Why should I buy Roon?

Roon Software Discussion
1

OK, so this is an opposite of the thread of “Why I will not buy roon” but I need some persuading her boys and girls.

I only really listen to Tidal, a few albums ripped to lossless but 99% on Tidal.

I listen to MQA and if it’s no MQA I upsample via Roon to DSD256 - and it sounds great.

BUT if I’m going drop ~£600 on a lifetime sub my absolute nagging question is can I get a “device” that runs native Tidal or something very close to it for a similar price? So far I haven’t found anything.

What do you guys think??

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Buy a monthly or annual subscription to Roon until you decide. Nobody needs to persuade you to spend $700 on Roon. You need to persuade yourself.

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3

Most people play a limited number of albums/artists/tracks, even if their library is a pretty good size. If that is all one does and has NO curiosity beyond that, Roon doesn’t make sense.

Roon is superb at helping you discover new music. For many of us, it has changed how we interact with music, find it, and has broadened our musical awareness. Roon can force feed it to you (via Roon Radio), but it is better to just let all the interconnections made available take you someplace you never dreamt of going to.
It has all kinds of other hardware advantages too, of course. But music discovery is its forte, IMO.

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4

Exactly. I usually start the day with a “seed” album, then let Roon take me on a journey with Tidal and Qobuz.

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5

Don’t think of it as ~£600… look at the yearly subscription cost and, no, you cannot buy something for that which gives you “native” Tidal.

If you really want to compare the lifetime, which I think is a poor comparison, there are plenty of devices around the $1000 USD (don’t know EU exchange right now) which support native Tidal and MQA. They have very different UI/UX or support Tidal Connect which allows you to control them via the Tidal app.

Tidal is a “convenience” to expand your catalog within Roon. I don’t think Roon provides all that much value in being a front-end for Tidal so if that’s what you’re looking for I would pass. If you find Tidal lacking features which Roon provides then you’re not really coming here looking for persuading… you just need to buy the yearly and enjoy those features. Probably a considerable bargain at The ~$10 a month the year costs. And, I believe, Roon provides significant advantages over the closed eco-systems of the ~$1000 devices you’d end-up with just to use Tidal.

Happy listening.

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6

It’s hard to say without knowing your hardware and sound expectations.
But If your using Tidal only I’d perhaps start looking at ‘Tidal Connect’ I’ve been trying it from my iPad directly to my Sonos Connect, or your could use a Bluesound Node 2i.

Non of the ongoing Roon cost but most and in some cases more functionality than Roon.

It’s what I’m looking at as my subscription ends but hopefully I’ll get to see what the next release brings.

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Discovery is just one aspect of Roon. The unified Tidal+local library, DSP for room/headphone correction, consistent apps on Mac/iPad/iPhone, multiple zones, etc., are worth the price of admission to me.

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8

I read the “Why I will not buy roon” thread, mostly and now read “Why should I buy Roon”. Definitely in that boat of decision making, a few days into a Roon trial. Here are my disorganized thoughts…

I am looking for a multi room solution that works. Chromecast works and Airplay does too. But both have proprietary aspects that doesn’t make them free. Closest I could get is using Spotify Connect or Tidal Connect to cast to grouped Google devices.

I want to use my own DIY audio gear. That makes using Chromecast and Airplay rather difficult as I don’t see any OSS Chromecast receiver options.

The cost of Roon is certainly stretching my budget, especially seeing that I will need to become a Tidal subscriber now. I have been using the original Squeezebox at its inception before it was bought by Logitech. When Apple Music appeared and supported uploading my music library I was sold. Then came Google Home and speakers in every room. With Google came a switch to YouTube Premium. While Google Play Music was a far cry from Apple Music, it was useable and cost was nearly a wash. Problem is I now like YouTube a lot for much of my love for Jazz. Thus dropping YouTube Premium isn’t an option. That means I’ll be adding the cost of Roon and Tidal!!!

I’ve went through all of the various rPi music players. Roon blows them away on many fronts. And I am still waiting for DAC boards for rPi, only using the rPi built-in DAC output via MoOde and Airplay…

Yes, the Roon Radio option isn’t so great, not for my music tastes.

My owned music library consist of some 9300 tracks, not a lot, but at least a third of the content I own I have yet to find available on streaming services.

I would love for Roon to be able to accept stream input. It’s multi room option are pretty good although not perfect. There’s quite a bit of YouTube only content I frequent (WDR Big Band for example) I cannot buy or stream. I am stuck having to resort to solutions outside of Roon to play those. This is a big one as this is a big deal for me in evaluating whether the cost is acceptable to me.

And for multi room the only complaint I have is the inability to group RAAT with Chromecast with Airplay. Probably a technical limitation, not that it matters, it just makes it harder as so far the RAAT devices do not act as Chromecast, so I am stuck with requiring multiple hardware solution (albeit of very different audio qualities). Again, being able to stream to Roon would ease that pain substantially.

For me I am still very much undecided…

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It feels to me like trading software costs for hardware costs. I have and am looking at that possibility also.

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I’m hoping LUMIN implement Tidal Connect as I already have a D2.

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Tidal has a free desktop app that does the first MQA unfold or can pass the stream to an MQA dac. The app also has metadata, reviews, personalization features, suggestions, auto-playlists, etc.

They say it will “soon” have Tidal Connect so you can control it from the mobile app as a remote. It can already control other Tidal Connect enabled devices, as can the mobile app.

It doesn’t have any upsampling features.

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I purchased Room because of all the hype. It hasn’t been reliable, stopping, skipping songs, not connecting to Qobuz. If you want a headache, or if you want to “debug” your router and analyze your streaming data, go right ahead. It’s not ready for the average consumer.

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14

What is so good about a “device”? The fact that Roon is pure software that runs on standard off the shelf hardware that can be all economically upgraded over time is a huge part of the beauty for me.

You seem to be trying to justify Roon purely as a front end for Tidal, this is what I did initially and I was disappointed. However, when I started adding zones all over my house with old apple TVs (patio), or CCAs (bedroom), or RPi’s using upgraded SPDIFs (headphone system, desktop system) it started to occur to me how powerful the software is and the fact that I was SAVING $ but not being forced to buy into some proprietary, expensive ecosystem that was going to require significant capex to scale.

Then I started playing with DSP, convolution filters, room correction in some zones but not others. I enabled binaural processing on the headphone rig. I added another zone but only had a power amplifier- in this case roon acts as a 64 bit digital volume control and I didn’t need to buy a preamp.

Now there are “entrypoints” available that allow for analog sources to be ingested and processed by Roon… With this, Roon becomes a full-fledged and featured, hardware-agnostic preamplifier. Not bad for $700.

Every use case is different, but for me Roon is an absolute steal. Additionally, due to its architecture and proven track record of adding new features and generally getting “better”- I am quite confident that it will be the heart of my audio system for the foreseeable future.

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15

I bought an annual sub to Roon and am really pleased with it. I use mainly Qobuz which I find is excellent (especially being able to get many pdf booklets - why not all booklets Qobuz?) but I also have a number of old ripped CDs in my Apple library. And some albums I have bought in Qobuz. Roon brings them together so I don’t have to think where I have a particular album.

To my ears Roon is also an improved sound quality over using Qobuz direct.

And there is all the extra information you get about albums. And suggestions etc. I now listen to a far wider range of music styles.

In short I find Roon great - only gripe is that I can’t use it outside my home - eg in car etc.

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No: it’s not ready for the careless customer, a little bit in the same way that you need to be more careful on a sports bike than on a vespa.

You’ve already been given a rather valid explanation as to why you’re having issues, both by RoonLabs’ support, and by a forum member. Maybe consider following up on the offers for help before pontificating…

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17

I always knew I wasn’t Average , Mean maybe …

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18

Personal attacks were not the sort of user experience I was looking for. This board is mostly foreign to people who aren’t familiar with networks and a software debugging. Blaming the consumer is counterproductive. I bought Roon for a “seamless” music experience and did not get that. Potential buyers should scan these boards to see if they are ready to solve the kinds of issues they may encounter with Roon. I don’t have the background to do that.

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I’m sorry if you mistook a reality check for a personal attack. There seem to be problems with two types of users: the super-advanced types, who’ve got home networks who mirror their work environments, and people who’ve never realised how badly they’ve set things up, because they’re good enough for most of what they’re doing.

There are people willing to help you, myself included, even though like many others here, I’m doing it out of my free time, and out of my goodwill: I’m not a Roon employee. We will find a solution, and it likely will not be difficult to put in place, but you do need to take the time to listen. Let us know if and when you’re ready.

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20

Gilbert

Xekomi is correct, many of us will ask what sounds like harsh questions, but they are to try and quickly get at the issue you are having.

While there are some personal attacks they tend to be around holy wars about switches that are designed to enhance music sounds (there be dragons).

Sadly Roon is as much a networking product as a music product, but that says as much about the state of home networking as anything else.

Roon has a lot of information around minimum setup requirements for Roon core and suggested network topology, that fee people seem to read or acknowledge.

Regard
Mike

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Get Qobuz in stead of Tidal, more jazz and it sounds better (imo).

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