Why Roon? What are our reasons to stick with Roon?

For me, the #1 reason I use Roon is that it integrates my ripped CD collection with Tidal, under one UI. If Tidal went away (I haven’t tried Quobuz yet), I would have to seriously think about whether or not to continue using Roon. But, for the time being, this is a huge benefit for me.

I find Love Hate relationships with loads of software over the years, Resharper a dev tool was a good example , some areas a pig others simply too good to give up

Alas …

Keep taking the pills

I can’t say that I’m very happy with Roon from a end user interface perspective. As a controller for playing music is actually not very good. Sound quality is really good and creates a great index of my local library. The extra content is a good plus.

The key reason I use Roon is that all my sources are combined and indexed as if it’s all seamless. No jumping from one app to another. The mind boggles that first party audio control software is so poor. Roon’s new radio feature across all sources really is a highlight for me and sets the bar high for the first party vendors.

Could you provide some details about what specifically you would like to see improved in the user interface? We’re in the same boat here, curious to find out your wishes/suggestions :slight_smile:

And take it to another the thread, see the title :wink:

Why do I stick with Roon? I stick with it because I have roon ready endpoints now in pretty much all rooms. I don’t use multi room capabilities, but I do like being able to go to a single interface and be able to access my music (Tidal and Qobuz in my case) and play it in the room I am in. It is simple and a no brainer.

Now ironically while Roon was adding partners all the time I was irritated because the UI/UX seemed to be getting ignored. But that was because I wasn’t interested in the new devices (I’ve got more than enough - including ones in storage). What I bought Roon for was the UI/UX and the promise of discoverability. Which is now the thing I don’t use it for.

I go to the native apps - Tidal is doing pretty well with “My Mix”. I’ve found new artists through that which I then favourite - and play in Roon. Ditto for Qobuz - theirs is more human curated.

I’ll discover music here, and then go listen to it in Roon.

Why am I down on Roon for their UI/UX? I don’t think it involves a lot of “U” - maybe it should be called I/X. I think it is down to expectations - probably unrealistic. I looked at the team behind Roon - their backgrounds, their interests - and I figured this was a group of folks who could come up with something new and exciting. Who would constantly push the boundaries and redefine this market. It has felt more like being “better than the rest” has been sufficient. When folks complain and are told “it is still better than what is out there” they are pretty much correct. I thought Roon was going to be a case of the industry waking up, seeing what they were doing and thinking “****! They have gone and changed the target again…”

Am I happy with Roon? Yes. Am I happy I have a lifetime sub? Yes. I just don’t use it for what I thought I would, and am using it for the things I thought I wouldn’t. A changing of expectations was needed from me.

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I’m a developer with a design background so I have a bit of a bias that may or may not be helpful.

Let me start with the things I do like and work from there.

  • The improvements around the DSP controls are well considered. DSP controls are something where Roon offers unique value.
  • Integrated sources that are also separate and interact nicely. Not easy to pull off. Kudos.
  • Content is King, and Roon rules in that regard.

These three points also cover the three contexts.

  1. Audio/Signal manipulation
  2. Player control
  3. Content management

I see these three things a separate and strongly interrelated. We see this in the design of the Roon app. However, prioritising player control could be beneficial. I wouldn’t consider volume control as something to put in an ephemeral UI control like a tooltip box. It should be omnipresent by default.

Considering what kind of views are useful is a bit hard to say as I haven’t looked at the current UI in detail. Off the top of my head, I’d have four views. One with a mix of the three contexts and three with there own specific views. All views should take into account omnipresent elements like current track info (selected or in progress) and track controls like play/stop and volume that are accessible immediately.

And then RAAT came to my amplifier! I have not had time to listen much, but I’ve noticed that info (like Invert and Treble/Bass/Balance) from the amp is again shown in Roon’s Signal Path. Even more than that: SAM is also displayed. I am very happy!

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What amplifier? That’s pretty cool.

Devaliet. (SAM is the give away)

Thanks Ged. Yes, a Devialet 250 Pro. The little arrow in the quote will take you to the quoted post.

The additional Treble/Bass/SAM display is pretty cool.

“…I looked at the team behind Roon - their backgrounds, their interests - and I figured this was a group of folks who could come up with something new and exciting. Who would constantly push the boundaries and redefine this market. It has felt more like being “better than the rest” has been sufficient…”

Is this the Roon team auditioning thread, specifically ad copy? :yum: :joy:

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For me, the key positives are, in order:

  • the metadata. I wrote elsewhere that browsing your library with Roon is similar to sitting next to a music geek who can tell you everything and anything about the music you’re listening to. It’s not secret information, of course, but you’d need to spend a bit of time googling around to read comparable information, and the experience wouldn’t be as streamlined.

  • The integration with Tidal. Roon has just told you that artist X worked with artist Y on something specific? Chances are you’ll find that in Tidal straight away

  • Roon Radio

  • Integration with Sonos

  • User interface; not perfect, but far better than the sad interface of most DLNA players

The things I hate:

  • no browsing by folder

  • the app for Android phones sucks and lacks many features

  • doesn’t seem to read my own custom tags

  • if I understand correctly, it cannot really be used for managing my library, in the sense of updating tags, creating playlists to export to other devices, etc. I still use MediaMonkey for that

Could you elaborate. I have the andoid and ios apps on my phones and to me they seem the same, albeit I’ve not gone looking for differences.

I’m presuming the reference is to the cut down nature of the mobile app

Agreed, but it seems it’s always the Android app that gets the bum rap.

On Android phones, unless maybe they are gigantic 7 inch phablets, you cannot use focus, nor can you use the ABC index for fast scrolling through large collections. Neither feature really requires a lot of screen real estate, but the lack of both does make it harder to search and browse large collections.

Don’t know what it’s like in i phones of the same size.

Pretty much the same.

There’s a long term plan to improve the phone clients but it’s been a loooong time already.:blush: