I would agree that I don’t mind recommendations from my own library. Spotify does this and does it very well. I get recommendations from my own library and sometimes it’s music that I’d forgotten about. How does the focus on similar work? Is it merely tag based? If so, that’s not deep enough.
Take a look @ Spotify’s recommendation structure:
Implicit feedback - stream counts and if the track is saved in my library. It then compares users with overlapping preferences and makes recommendations.
Natural Language Processing - My understanding of this is that Spotify creates mathematical representations of the music and find songs that are similar. Outlier detection prevents your recommendations from getting wildly off track.
Raw Audio - Comparing tempo, time signature & other song characteristics to find recommendations.
All this for a measly $10/month. I don’t know of another streaming service doing this. While the Spotify apps leave a lot to be desired, their recommendation services are fantastic.
Many times I’ll get recommendations for music already in my library and I’ll revive some music I’d forgotten about.
I really don’t care if the recommendation comes from within my library as long as the recommendation is based on my actual listening habits and not only based on metadata. But ultimately we need recommendations not limited to our own libraries.
I agree, I don’t see the need myself too (yet). But the music industry will think differently, I guess. New formats and varieties of formats, repackaging and reselling, that’s more or less their business model and thus my logic.
Agreed! AM is a joke compared to Spotify. Access to others’ playlists is worth it alone. There have been rumors about lossless streaming via Spotify. That would be a game changer
Honestly that would be an improvement. My first “that’s strange” moment with Roon (where I learned more about the philosophy) was searching for songs on TIDAL and being unable to find them. Roon’s advanced music exploration is amazing – related artists! composers! engineers! producers! session players! So I’m puzzled why it gets the basics so wrong. My example: search for “Nina Simone” and you won’t find “Feeling Good” or vice versa. As a music lover, I find that a bit depressing.
There is a plot twist though! Because of the “composed by” and composition search, I found wonderful renditions that I never knew existed. Even better is that I can find more songs written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse… and anyone either of them collaborated with… and so on. It’s a delightfully endless habit hole
What would it be like without TIDAL integration? I honestly have no idea since I haven’t used Roon without TIDAL. Does Roon tell non-TIDAL users that there are 84 renditions of “Feeling Good” out there? I’m guessing not…
Here’s one thing I don’t understand: how does Roon have the information for CDs? The original purpose of this thread is to show how valuable Roon is even if you don’t use TIDAL. So, does Roon show you who played bass on your CD albums? If so, how does it get that information? Assuming it’s not embedded directly in the file metadata (pretty sure it’s not), then might the same source of information be applicable to other streaming services?
Agreed, Spotify is a lot better with recommendations in my experience.
So… while reading this thread, I had a bit of an epiphany about Roon and cloud services.
Roon is great at telling me how music connects to other music. Cloud services are great at telling me how music connects to society.
In other words, Roon can tell me that “Feeling Good” is a song composed by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, with 84 versions on TIDAL. It can tell me that John Coltrane recorded a version of it, and that Donald Corrado played French Horn on that album, and that Corrado has played horn on a dozen other jazz records. That’s certainly not something that TIDAL can do (although I suspect that some form of discovery aided by allmusic information could make something like that possible).
What Roon can’t do, today, that cloud music services can, is know that if I tell you “Hey check out the song Feeling Good” then I probably mean the recording by Nina Simone, or maybe Michael Bublé.
Which, for anyone coming to Roon from a streaming service, causes a WTF moment. Of course searching a catalog of music is going to show us what’s most popular! That’s how every service works! Why wouldn’t Roon do the same? Well… because it began life in a completely different way. It knows all about how music relates to other music, it just never knew anything about how people relate to music. That has potential to change with TIDAL integration. It just depends how far Roon wants to take it.
This does make me wonder if the discovery functionality that I personally love about Roon can be got by integrating with the Rovi API (which I suspect is the data source that Roon uses). I think an interface that integrated Rovi data with other cloud music providers would be amazing. I also suspect it’s easier said than done
Now you’ve got it this is what Roon does with Tidal and what it can’t do with other services through thier standard API. Roon needs more than that and that is what seems to be the stumbling block with many other streaming services.
Also personally I prefer the active discovery that Roon provides rather than the social discovery you describe as I want to go deeper rather then just get all the most popular or most played etc.
I wanted to add my experience using the Roon software. I come from a music retailing background and so I have 300K+ tracks that I’ve ripped from CDs into Itunes. I’m also adding tracks from downloads from Bandcamp (a fabulous resource) and on that subject do you mind me recommending an album on a page I set up for a friend. https://steveconnollytheusualsuspects.bandcamp.com/releases
Back to my original reason for writing. I’ve used Itunes on various Macs to play my music collection, I have a couple of Audioengine Dacs connected to 2 reasonable Hifi systems plus an apple Ipod hifi in the bathroom and a Bang & Olufsen BeoPlay A2 in the kitchen (sometimes all playing at the same time) I’ve never been happy with Itunes, I find it extremely old fashioned and clunky. Every time I search for a track the beach ball spins interminably and this is on a 2017 Macbook Pro. It doesn’t matter how good a Mac it is, Itunes is always slow and clunky. Over the years I experimented with various alternatives including J.River, Vox, Tomahawk and Audirvana. I’ve since plunked down for a lifetime Roon license and since I’ve been traveling for the past 4 months with just a Fugoo speaker to hear my music collection. I’ve come to realise that there’s no comparison between Roon and Itunes which I now only use to import new tracks. A search for an album or song in Roon is superfast, intelligent and the presentation of data is perfect for a music nerd like me. Someone who always wants to know what’s playing, how many other releases there are by that artists and other details. When I used Itunes I always referred to Allmusic as I listened. The other difference is audio quality. Even though most of the tracks are only in MP3 320KBPS playing through a bluetooth speaker Itunes sounds dull and flat compared to Roon. I’m hoping my lifetime subscription will last me until I die and look forward to many more improvements and upgrades. I wanted to add that I started with streaming music years ago with Spotify, after I started using Roon over a year ago, I tried a Tidal subscription but as I didn’t notice much of a difference in sound quality and I preferred aspects of Spotify’s usability, friend activity and price, I switched back to Spotify. It would be nice to use Spotify from within Roon though, but I use Roon for my own collection and also internet radio as previously I had to listen to ads using tunein. One improvement would be the ability to access archived internet radio shows through Roon. As It’s not usually convenient for me to listen to a internet program at the time it’s being broadcasted. At this point I’d like to recommend radio station from my hometown, Melbourne in Australia community radio does a great job promoting great music , new and old and a great way to explore music. https://www.rrr.org.au/. https://www.pbsfm.org.au/, http://www.3cr.org.au/
Very interesting thread. My two cents, having just recently stumbled upon computer based audio.
I picked Roon over Audirvana and Pure Music not for the SQ. I frankly prefer my LPs more. I picked Roon because it recreates the magic of LPs. It is the liner notes that are interesting to me. I like the stories. I love to pick up an album and read about it, and the artists involved, and on some songs, re-play it with the lyrics. I love to discover what other songs the artists composed, and who they collaborated with. Roon does all this elegantly. To me, there is nothing in the digital world other than Roon that replicates the magic of the LP experience.
If there is anything I’d like Roon to invest in, it is more original content as far as stories go. I’d like to see more pictures. I’d love to see the experience improve.
This, the stories, and the experience, are for me, what is distinctive about Roon. I am quite satisfied with the SQ. I care less about discovery. The AI engines of all the alternatives are different – some are strong in some areas than others. And this can be improved.
Frankly, I am happy listening to Pandora or Spotify or any of the others to discover music, but I like to buy music that I really like. This way, it doesn’t matter if any of these services folds up.
Bottom line: three points of distinction – a) the experience; b) SQ; and c) discovery. To me, (a) is most important for me, followed by (b). c is evolutionary. And yes, I agree, I Roon is fabulous – in my case, without Tidal.
I meant to add one more thing. I am really loving the internet radio feature in Roon. Discovery is about serendipity, and surprise, not just about music genomes and AI. I am loving finding new stuff. Just this evening I discovered some great jazz from the Czech republic on an Eastern European streaming radio station. And I discovered it free. Guess what, I am going to buy that album and then rip it and learn more about the artists via the Roon interface. Way more fun than the Tidal / Spotify approach which basically charge for discovery in an algorithmic manner, while streaming poor quality.
I completely agree. When I started this thread, and listed the reasons that Roon is fabulous, I began with the interface, then the biographical information, followed by the lyrics. I read the biographical information for almost every artist I listen to, and it really enriches my listening experience. I support your recommendation that you would like have this feature strengthened, with more photos and original content. (Although Roon does a great job as it is, and is now clearly superior to Tidal, which dropped similar content and often only utilizes minimal information from Tivo.
However, I hope that Roon will improve the lyrics feature, so that the lyrics flow with the music, with each line emphasized in bold or larger type, as is done on Deezer. Supposedly this improvement is forthcoming, but Roon promised that improvement a number of months ago.
When will it actually happen?
However, I hope that Roon improves the discovery function and ability to recommend similar music. In addition to reading about the artists and music, it would be great if the “Focus on Similar” button actually worked and served a function, and included Tidal, as has already been explained in comments earlier in the thread.
I am a constant user of Tidal within Roon, because even though I have a substantial music library, I’m always searching for new music to discover. I agree that Roon music discovery features could benefit from some serious refining. And to those who maintain that Roon will be fine without Tidal or a similar partner, I’d like to point out that only old farts (of which I am one) buy and collect music. We’re (literally) a dying breed. If Roon wants to survive over the long term, it must have a streaming partner. Without one, it will become a relic. I’m not saying that’s what should happen, because my opinion doesn’t matter to a generation of streamers. I’m saying that’s what is happening, and no tide is coming in to reverse that fact. Streaming tie-ins are a necessity if wonderful services such as Roon are to prosper.
If you own a file based digital music collection (hi res downloads, flac, dsd whatever) and you need a tool to manage/access that collection, you may very well find that ROON does a better than average job for that. For comparation, JRiver is a childish product (interface wise), the colored rectangles in the web interface for example are an insult, and others (PLEX, Emby to name a few that I use) are full of nonsense.
I do not consider ROON being fabulous, but based on my day to day experience I believe that, for the moment, is on the right track (at least for my needs).
Been a lifetime member for a few weeks now and I’m starting get the fascination - it’s really great with tidal, it’d still be great without tidal and it’s absolutely perfect for merging the own collection AND tidal…
A few quick responses:
a) Yes, it will be great to have a streaming partner, but I’d rather have a choice. There should be more than one, for the simple reason that the discovery algorithms are different. I’d love to mess around and discover the service that works well for me.
b) I do believe that this hobby is about discovery and serendipity. That is half the fun. And there are alternatives to streaming sources. I’d rather wander around on a weekend and browse used bookstores and buy a bunch of used CDs than spend that time browsing a streaming service.
c) From what I have observed of my kids and their friends, young people in the 10 - 15 year old age group love LPs. They buy them, collect them, listen to them, loan them out – in other words, behave like normal people! I’d imagine that most use streaming sources. However, on my anecdotal evidence, many buy records and rip --as most records come with free MP3 rips nowadays.
I started this thread to respond to those who, in a different thread, argued that if Tidal goes bankrupt, they will abandon Roon. I wanted to make the case for what Roon does well with or without Tidal. Catman and I have the same perspective – we love Roon for the biographies of artists and information on albums. As I type this, I am listening to a band that I have never heard of before, and I began by reading the bio of the artists. In other cases, I have read bios of artists that I am familiar with, but thank to Roon, I always learn something new. Just look up the biography for Duke Ellington as an illustration of what Roon does well. And as an old fart, to adopt the description offered by David Toole, half the time I have no idea what rock bands are singing, so the lyrics are indispensable. I am constantly amused when teenagers admit that they also love reading the lyrics when they are exposed to Roon - because they also don’t always know what the bands or rap artists are actually singing.
However, David Toole made the case for why Roon must be tied to a streaming service far better than anyone else so far. I have to relunctantly admit that he is absolutely correct. If Tidal dies, Roon must have a back-up plan to offer another streaming service. While Catman makes a valid point that some teenagers are rediscovering vinyl, it remains true that the dominant trend is streaming. Oppo – the manufacturer of what is arguably the finest blu-ray player – is dead and gone. Why? Because physical discs are dying – CDs, blu-rays, you name it. They are rapidly joining the dust bin of history.
Toole is right – the future is streaming. Roon must be tied to a streaming service. Either that, or it dies. That is the market reality, whether we like it or not.
Based on the comments in this thread, there is a a strong belief that Spotify is superior to Apple Music for music discovery. I realize that Spotify is not lossless, but if offers other advantages.
The integration of Spotify and Tidal within Roon would be a huge step forward, and would also provide Roon with a fallback if Tidal goes under.
This is interesting. I have not thus far wanted to try a streaming service – but since they all offer free trial periods, I’ll try one. Of them all – are there clear differences? I largely listen to jazz. Is Spotify better than Apple music for jazz too? Also, what are the implications for revenues for artists? Do they make as much money from these services, as opposed to CD/LP sales?
I’d imagine that most use streaming sources. However, on my anecdotal evidence, many buy records and rip --as most records come with free MP3 rips nowadays.