Polygamy for me: combined with JRiver and Audiovarna. I really wanted to go into a monogamous relationship with Roon. However, I still need to use other software because Roon doesn’t support SACD/DVD-A ISO. I have over 1,000 ISO files and I can’t play them in Roon (note that I’m not planning to convert them to Roon-compatible format - it’s too time and HD-space consuming).
My main use of Roon is through my 55 inch 4k HDTV, in my reclining chair. Works great for me in two different ways. I either use my brix which is plugged in to my NAD and my Logitech Air Mouse, or I switch to my Squeezebox Touch plugged into my NAD and controlled by my tablet with no tv involved. When using the PC and Air Mouse, I have no interface issues at all, the text is in appropriate size to be read from my recliner and the Air Mouse means I use it like a pointer at the TV screen.
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Oh yeah. Excellent results here doing that. I use the control swipe on my Mac keyboard and Magic Mouse to zoom if need be. Roon looks great this way and Tidal videos play awesome. Like my tablet but love my big screen interface.
Don’t forget to take the keyboard out of your lap when you get up. 
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Yes - a mouse. That’s not a simple remote. Also from where we sit, the text ain’t of an appropriate size. It’s designed for a computer screen, where the user sits much closer. If you were to compare a real 10ft interface side by side with that of Roon, you’d immediately see the difference. Roon’s “Pawmasher” screen is as close as it gets to a 10ft interface.
I realise that Roon isn’t going to develop a proper 10ft interface, and that’s OK - so long as version 1.2 delivers a decent Roon Control point, which we can use on a tablet and “cast” the music to the HTPC or the Hi-Fi.
Well, it is both. As a remote, you pick up the Air, you point it at the screen and click one button to activate. You hold the Air like a remote, there is no moving around on a table or anything like that. As close to controlling a pc with a remote as you will ever get.
Different experiences. I sit back 10 feet and the text for me IS of appropriate size, which is why I posted in the first place. Please note, that I keep my PC desktop as 1980 x 1028 even though it is a 4k TV. This results in a much larger UI.
Well, that was another point I was trying to make. You don’t have to wait. Buy a squeezebox today on ebay and you’ll be able to do that.
Began with organising tracks into folders in the Windows filesystem, with a cover.jpg as the album art, which was shown as the folder icon. Playback was using Winamp, and was into the snazzy visualisations etc.
After some years I discovered Mediamonkey, which was a radically different approach from the above in that it was metadata/tag based, allowing categorisation of the music in various ways, as well as a bunch of other more powerful features.
After some years of Mediamonkey I switched to JRiver, and used that for a few years. I found them similar, but JRiver was just a bit more polished in terms of the interface, and the online support from users and devs was pretty good. It was quite customisable in terms of the menu tree, allowing the user to browse and organise their music however they liked (though some basic code had to be learnt in this regard). A few features were missing however, in particular the ability to display rear album art as well as the front.
I then tried a bunch of different options, and finally settled on Foobar 2000. This software is highly customisable and module-based, and so I managed to get it pretty much to exactly how I wanted it. It had a menu tree, front and rear album art, a waveform seekbar and an information box that showed reviews, artist images, contents of the comments tag, news, images in the file directory and lyrics. I got it to show the album art in a CD jewel case. The menu tree was completely customisable (mine included information on bitrate, sample rate, release year etc). You might say that it was a Roon without the slick user interface and the deep metadata. It looked like this:
Ah, the memories. I then moved to Roon and completely ditched Foobar 2000, despite having put a lot of work into customising it. I haven’t looked back, but am still eagerly waiting for a number of key features in Roon such as ability to view album art other than the front cover.
Until there is a telephone app for Roon (or the integration of Spotify) , we are going to have mixture of Logitech and Roon in our house. I did get pestered by the kids for the Tidal password when the new Kanye album was released which was a first.
Also Polygamist, but Roon 50%/Slimserver (slumserver?) 20%/ and my collection of 2,500 LP’s the remaining 30%.
I love the Roon interface & info, but a substantial proportion of my classical recordings ripped from CD do not show up in Roon without spending a lot of time editing. I’d rather listen than edit, so I’m switching back & forth between LMS and Roon for that music. I’ve databased most of my classical music on LP, but it’s still a bother to try to find out whether I have a specific performance of a work and whether it’s on Roon or not. Roon has changed my behavior quite a bit, since this time last year I would have said 60% LP/40% digital. I have been pleased with the Tidal integration and I’ve been spending many hours exploring new-to-me performances of classical works on Tidal.
Before Roon, I would use Audirvana and HQPlayer. More or less depending on mood - HQPlayer is an awful interface on it’s own.
After Roon - and as of late - I have used the following:
1- Roon alone
2- Roon + HQPlayer
3- Audirvana
I use ‘1’ about 80% of the time because it sounds pretty good and it is foolproof. The rest is 15% for ‘2’ and 5% for ‘3’. Redbook benefits from ‘2’ and ‘3’, ‘3’ doesn’t do TIDAL.
I have to say Roon playlist functionality is fairly limited… I would like that to improve.
Makes sense?
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So why not 2 for 80%?
I have not looked at HQPlayer, but I had thought that the complex UX was for configuration, but once set up it just worked. Not so?
Well, mostly b/c I’ve been trying streaming to my Auralic Aries. The Aries is connected to my DAC over AES, and to the network over wifi. The sound is almost the same as Roon on the mini, and possibly not as refined in some cases (eg TIDAL to HQP), but there’s an “organicity” to the sound of the Aries that keeps me coming back to it.
It would be very cool if HQP was able to use the Aries as an NAA, or even nicer if HQP could be used as an upsampler for Roon, with Roon still able to use RAAT after the upsampling process. This is the topic of another thread I started.
Ah yes, HQP with Roon literally JUST WORKS - really good integration. The Roon experience is completely seamless this way, and even the Roon audio chain dot will tell you all that’s happening. This is good software engineering!
Used to use Foobar2000. I only keep it around nowadays for its DR Meter plugin. I’m sometimes curious about an album’s DR rating. But that’s about it.
My wet dream is to have Roon on my phone too to use in my car or on the go. In my dream Roon synchronizes the albums I choose to my phone while transcoding to the format of my choice (to save space), and of course offers the same seamless integration with Tidal, with the option to save offline albums/tracks/playlists like in the Tidal app.
Then I will need no other app ever!
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Polygamy here. I still use Jriver and Foobar quite often. Two reasons for that:
- SACD Iso files, flac image files.
I dont split them up. Simply too much work.
I rely on software for that purpose. - Raspberry Pi with Volumio “Endpoints”
Jriver allows me to use them to their full potential, up to 24/192.
Roon forces me to use them with the Airplay protocol, downsampling everything other than 16/44.1.
Roon is now running stable with my database (>500k). Its a pleasure and fun to walk through my collection with Roon.
Polygamous in the same way as the OP. Before Roon, I was a JRiver user so still use it to manage my library. CDs are ripped with dBoweramp and tags managed using JRiver and Yate. I do still use MinimServer with the Naim app as the sound is slightly better than Roon through the optical output of my MacBook. But I live in hope of Naim devices becoming Roon Ready.
Roon only for listening through my stereo system. For ripping CDs I am on dBpoweramp, and for ingesting the ripped files into my library and synching with iPhones/iPads/iPods still reverting to iTunes. Roon is simply watching my iTunes library.
All I am looking for is the integration of streaming radio and support for iPhone/iPad apps.
Cheers
Andreas
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I use Roon exclusively to play music at home. iTunes still points at the same library, but is only used for syncing to iThings. I am a bit of a collector, so my collection is documented properly in Music Collector, complete with disc scans, front and back scans, and as much information that I can find about my purchases. I hope one day that Roon could replace iTunes. I don’t have expectations that Roon would replace Music Collector. That’s fine by me.
Paul
Polygamy on windows, monogamy on mac.
I still use foobar2000 on my windows machine most of the time. It’s my day workhorse for almost all music related tasks. Roon comes in to play if I want to sit back in my working space (where my windows computer is located) and simply listen to some stuff and relax.
Roon is my player of choice on my macbook. The windows computer acts as the server. I use the laptop much more for pure listening purposes, connected to my stereo via an external DAC.
Until Roon introduces multi channel audio I will continue to use it in concert with JRiver. I also use JRiver to rip my CDs, I guess.