Why I've quit Roon after a few years use

Roon Software Discussion
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Hi all,

I’ve finally let my membership lapse after a few years of use. Onto pastures new so to speak.

I thought I’d share why, as surprisingly in this day and age of customer feedback and refinement, I was not approached by Roon to find out why I was leaving the fold so to speak, and I spent so many hours here getting to know and enjoy the forum, that it seemed a little odd to leave without comment.

On the surface, it seems clear the reason; In these difficult times I’ve had to make a few choices as regards finances and Roon got the chop along with other subscriptions, saving me perhaps 1000 chf a year overall, which all adds up.

However it’s not as simple as just that…

If I hadn’t found a suitable alternative to Roon as regards stable multi-room application, and a robust and fast software platform to deal with my 200k or so Flacs and DSFs and offer good sound to boot, with exclusive output to a range of DAC solutions I have, then I would have probably kept with Roon.

If I’d seen Roon actively accept and work on the crappy little details within the software for which so many people, me included, have been clamouring for refinement for so long, then I would have probably kept with Roon.

In the end, with a combination of Bubble UPNP (a few CHF for the android app), Mediamonkey and Musicbee, I’ve got a solution which ticks most of my Roon requirement boxes for nothing, relatively speaking.

In some respects my new solution surpasses Roon (notably allowing far more flexibility in display tailoring, and better. direct to DAC, sound quality with Android devices) and in some respects it falls short of course.

Overall, my overwhelming feeling is that I’m actually pretty happy with my new setup and not missing Roon, which surprises me somewhat and maybe should make Roonlabs think a little.

Having said that, I guess, as a non-user of streaming, I’m becoming a bit of dinosaur and not really interesting to the Roonlabs guys as a client anymore.

I just wish a few little things had been addressed when I was a user, Roon could be so much better.

Cheers guys!

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Hi - what control points and endpoints do you use?

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Hi Jez,

I have a number of Chromecast devices, and use some fiio music players also as endpoints (M11 and X7II), and a 10inch samsung tablet as a regular controller. I use optical outputs from Chromecast Audio pucks into a Riva speaker and also into a Chord DAC, then into some Adam active speakers. The physical setup has not changed since giving up Roon.

For the remote applications in kitchen and living room, and round the house I use Bubble UPNP and UAPP sometimes along with Mediamonkey as music source. I use either The current “core” is my laptop with 12tb of music or so on external drives, also I use the chord with the laptop fed by usb from Musicbee, which has a nicer and smoother interface than Mediamonkey for local playback.

The ability to get bit perfect output from my Fiio players using Bubble+UAPP is really revelatory.

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You have got me wondering , yet again

I still maintain JRiver as I have a Samsung Soundbar & Multiroom system that needs DLNA and I also need a video server , but dual maintenance is not a good solution.

I am niggle by a lot of the fundamentals being missed in favour of more “sexy” features, eg Mobile Access is still a big want but with Data Costs in South Africa it would never get used. JRiver provides it already anyway

I have been vocal about classical in general and Box Sets in particular but there has been no progress other than a list of tracks regardless of Disc No , but even that limits to 200 tracks neither do I see any appetite from Roon to rectify this they seem to just hide behind (ie blame) their metadata providers

I do stream but not that much , I have JRemote for JRiver and I have looked at MConnect which gives access to Tidal & Qobuz and using DLNA will resurrect my CXN which is mostly redundant. The new CA Stream Magic app is quite good giving access to Internet Radio, Tidal & Qobuz and utilising the customised views of JRiver.

Given my 69.8 year old ears its unlikely RAAT however superior technically will sound any better than DLNA anyway.

I renew in December , the way the Rand is bombing at the moment I will have to give serious thought again . Not many months ago it was R15 = 1$ , its currently R19 = 1$ and sinking fast. Money is not the be all and end all but I am paying for something that’s not improving along paths I want so …

“May we live in interesting times”

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Hi Mike,

Sounds like you’re in the same boat with your own personal set of niggling issues within Roon. It’s a personal choice at the end of the day, but perhaps the business model of this luxury bit of software will need to be revised to maintain customer base, in the current climate. With various curtailing of various subscriptions (Roon, Dropbox, unused kids accounts, Tidal) I’m saving some 1200CHF per year (around 1200USD). Not an insignificant amount.

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I’ve just started to prefer using my amps built in streamer Software which is Audionet RCP on the laptop and iMM on the iPad Pro 12.9”.

The amp, Audionet DNA 2.0 is DLNA. I have dbpoweramp Asset 6.6 UPNP player installed on the same QNAP NAS as my rooncore. It works beautifully and the interface and artwork size if very user friendly with many user defined setting which roon misses out on.

I use roon via USB and Audionet RCP via Ethernet. Booth sound identical. My amp has KARMA room correction and bass management built in so I never once touched the EQ setting in roon.

This is now my preferred interface:

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image1206×678 166 KB

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I plan to drop Tidal in June. Now that Qobuz has all of my albums and is less expensive Tidal no longer makes sense for me. Saving money when you can is a good thing. Don’t pay for something that doesn’t meet your needs.

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Great Post Sallah your correct, its time to check the value propositions.

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Shame to see you go. You’ve contributed a lot to the forum over the years. Good luck with your new software.

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Give us a shout when you come back mate! :wink:
Seriously I hope Roon do approach you and ask what the specifics of your dissatisfaction are. It would make sense to see if there are any patterns observed in their churn figures.

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Good luck @Sallah_48

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Makes me a bit sad - I think David and I started using Roon around the same time and were trying to figure out how to do similar things and had very similar challenges with it. Looks like David found what he wants outside of Roon and I came to do things different ways in Roon - albeit I still think Tags and Bookmarks need more work.

Be well Sallah_48! There will always be a place for you in the forum.

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Hi David, as I’m relatively new we haven’t met. However, I would say that I find it similarly unusual. I’d have thought, Roon as a matter of course, would illicit user information from those who chose to let their subscription go. That seems a very poor form (none) of gathering information from users upon leaving. Such information could prove an invaluable resource to improve this platform.

Glad you are happy with your current solution. I would like to add, that other solutions are continually growing & improving; and most at a fraction of the cost.

I can already hear everybody saying to me but that’s not RAAT it’s DLNA. Of course, suffice to say, whilst we are largely living in the Roon bubble here, many are unaware of the alternatives. And, yes I’ve heard that many landed here after trying other options.

I’m certainly not discounting experiences had by other users & we all have different needs - that’s for sure. However, I don’t think it’s counter-productive to be aware of alternatives, their improvements & the cost involved.

Good luck David. :smile:

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I don’t think Roon needs to ask why someone is leaving or left. All they have to do is read the feature request and/or complaints they get.

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I’m new to Roon, so I wouldn’t say I’m in love with it.

I have yet to read the real technical issues for bailing out of Roon. Money matters, fine. To each his own.

I’m aware of a few “limitations” such as uPnP and Spotify.

I paid money for Audirvana, and just recently upgraded to the cross-platform version. Audirvana is fine, technically and financially (one-time payment). The “core” Audirvana is ‘ok’ and is not faultless. The “controller” is ‘ok’ BUT the protocol used to communicate between the two is ABSOLUTE CRAP.

Musicbee, MediaMonkey, Bubble, never going back to these jurassic software, but it’s true that one man’s garbage is gold for the others.

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Thanks guys! I will be keeping an eye on the forum in case Roon does up its game viz UEx. I would like to reinvest at some stage in the system.

Take care of yourselves and keep safe!

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You are right, I don’t think Roon needs to either, but it was by way of explanation as to why I’m posting here as to my reasons for leaving.

My comment was more relating to the fact that I was surprised that Roon didn’t drop me a mail or questionnaire which seems to be the defacto standard nowadays for software companies to contact leavers to gain feedback.

In any case, Mike from Roon has PM’d me kindly and I have iterated more detail about my reasons for leaving, so all good there :slight_smile:

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Hi James,

thanks.

I hope the Roon team will work out solutions to the tag logic soon :wink: - I think if there was an AND function for the tags it would be a good reason to return!

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My point is not specific to your situation. I am making the point that people who leave have probably already submitted feature request and/or complaints. I doubt anything you tell the people at Roon as to why you are leaving, you haven’t already expressed in one form or another.

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Roon is not perfect. It is less perfect for some than others. For me, it’s probably as perfect as it could get, but I don’t use a lot of features others use and I don’t need a lot of features others need. Customers should always evaluate any product they are using and paying for and “pull the plug” when the utility and value is no longer there or there is a more suitable product available somewhere else.

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