Roon legitimately enthralls some users. Roon legitimately frustrates some users. And never the twain shall meet!
Roon is in a difficult position with users who either only have local rips, or only stream. When I first trialled it (1.2) I only had the first and I didn’t see the value (I know what I have). But once I started streaming as well, it’s really the integration of the two that is key and went for a lifetime after my second trail (1.5). If I was ONLY streaming then there are lots of other options to do so that cost little or nothing. I personally don’t use any DSP so that has no appeal to me, though the multi-room function is nice.
And to the subject of criticism, there’s nothing more frustrating or condescending than having an issue with something and others saying ‘always worked for me’ thereby negating your right to be critical and hopefully find or propose a solution. Of course just saying something ‘sucks’ isn’t helpful either, and not at all what the OP did.
3 Likes
All fine. Thanks for checking. But I still dont like some dumb fanboy comments outright condemning other user‘s valid criticism and concern.
2 Likes
Just to be a bit of a contrarian, couldn’t you be “every problem is a nail”-ing things a bit with your madmom hammer, and wouldn’t a more… razor-y answer be more prosaic (but way less cool, eh) ? Something on the lines of that because of the far wider userbase as compared to Roon, the streaming services have a pretty damn good mechanical turk to start training with, moreso Spotify ? Or that given a large enough sample base, for the new stuff, rather than machine-listening to everything, wouldn’t “just” using an artist’s initial tagging to drop tracks into a generated playlist, and seeing how users react to it get you much of the way ?
I think one of the main issues with Roon is the everything but the kitchen sink genre metadata it applies to many titles. For example Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports should be “ambient” period. Not Pop/Rock, Chamber Music, Experimental Ambient, Avant-Garde, and a half dozen other made up non-existent in the real world genres. Sticking with this approach, they should make it much easier to just unclick genres one doesn’t want from the album view screen, instead of the constant deep dive into editing. Maybe an edit button that rides to the far left or right of the blue genre tags.
2 Likes
Drive a $60,000 SUV and nobody bats an eye.
Suggest a $700 audiophile-music-streaming-organizing software product and everyone loses their minds.
17 Likes
I have slowly been deleting the Pop/Rock genre to see if that makes ‘Focus on Similar’ any more useful.
1 Like
That was spot on…
3 Likes
It would also be interesting in hearing why he’s hanging on in a forum from which he has no interest in the product…
2 Likes
Well, he gets some attention here.
3 Likes
Sure, could be. Both. But Roon still doesn’t have the user population to do those effectively, I’d think.
I guess the reason I don’t believe those are effective is Netflix. I’ve been tagging and rating stuff on Netflix for many years, and they have millions of subscribers and very smart algorithms people – and their recommendations are terrible. For me.
On the other hand, maybe track-based Spotify is lighter-weight in some way than Netflix – you invest less time in your choices, it’s easier to skip to “next track”, etc. So the two might be dissimilar enough for my analogy to be bad.
1 Like
I’m not sure I see the relevance of your analogy? Notwithstanding, your post has 12 likes (which in the scheme of things is high), so I assume I’m the duffer for not getting it.
That 60k SUV is a mere drop in the ocean compared to exotica cars or some snazzy Euro cars. Yet Roon by comparison is priced at the peak of music streaming software. Furthermore, cars just work without glitches.
Maybe if Roon were a car, it would get quickly taken off the market as a lemon. Sure it does many things well, but the driver may be left in danger with those things its either missing or not implemented properly.
2 Likes
Just saying that joe six-pack drives around in a car that costs what houses cost a generation ago, and we don’t give it a second thought. But if it’s software, oh, my goodness, heaven forbid we should have to pay for it!
Everyone wants the software to run perfectly on their computers/servers/devices, and the developer has to account for every possible scenario. Ancient macs and raspberry pi’s and NUCs and god knows what.
At least if it crashes, well, you don’t die. Just have fun.
if it doesn’t work, move on. Play your CDs and your records or find another service.
This is how I feel. It’s completely changed the way I listen to music. I still play records, but for streaming CD-quality and hi-res audio; for integrating the streaming experience with my local files; and for discovering new music, it’s wonderful.
3 Likes
Hey Chris 
,
Out here that’s certainly not the case - with median house prices at the very apex of the world market (and it’s been that way for at least 25 years). So perhaps, that’s why your analogy didn’t gel with me.
Anyway, as per my original comment, yours has garnered a large number of likes, so I’m clearly on the outer here.
Thank you for the reply and for trying to better explain your analogy to me.
Cheers. 
So what is your Fav Methods: I just found a great new artist / album this week via Roon Radio, and now I see where it may have come from, on a similar album I love, one of the Fav Hearted Tracks was the artist.
I heavily rely on the Recommend For You albums when playing an album, along with the selections Roon Radio and via Qobuz/Tidal viewing the new music by filtering the Genre and sampling hundreds of albums. I’ve found a ton of new music that I never would have found without the chance to sample them, now I’m making plans to buy my top Favs so I’ll never loose them.
I think we all understood his analogy. $60,000 is a lot of money for a vehicle for many people. If you can spend $60,000 for a vehicle, why would you be worried about spending $700 for a lifetime of music?
2 Likes
Yeah, i think this is one of the best tools in the box for me.
Otherwise, just letting Roon Radio play after an album is over, and I’ll hear something and think, hey what is that? And I’ll add it to the library.
Or I’ll listen to an album, and go into credits, and see who the players are. And then hunt down albums by them.
For hard-bop jazz, this is a deep rabbit hole for sure.
3 Likes
Thanks Jim for your input - clearly not - as I didn’t.
Median house prices here in the Capital cities are roughly 600k+. Young people can no longer afford to buy their first home; it has become dire & regularly in the news.
If you read my reply; I viewed his analogy completely differently, which I believe made perfect sense.
Notwithstanding Jim, we are all entitled to our own views & interpretations, without snide remarks from others, when we all have only been respectfully discussing this matter.
Cheers!!!
yes this, exactly this
plus, a lot of folks here and on other forums think nothing about shelling out thousands on interconnects or cable elevators or linear power supplies for their usb decrapifiers. But those are THINGS that you can SEE.
Because software is invisible, people think it’s worth less. Or nothing.
3 Likes
O cool, that is my old technique back in the vinyl only days, read the album liner notes, go to the record stores and dig up all the individual artist, but Roon sure makes that alot easier. I have not tried that directly but I just did that in reverse where Roon Radio picked a song / artist I loved, I mentioned that above, how I found that was looking at the Artists Albums, it listed one of my Fav albums in the Appearances section, my guess is Roon Radio found it there.
And regarding Hard Bop, I have been on a crusade, before I signed up for Roon, to buy old Blue Note style Jazz artists, how I worked that was I found 3 to 4 Top 100 Jazz Artists Lists via the internet, then went through the list playing each and found my own Top 100 list, of which I’m still working on, just bought Larry Young - UNITY, bottom line I find I need to use many different methods of discovery, even using Shazam out in public 
1 Like