Phone streaming suits the mass market.
Well in a couple of weeks time - on January 2nd - we can toast the 1 year anniversary of the UI/UX folks making a contribution on the forumâŚ
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
65
But does it really? I mean, Plex already does it, and most of the masses would already just stream Spotify or their chosen streaming provider directly. For Roon mobile to have any relevance above a streaming service, it requires users to have a local file collection they want to stream in preference over what a streaming provider can do directly.
So I agree that Roon streaming/mobile will be meaningful to a significant subset of existing Roon users, but I think Roon streaming/mobile will only help Roon pick off users of other local collection management software, and will not significantly increase its competitiveness with streaming providers.
The potential value to other streaming-only users would only be in the interface (if they donât have local files they want to access on a mobile basis) and Roon has quite a ways to go to outplay Spotifyâs interface.
I donât have much in the way of classical, but the ability to name individual discs would be a benefit for anyone who rips discs of any sort. +1 from me for this feature request.
The thing is, @Mike_O_Neill and @James_I, as Iâm sure you are aware, there is a considerable audiophile market for mobile streaming. Iâm personally constantly on the fringe trying to maximise my mobile sound quality (within budget constraints). What with Android DAPs (i have a Fiio X7ii DAP, myself which is considered a good âbudgetâ level at 600 quid) and phones-with-dacs (LG V30, 35, 40, G7, etc), thereâs a whole new market there which is burgeoning, and really fitting to the ethos of Roon. Iâd really love to see a Roon implementation with these devices which directly accesses the onboard DACs and brings a whole new hi-end market to Roon. Along the way the software implementation they bring to the table should work also on stock phones, which would do no harm for increasing sales of Roon for those on the fence needing a global solution around the house and for mobile use.
It doesnât have to be that Roon starts catering for the masses, but in seeking to encompass the hi-end of the streaming world, by default they may just be able to to cater for the masses too.
Iâve asked for file browsing a number of times but to no avail. If I could browse my classical folders, I could very quickly find what I want. SighâŚ
1 Like
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
69
Hi Sallah - I definitely understand, and I donât begrudge any Roon user their desire to take it mobile, although I do most of my listening at home.
My point was that enabling mobile listening isnât likely to gain Roon substantial new users from the younger generations. Roon mobile will be good for current Roon users, and it may pull away some users from JRiver, Foobar, MediaMonkey, Plex, what have you. If you have a local collection you want to marry to a mobile solution, Roon mobile would do that.
But regarding streaming users without a local collection, which is the vast majority of music listeners under 40-50, then Roon isnât going to interest them. They already have their mobile solution because they donât have a home collection they need Roon to stream to them.
So my point was that going mobile makes Roon a more complete product, but it isnât going to gain a mass audience.
The ultimate point Iâd intended to make was that Roonâs desire to deliver collection organization on a silver platter, without a lot of manual control, may be misdirected. Those of us with large local collections want that manual control. There are music users that want their music delivered on a silver platter, pre-organized, but Spotify already does that for those folks because they donât have local collections. Thus, it would be just really dandy if Roon would get back to making their UI/UX more robust and complete the job of making the current features fully functional and working as well as possible, rather than chasing a group of users that will never come to Roon.
Anecdotal, sample size one, but I had JRiver for years and never used the mobile features.
I just kept a master playlist of a couple thousand songs and exported it to my phone sd card every now and then.
Doing the same thing now with roon but itâs more complicated.
Folks who want more than that are likely using Spotify or Apple and donât even have their own music libraries.
1 Like
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
71
Yes exactly my point that Roon mobile wonât offer those folks anything over Apple or Spotify, so it wonât win their business.
Maybe J River and Roon can merge their business and their visions - all the beauty and integration of Roon and the configurability and maturity of J River. J Roon.
Thatâs a good one. I do not know about the business but at this moment none of them has any vision, not even close! Apparently looks like the roon priorities are how to became some kind of a (second) front store for streaming services and jRiver is in the last century (UI wise at least). I have never gave up on physical media, but after two or so years in the computer audio i just bought me a third CD player, just to be on the safe side!
@anon82498359 You know, I think thereâs some truth in both your observations, however harsh. Unfortunately people seem to be shifting more to streaming services these days. I will continue to buy my music, and hope Roon continues to serve those customers too.
But seriously, JRiverâs âmaturityâ is part of their problem. I bet their code base is a hacked up ratâs nest and they probably donât even remember how some of it works.
Itâs still pretty great software, but their ui is long overdue for a rewrite. It would likely be a near impossible task, and not economically feasible at this point.
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
77
Yeah their UI feels very non-modern. The aesthetic and navigation for apps have changed a lot since their top-down, folder-style feel.
What I really like about J River is the ability to configure multiple libraries (movies vs. TV shows vs. music vs. music videos) and then to configure the navigation on their IOS app differently for each kind. So itâs quite easy to create a good navigation experience from the couch.
I also like that you can modify how you drill down from categories to media itself - i.e. artist-album-track or whatever you want. It would be so great if we could define that within Roon and still have the reasonably pretty Roon front end, plus all its capabilities.
But yeah, JRiver is probably pretty hard to maintain and update for the developers at this point.
Iâm not sure how easy the Roon interface is to change. They developed Broo for their UI and it appears that while initially it made building and adapting the UI easy and was somewhat cross platform (although no Linux client and mobile has been hit and miss) it might be holding them back ( each iPad model seems to be handled differently and needs coding).
It has been almost a year now since the UX folks posted anything on this forum. Posts about the âUX redesignâ seemed to have been edited and Iâm not holding my breath for any big UI / UX changes.
Add to that Tidals new âMy Mixesâ and discoverability seems to have gotten better around Roon. Iâm not sure what their priorities are for the product - maybe their sweet spot is local music libraries in which case editibility and curatorship is pretty key.
When I run stuff through JRiver I realize how easy it is to work with.
It begs the question who really uses their UI, I do for maintenance and tagging etc
After that I use an iOS app, JRemote, Cambridge Audio Connect etc which puts a much more modern face on it. Non compare with Roon but at least YOU can decide how it looks
The jury is still deliberating, and then thereâs DLNAâŚsilence
Iâm currently uploading all my music to an unlimited Dropbox account. Now using Cloudplayer and UAPP on various android devices around the house and beyond, along with Chromecast pucks, Iâm finding Iâm not using Roon as much as Iâd like to.
