Patience is hard…Roon is still very young. I put my faith in the music lovers we call the Roon-team. I prefer a slower process than a rush-job.
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Agreed… 2 comments in short succession referring to roon as being young. And it is. As long a the users, and roon, accept it as such. A while back I referred to it as a prototype - and it is. I’ve bought into the future of roon, not the present of roon. The experience today is ok - but could be better.
mpd, this is the fresh, exciting thinking we should be exploring. The options and potential for the manipulation and exploitation (in a good way) of data is HUGE, and largely untapped.
I really believed that we should be seeing notable tweaks and improvements algorithmically (eg Radio. anyone?) and on the UI front with every release to avoid stagnation. It would boost moral not only of the customer base, but I’m guessing, of the Roon development team itself; to see Roon go AMAZING places, to move past the relatively mundane , to evolve into something really special. But this can only be done in tandem with upping the ante marketing-wise. New ideas needs fresh marketing to keep pushing forward, to entice new customers and keep the old ones fresh and interested; launches of new modules, better presence on Facebook, Twitter, newsfeeds, mailing lists, etc. Lots of potential here!
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Metadata is where battles will be won, I reckon. It is what will be able to deliver a delightful experience to folks. Tonight I had a play with a couple of other players I hadn’t before - the experience in them actually wasn’t bad. And they expose about as much metadata as roon does today. It is about trying to leverage it to make intelligent suggestions to the users.
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@Sallah_48 I like your enthousiasm and I believe in your sincerity. But all those things above are said so many times on this forum, only the thread title differs. That’s why I was preaching some patience, and maybe some restraint in posting.
That said everybody’s gotta do what they gotta do! It will not make me mad or drive me crazy 
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Hi Krutsch
I’m not suggesting all the options would be good for all customers, I’m suggesting how Roon needs to adapt to become something which is self-future proofing; Facebook is not about to go anywhere, indeed it’s expanding like a virus BECAUSE it links people together. If Roon can tap into that current psyche then it becomes much harder for people to leave once they invest in it personally and entices peopled by offering a community aspect completely lacking in other players. I absolutely agree with you that this connectivity on a person to person basis should be optional, no question.
Adding notes becomes important, as I’ve mentioned in another long post in these pages, because it anchors us to our vast collections; we can make memory notes of where we listened to music, why we loved it, who we were with. For most of us our good times are spent listening to music. Perhaps we can log those moments within Roon and dig them out again in a few years or decades to reminisce again with friends or on our own.
Maybe even attach photos of an event or video footage of a concert we went to… again… the sky’s the limit to potential here.
I feel we are just scratching the surfaces with what Roon can or could do. These are just my inconsequential ideas, think what we could evolve together along with Roon, given the chance 
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The social media aspect is something folks may want to opt in or out of. I haven’t been on Facebook for years - or any social media really. But as a first step in what you say, it would be great to be able to supplement the library with other digital assets. Photos, videos, notes - as you say. Add that to the lyrics and the album credits that roon has today and I can imagine sitting with the playback screen flipping through a virtual booklet with things roon provides, plus extra assets I’ve provided. Memories of concerts. Events in life etc that had significance.
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Haha
Thanks Dick! I hope I’m not viewed as a Troll
I agree, patience is important. But, and this is a huge but, the technical/information race is accelerating and evolving daily; it’s hugely important to understand that , as fantastic as Roon is, and young and all that, it needs to evolve on an information processing and interface level as fast as or faster than on an Audiophile level to expand or maintain it’s position in the market.
I think the catalyst for my post was recent posts espousing the same sort of ideas as mine, but really it was the shocker that I, in the space of 10 short months, had found myself going from “wow” to a bit “meh” regarding the Roon Experience. I tried to analyse why that was and feed it back to the community.
If I am experiencing this, then I am sure that other are feeling the same way, and that’s not good for Roon.
It’s easy to say “patience” but this is a very, very busy market and moving forward at an incredible rate. I don’t think Roon itself can afford to lag behind in marketing terms and in bringing fresh, innovative ideas to the table in terms of interface and use of data.
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It’s important for Roon to not cover every single edge case because the interface could become unruly. We all have desires but history shows us accommodating every imaginable feature request can render an app or service a disaster.
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I don’t think you’re a troll 
I think lessons can be taken from other DAM solutions out there - not necessarily audio ones. One of the things I like with some of my photography ones is that they know the camera (sensor) and lens I am using and the inherent limitations of those, and correct based on it. Roon knows the source (file), the endpoint that I am using and could make suggestions on the signal path of ways to improve it. Most folks on here would never use that - they’d rather have infinite control over these things. And that is great - they should do. But the casual user, or one just getting into roon? Be great if it could make informed suggestions to the user based on their kit and audio.
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I’d argue roon aren’t far off that already… which is why it needs a rethink about a cohesive experience. The experience isn’t the sum of the features.
Today you come on the forums and folks ask questions on how to do things and the answers are click here… don’t click on the same looking button there. Or long click here and you’ll get… it already feels a bit like features are built and then it is a case of “ok, so where do we stick this in the UI?”
I most certainly don’t think you’re a troll. And I agree with your reasoning about Roon’s position in the market, but the roonies will also take this into account. For all we know there can be a major update next month with all kinds of good stuff.
My reasoning wasn’t solely ‘patience’ but patience and faith in the Roon-team.
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Point taken. Must have faith…
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definitely agree, Roadmap, is generally a “Bad Thing” - purpose of my post was really to highlight, as a consumer, my shock-realisation that Roon was not as useful or usable as I had found it previously and in using other products, because Roon could not do what I needed it to do, I was finding that the experience elsewhere was not so bad; hence had me questioning my expenditure on Roon itself.
I want to see Roon succeed and won’t be jumping ship, just feel that, looking at the product and, importantly, the marketing package (website, facebook presence, twitter, newsletters?), and how I’ve seen it evolve over the last year, it’s not moved forward that much in a very fast moving market. My comments are intended purely to try and help excite ideas into new areas.
I do also understand it’s very difficult to keep moving forward and there’s so much noise that Roon has to filter and must go their own path. Heaven knows I’m in the same boat with my business, having used much the same sales methods for the last 20 years. I often have no idea how to evolve or keep up with the changes most of the time
I think we can safely assume that radio is under scrutiny as we have been told as much it’s a priority to improve it from the Roon team often enough in the last few months.
I find the UI pretty usable personally and other than some minor tweaks (horizontal AND vertical scrolling options aside) might expect some changes over time to be more friendly for newer device formats like iPhone X and other interfaces.
I’m sure a lot of work is going on we never see until it’s ready for prime time and calling out a roadmap commitment is going to be counter productive. Look at Apple now backtracking on HomePod with delays and who knows what will come of iMac pro now barely 6 weeks of the year left.
Slow and steady for the new stuff is fine by me. I have been there with half baked releases for enough of my hifi as it is, without adding more to it unnecessarily just for the sake of a roadmap date
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It’s interesting you haven’t been on social media for years. I got involved in Facebook on social media as a result of being involved in hosting live music.
Like it or not Facebook is the very heart of promotion for just about all contemporary working musicians at all levels across the globe today. The thing is, it’s ubiquitous and free at our level. That’s just a fact.
We find artists on Facebook as that’s where they advertise. We publish our gigs on Facebook. We post pictures and revues on Facebook along with our website. We post links to our show videos on Facebook. We get feedback on Facebook. We get our community feel on Facebook.
If it wasn’t Facebook, it would be something else but Social Media has changed the world.
Roons involvement in social media will be crucial going forward.
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I have an active music group on Facebook. It’s about the only thing I do on there. We have 65 members and it’s great fun.
For the drossy “I cleaned the windows/paved the patio/I’m in the airport waiting to go on holiday/look at my (insert noun of choice)” dross, you can keep it.
As a specific media for sharing information it’s a great tool.
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I don’t agree at all with your point of a mobile device being able to run Roon Core - why? Clearly the mobile devices aren’t powerful enough anyway.
What I do agree with is that the Roon people are missing out on is a link to mobile devices. They should enable us to link the Roon App on our mobile devices to our RoonCore/RoonServer and stream music to ourselves from our Roon installation and our Roon/Tidal library.
Some of the competing programs, such as JRiver and Foobar allow for this. IMO, this should be a bigger priority and would broaden the market for new subscribers to Roon. Right now it is limited to people who invest heavily in a home system. Clearly not the majority.
Other stuff that’s been mentioned, such as Radio clearly need improvement. Roon has promised it will come.
I also like the idea of being able somehow to integrate other data we have into the Roon interface.
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Absolutely this should be the goal as a Roon-Mobile solution. My proposal really is as an interim solution for now.
Aren’t mobile devices powerful enough to run as Core? I mean, they are often octa-core devices with up to 6gb of Ram, and Android for example is not as resource hungry as Windows by all accounts, as I understand it?
As to why? I have currently 1500 tidal albums added as favourites and included in Roon, add to that perhaps another 1000 hd albums or so locally stored or more using upto 800gb of MicroSD RAM on my android DAP and the mobile device-as-core becomes a viable proposition; i could be away on holiday and take my phone and DAP and enjoy the full Roon experience with 1000’s of albums accessible still to me without the need for a PC or Mac to clutter up proceedings. And the Tidal inclusion of albums will only grow over time.
The line is blurring as to what constitutes a mobile computer or phone or tablet these days in any case. Ultimate flexibility should be a goal also.
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On the other hand, I loathe and detest Facebook, but it’s a necessary evil - I have to be a member because of a closed FB group that I help run.
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