I concur
I have to unquestionably agree with the OP, as in 3 years, Roon has been a consistently frustrating experience. Just as unquestionably, when it works, it is excellent ā¦ which during a rare run of success led me to subscribe for lifetime. But then, immediately, the woes began again. I realize trying to implement what Roon promises on the myriad setups people have may prove to be a practical impossibility, but it seems like the basics are getting lost, e.g. simple playback. Itās driven me to backup servers. And when I return to Roon, thereās an issue every day. Usually fixed with a reboot, but why should that be necessary? Why is Roon so unstable, when other servers do not flinch?
And this forum, which generally toes the line ā¦ that itās never Roonās fault, just stupid users ā¦ is not helpful, for those of us who are wasting so much time trying to gain even the most basic functionality.
A recent example is the purported integration with nugs.net ā¦ NOT. In another bout of confidence, when I learned about the Deadās vault being selectively opened to nugs, I re-upped a sub Iād let lapse with the idea that that high-res service would play well through Roon. Of course it did not, and only after the fact did I see a post from Roon merrily announcing that NO, Roonās integration did not extend to that service. NOT an acknowledgement accompanied by an apology and commitment to rectify the issue, as one would hope, but simply NOPE. The community piles on, of course, dismissing nugs in its entirety as just of interest to āAmerican stoners,ā who are obviously not welcome in a community of serious music lovers like here.
So, users who have problems are just stupid, and this community, by and large, considers itself above such cretins, especially if they listen to the wrong music. Overall, a less than optimal experience.
No problems with Roon for me over the past 6 or 7 years running it currently on a dedicated M1 Mac Mini and 2012 MacMini before that.
itās odd that most people seem not to have any significant problems with the software but some do. Maybe the cause is something else entirely.
I have a very satisfying experience with Roon since my first touching point with it. Iāve tested it several years ago and it took 48 hours to pull the trigger for the lifetime license. By my experience Roon is real good programmed and designed, absolutely stable. All issues Iāve seen so far, funny enough at other guys, never in my system, was caused by local issues mainly (network, configuration, ISP, not having a dedicated server..) and sometimes by third parties like Tidal and Quobuz in case they were facing sync issues. NONE of the Roon users I know have issues, but clearly said, all of them have dedicated Roon servers, well managed networks and real good internet connections.
I agree with you
My experience with roon is that itās great when it works
But I have to force quit the Android app multiple times per day to get it to respond, and I frequently get āwaiting for your roon serverā issues for minutes at a time when the app starts.
Iām seriously considering ditching roon, I donāt have any faith that it will get any better, and none at all in the support (which really isnāt)
It seems the focus is on adding more features which donāt appeal to me, and not giving these long-running problems
Which bit of JPlay , there is a server app and a control app
If you are using the control app for iOS it still requires a UPnP Server
only for own files, for streaming services not
Not normal behaviour - I suggest that you open a support request to get assistance from Roon technical support.
To equip the Roon Technical Support team to assist you directly, please follow this link to provide the details of your case to Technical Support: Technical Support Request
Respond to the prompts there to ensure that youāve performed basic troubleshooting and to ensure Technical Support has the full details necessary to expedite Technical Supportās investigation into the case.
Your responses will create a ticket on Roonās support tracking system and auto-generate a Community thread in the appropriate section.
Because this Community thread will be in a public forum, please do not include any personal information, such as your email address, postal address or telephone number in your submission.
Thank you.
No more features. Just make it 100% reliable like an appliance. The many issues takes away from the enjoyment.
This is just roon, as far as Iām concerned.
Multiple android devices, multiple installs of the Android app, multiple installs of the roon server on 3 different PCs - qnap , dedicated NUC and now on a VM which also stores the music library to eliminate network latency between the server software and the music.
Roon is the only common element here
It may well be something in Roon, but itās your choice to remain frustrated by it, or open a support request to get the support team to look at the diagnostics and help youā¦ As I said, itās not normal behaviour.
I use Meitner MA3i with jplay so itās a control app. And no it does not require a upnp server in my case.
Confused where do your audio files live ?
I see it has a USB input for external data, so in that case itās acting as a server ? Maybe I qualified a bit too much saying UPnP
If you stream Tidal/Qobuz thatās a server, if Roon you have a server
JPlay as far as I can tell is Control App and as such can have no impact on SQ.
if you are running direct from USB drive itās the direct connection rather than jplay responsible for any improvement
Absolutely not saying that. I have experienced connection issues, memory leaks and sluggishness with adequate setups as well. If I had learned one thing: Every setup and library is different, and so are potential roots of performance flaws. When trying to isolate the problem, I once found a disadvantageous library structure, defect RAM, corrupted internal database o, DNS problems with Qobuz, you name it. Memory leaks I have reported several times, and they got all resolved.
I feel for everyone encountering a frustrating user experience, and sometimes it takes a bit of own investigation in addition to calling support. In my understanding, it is worth it.
Confused where do your audio files live ?
I see it has a USB input for external data, so in that case itās acting as a server ? Maybe I qualified a bit too much saying UPnP
If you stream Tidal/Qobuz thatās a server, if Roon you have a server
JPlay as far as I can tell is Control App and as such can have no impact on SQ.
if you are running direct from USB drive itās the direct connection rather than jplay responsible for any improvement you are bypassing your network?
Am I missing some magic In JPlay ?
- Thereās absolutely no server anywhere in this configuration. The network card in the Meitner is a roon end point and is upnp compatible.
- Jplay is currently configured to stream Qobuz and Tidal. It functions as a control app only which means it tells the ConversDigital card in the Meitner to go and get the track or the album from the streaming service. Again, thereās no server anywhere in the chain in this configuration - itās as pure as it gets. It sounds phenomenal and to my ear in my system beats the sound quality of Roon
- Jplay UI is excellent. The team at Jplay take feature suggestions from the user community and a few have already been implemented. Butā¦nothing is perfect and Jplay does have a few very minor quirks that could be improved. One example is there is no hand over from one device to another. If I started a track from iPhone my iPad doesnāt know whatās playing. Minor and a non issue for me. Sound quality, once again, is whatās important to me. Minor inconvenience such as this can be a dealbreaker for some though. I get it.
- Next steps - I will be configuring and evaluating the functionality of Jplay with local library. Will be comparing it against Roon.
I love Roon and am anxiously awaiting the new update with hopes that sound quality will match that of jplay. If it doesnāt, bye bye roon
The music has to come from somewhere , in this instance the streaming service is one BIG SERVER
JPlay is the go-between it displays Tidal/Qobuz content > you make the choice > it sends an instruction to Tidal to send the file to your network card (ie Roon end point / UPnP Renderer or whatever . The rest is internal to your device
Thatās what a control point app does. You donāt have a server as in a big computer in your house but it is a server all the same.
Using an external USB drive of local files will work but you will lose any indexing performed by any server software unless your device does this . What you will see is the file structure of the HDD. JPlay will read the āserverā, your device at that stage will be acting as a server withe HDD as source. I just tried this with my Naim Uniti Atom HE
I am not being pedantic but JPlay has no involvement in the music stream, so can have no impact on SQ.
I also use JPlay (I like to see āwhatās out thereā) but I couldnāt fathom out the claims that it improves SQ , simply it canāt. I use it with Minim Server for my local files. I canāt get JPlay to sync my main DLNA Server (JRiver)
I can see how the JPlay Femto may help as I believe it shuts out layers of the Windows OS , selecting only what is needed much as ROCK does in Linux. At the end the output has to be provably bit perfect and it canāt get any better. The rest is down to the local device.
I am not that impressed as it doesnāt handle box sets at all and other classical stuff like Compositions , my Naim app does from JRiver and isnāt much different in appearance
Unless I a missing some JPlay Magic
Each to his own
@Mike_O_Neill dial down on the condescending tone and making assumptions you know more than others.
Tidal and Qobuz are hosted on AWS and have footprint in Azure and GCP.
Cloud platforms, as far as tenants are concerned, are server-less - none of the infrastructure is exposed to tenants. Only services are whatās offered. I do this for a living in Google Cloud.
Iām not looking for validation from anyone on what I hear. The sonic performance of every system is highly dependent on components and room acoustics. In one system Roon might sound better than jplay or native streaming apps, in another it may be the opposite. Add to this the individualās ability to hear and the resolving power of the associated equipment.
I shared my experience. You are free to disagree of course but that doesnāt change anything in my listening room.
This is a question I am interested in hearing answered. My Qobuz experience is pretty poor.
I agree it has been slow but today with the latest update everything seems to be working as It used to . Search is super fast .