So the million dollar question to all you polygamy people: do you continue to add music to iTunes/JRiver/etc or do you use Roon’s folder indexing? I’ve been doing a little bit of both, which seems stupid.
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iTunes. …
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Add To iTunes Library using iTunes
Roon watches iTunes.
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Do you continue to create playlists in iTunes?
I need to find the right balance between Tidal, iTunes and Roon. Roon is the ultimate player for sure, but I haven’t decided how to deal with things like playlists. And albums in DSF format iTunes doesn’t deal with at all.
I liked the Smart Playlists iTunes created from me. Genius playlists were also pretty good. Otherwise I didn’t really make up playlists in iTunes, just listened to the ones iTunes created. Usually based up addition last month, last six month, last twelve months, etc.
In Roon however, I create playlists to collect up the titles I want to hear. Usually an entire album at a time. This is mainly due to the huge Tidal library that makes so much available. If I like the album, I’ll add it to my library. Every few days, I will clean out old playlists.
My answer would be neither. I rip my cds with dbPoweramp which tags them as they are ripped and then the rip is dumped in the music folder on a NAS. The NAS is watched by both JRiver and Roon. If I need to do any tagging it is done with mp3tag, never JRiver.
I started with iTunes, progressed to Amarra, then bought Audirvana (all on Mac), then bought JRiver on PC and later on MAC, tried HQPlayer as standalone and went back to Audirvana for best sound quality. Then found and bought Roon, loved the interface, but still preferred Audirvana sound quality. Then I figured out how to combine Tidal + Roon + HQPlayer, up-sampling everything to DSD128 (the highest my DAC can play) and using the Sonicorbiter as an NAA. Never looked back - I really believe this combination provides the best possible sound for those with DACs that benefit from up-sampling (and not all do, so I won’t speak for what sounds best on those DACS).
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Polygamy for me…I’ve used Audirvana, Amarra, and of course the ubiquitous iTunes to manage, listen and organize my music. About a year ago I discovered HQPlayer and for me, it was audio nirvana. However the front end library function was a challenge for me and I found myself dragging and dropping music files directly into HQPlayer. Geoff Armstrong on computer audiophile developed a script to integrate iTunes functionality with Player and although a little flaky it worked quite well. When I saw Roon I immediately became a lifetime member as I could see the potential for future integration with HQP as well as other user endpoints.
So for me Roon has replaced the iTunes/script combo as a front end for HQP and the addition of remotes and squeezebox support is a bonus. It has also provided my wife with an easy to use setup using the squeezebox systems I pulled out of storage. I think the biggest benefit I’ve derived from using Roon is it has completely expanded where I listen to music in my home and with the benefit of only one library to manage.
Polygamy at the moment.
Started with iTunes, that’s now history, progressed to Audirvana, dabbled with JRiver (for video and music). Now it’s Plex for video and streaming music to iDevices until the remote app on iOS can act as an endpoint. Roon for music throughout the house and workshop, except for multichannel which is still with Audirvana. On day hope to be a monogamist when Roon fix the bits I’m waiting for.
XLD for ripping CDs, DVD audio extractor for ripping DVDs, Makemkv for ripping bluray and a PS3 for ripping SACDs
More or less the same here: use dbPoweramp for ripping, dump the files into the Music library held on a server, and clean up tags using MediaMonkey.
Ditto
I use dbPowerAmp for ripping, then I tweak album art and tags (especially Genre) using MP3Tag. Mostly nowadays I am downloading FLAC files rather than physical CDs.
I use MP3Tag to create the standard filenames and write the files out into a standardized directory structure on a NAS.
I groom the library in J River, where it is easy to visualise the whole library: misspellings, poor album art (rank all library files by image size, for example), and occasionally decide to break out a genre. J River is also where I go to find all versions of a track or to create and edit playlists.
I find Roon’s attractive interface to be great for browsing but poor for accessing into the whole library - I am not sure that is clear. It seems to me that the spaciousness of Roon is visually appealing and rich but not for navigating around within the library over all.
For me Roon is limited to playback, once I have wrestled all the tag issues into submission.
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My situation is almost identical to @PNCD . Long-time JRiver user, switched to Roon as my main player now, but I still use JRiver to compare different versions of albums and to check out DR ratings etc. I also use mp3Tag with custom scripts for all my tagging. I’m not sure if Roon could provide all the functionality of the other two programs and still retain it’s lovely clean interface, so I’m happy enough using different programs that are optimised for each purpose.
Polygamy until streaming radio.
@Sloop_John_B Does this mean that you do not use Roon at all? It sounds as if you are staying with physical media.
10000% agree. I prefer a best of breed approach for each task rather than “a do a lot but master of none” approach.
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I’ll up that by another 10000%. I think Roon should focus on being a superb player and front end for your music library and streaming sources. I’m perfectly happy to continue to use JRiver to maintain my library.
I’ve been a Roon monogamist ever since I switched from Sooloos in May last year.
I guess I’m a simple man with simple needs. Or something quite like it.
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I would like to have a monogamous relationship with Roon, but there is still core functionality missing. I have a large 100,000+ library including vinyl rips, HD downloads, CDs, etc. I use Vinyl Studio for ripping vinyl, dBpoweramp for ripping CDs, JRiver to play to remote clients over my network and to burn playlists or albums, Sonos for my kids and wife because it works everywhere and they know how to use it, and Roon wherever I use a PC to feed the music system (with HQPlayer). It works, but I would love a Roon system that did everything I needed. Roon-ready DACs, an iPhone app, and ripping and burning capabilities would allow me to use Roon exclusively.