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? 
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For me, the key positives are, in order:
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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.
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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
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Roon Radio
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Integration with Sonos
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User interface; not perfect, but far better than the sad interface of most DLNA players
The things I hate:
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no browsing by folder
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the app for Android phones sucks and lacks many features
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doesn’t seem to read my own custom tags
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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.
I believe it was stated that that work would be part of the Mobile Initiative. (name and capitalization my own 
).
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When I started out with Roon it was all unicorns and rainbows. So yeah I did get excited about the possibilities. My mind probably was like ad copy 
A couple of years on and I spend barely any time in the UI. I’ve not commented on the 1.6 release because I only go into it to search for something known, choose a zone and click play. If they had a mobile client that did that and 0 else I would actually be happy. I’ve found other places to do the bits I want. It’s a bit like making tea in the kitchen but having to go to the garage to fetch the kettle every time, but it works for me 
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Bit of a dull one but it is the only reliable control point I have found for my streamer. Also like the SQ.
Lest that sounds like faint praise I am using the Android app and am very happy with the ‘extras’.
Qobuz a real plus for me and found the support from Roon excellent.
Its fine, but i have slim fingers for a bloke, so maybe im lucky!
Thats akin to me walking blindfolded to my beautiful new Volvo XC60, getting in and taking the blindfold off to drive
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For years I struggled to get the covers and informations of my downloaded files, that time lost for not listening to music. Now I throw in bulk my files on the hard drive, Roon gives me instantanly the right cover and all the informations on the album and the artist in the blink of an eye, I click on Read and there I enjoy, what a sound! With AO, Fidelizer, jPlay Femto on my little Nuc Ws2016 which acts as a streamer is the top! What more ? (sorry for my rotten english google translation).
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Roon Radio carries on playing similar music from my library - reminds me of stuff I’ve forgotten I have. It knows my library better than I do.
ROCK on NUC is not reliant on my PC or laptop being booted up as dbPoweramp Asset was.
I now have a way of getting 5.1 Flac files from NAS to my AV system at other end of house. Tag easily identifies the albums in surround sound.
Easy to group kitchen system with main system so music doesn’t stop as I move around between rooms. Haven’t even considered Qobuz yet.
Universal control apps for all endpoints on our iPhones. Able to give wife access to her music again as she found nagivating NAS with Kazoo confusing.
I get the feeling there’s loads more to come and I’ve only scratched the surface after using Roon for just three weeks.
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I’m old enough that I don’t have teenagers around anymore. With Roon, it’s like having a teen (or 20-something) around again to tell me, “Yeah, Dad, see that little purple icon? It means your Hi Definition set-up is working ok. And by the way, you don’t have to keep listening to Sgt Pepper over and over again. Here are a few younger artists you might like!”
I also like that it plays nice with my Apple ecosystem, yet adds additional features, without overly complicating things.
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From your comment, it sounds as though you are manually tagging all your multichannel albums as you add them to your library?
If this is the case, you could make things easier for yourself by using Focus and creating a Bookmark. In the Album browser, use Focus/Format/5.1 to display just your multichannel albums in the browser, and create a Bookmark of this. Call it e.g. “Multi”. Then you can use the bookmark to call up all your multichannel albums. Bookmarks are dynamic, so when you add new multichannel albums into your library, they will automatically be added to the list of multichannel albums displayed by the bookmark…
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Many thanks, Geoff. I’ll certainly do that.
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Wow… lots of detail in the responses here.
My music collect is on hundreds of CDs, HDCDs and SACDs. They are not and will not be ripped, are fine as is and sound best that way.
Roon works well for me for a few simple reasons. Sound quality, Qobuz (have little use for most of Tidal) and the new radio feature. Plus the well constructed ability to find new music.
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