Roon Link bit.ly/3LiRHLE sign up for a trial and get 30 additional days for free --Tidal Deal bit.ly/3fQvNkq ----Crutchfield shop-links.co/cguPK8XEGmt ----Best Buy Deals shop-links.co/cf9yDZeYtUH -----amzn.to/3GkNaop ------CAM Store (New Products!) bit.ly/30Lgu4K -------apos.audio?sca_ref=552340.TY98BPcZ6P --------massdrop.7eer.net/qnOye5 ----------Amazon Unlimited Music and Disney Plus Free Trial amzn.to/3DRAVj9 ------------www.patreon.com/cheapaudioman
I signed up using this link. The trial expired and I was billed...no extra 30.free days. Anyone thinking of doing this, be sure to cancel before the 14 day trial is up if you aren't planning to stick with it...you very well may be charged for the first month.
Been a lifetime subscriber for nearly 3 years. Running a Roon Nucleus, streaming Qobuz and accessing my download and ripped FLAC library (Inc hi-res) on a NAS, playing on 4 Linn digital streamers, a Sonos 5 and various Apple devices. I love it and it’s improved a lot over the years. Keep up the good work, Roon!
Outstanding interview Randy. I love Roon and can't imagine not having it in my life. But I find it difficult to articulate my passion for it to others. This interview unearthed some very good ways to evangelize Roon. Thank you.
For sure I respect Roon despite it's cost (hardware - because at some point one will "need" dedicated hardware IMO - and software). I think that this kind of service should be paid!!! BUT I am very impressed that in this channel (CHEAP Audio Man) no one even mentions the LMS/Squeezelite "ecosystem"! From my point of view it's the "poor mans Roon" that integrates all of your libraries from Spotify to Qobuz and local files! It requires just an RPi and you are good yo go! Or you can go the dual computer way (server/renderer) like Roon. Yes it does not have the advanced machine learning of Roon but the things it can do (including the GUI) with the right plug-ins are quite impressive given that it's FOSS!! An indication that even Roon respects it is that they include Squeezelite support! I do not mention ways to implement it. It's easy to find out with a simple search. There are a few out there with no cost or with a small cost! My 2C! Keep up the good work!!!
Me too I first did not get what Roon was exactly... then I gave it a try and I cannot live without it now. I have my Roon Core installed on an Intel Node. It is a brillant application, smart, and very well thought in any aspects of it. An absolute must have for all music lovers and audiophiles.
This was very cool and as someone who finally has the time to get serious about my music listening and enjoyment I think I'll check ROON out. Thanks Randy and Ino for this interview that explains a bit and offers a trial that's worth signing up for.
I've been using roon for about a month and it the best I've used. It switches the sample rate on my DAC seamlessly between songs. Then there are all of the other features. But just the fact that it works flawlessly and consistently is what sold me on it immediately. No other player has ever done that for me.
@@jungtarcph It's a good move to move away from spotify as an audio enthusiast. Roon elevates the experience of quobuz to actually exceed spotify's feature set but with lossless and high res audio.
Been a Roon user for years and love it. Randy, you asked a lot of right questions I wish I had answers to a few years ago. Great job man. The difference between Roon tested and ready is rarely covered and the fact they cannot be grouped together. Got burned on Kef LS50W because I didn’t read the small print that it was tested instead of ready. It just said “works with Roon” so I fell for it. Worked well but could not group with my other 5 Roon Ready devices. All in all its very powerful and the multi-room/hardware possibilities is what sold me on it. That way you can have a main High Resolution rig when you want to do critical listening and yet have the whole house playing together with it when you need to.
@@nonkerdandy991 you can’t group them through their Roon Ready protocol (since Sonos isn’t). However Roon works with many protocols so you could group them in Roon using their Airplay 2 protocols.
@@audiorick841 I have had success using Airplay devices as Roon endpoints, not so much with Airplay2 devices. I purchased an Airplay2 soundbar and havent been able to actually get sound from it using Roon (though it appears connected to Roon). I read that Airplay2 works only with Apple devices, so Roon is out.
@@michaeldm8893 Too bad to hear that you couldn’t get it going. I run airplay and airplay 2 with Roon successfully. Ironically the same end devices do not cooperate running airplay reliably from my iPhone LOL I love Roon but I would not buy it to use exclusively with AirPlay. I think the real strength of it is in its RAAT protocol. For me it has been absolutely rock solid. The other protocols are fine but for me these are more for convenience if you want to run music into a secondary room or another level in your house or something.
@@audiorick841 Agreed. I'm an Apple user, but Airplay has always placed a "double demand" on the user's WiFi setup. First to reach the controlling device and then on to the playing device. I suspect it can create unnecessary dropouts and other basic weirdness. My main endpoint is FAR from setup ideally, being on the other end of the house and wireless. Roon doesn't care. If I get a temporary dropout it is quick to auto-correct. If that happens with Airplay or Bluesound I have to reboot something somewhere or wait. RAAT is brilliantly effective.
Thank you for all the great content, simplifying the abundance of hifi gear out there. Started to put together my first system, ordered the Aiyima A08 and got a good deal on some open box Elac UB52. Too be honest I was a little underwhelmed that the combo was a little flat and laid back. I decided to be brave and ordered three OPA1656 op-amps and cracked open the A08. Everything now sounds a lot more dynamic and the low end is better. I ordered the newly release Schiit Modi 3E. I don't think I have seen you mention as an alternative streamer, but I am an android guy, so I am using the usb output on the A08 directly to an NVIDIA shield tv and chromecasting Amazon Music from Pixel to it. Thanks again for your great content.
This surprises me as something advocated by the cheapaudioman from the perspective it's an expensive proposition for something that can be had in other guises for free / less money, albeit in a fragmented feature set. I get what the Roon proposition is - I'm not knocking it - just saying that a perpetual subscription for what it offers versus the cost of an actual streaming music subscription seems to be expensive/unnecessary. From January 2023, a monthly subscription is $14.99, annually it's around $149.88, and a lifetime subscription is $829.99. I'm guessing a lot of the demographic of this channel could either find better uses for $829.99 in their audio setup by improving the experience via upgraded equipment, or aren't able to afford $829 up-front, or $150 per year ongoing in the first place. Again, I do get the Roon proposition, I just wasn't expecting to see it reviewed here......
It feels like a subscription that is just a gateway to other subscriptions; the combined cost seems excessive. Even for audiophiles that do not own their own files, I'd tell them to spend that 50 bucks a month buying their favorite music every month. Or buying the cds used and ripping them themselves, and throwing the music on a usb drive or their phone it really is not that hard. Imagine taking that money and hitting up some used cd stores or ordering used online, for a lot of guys I doubt they have more than 100 albums they listen to regularly and they would have money left over for actual gear to listen to it through.
I love ROON so much I use it in the car. Using a NUC feeding a topping d10 and a 12.4 inch tablet with roon app. Amazing how well it works and sounds bypassing Android. Great video!
Welcome to my Roon rant. Been playing with it a while now. Roon is wonderfully hardware agnostic in a way nothing else is. It remains totally blindsided on the explosion of streaming services. And with both CDs and download sales tanking, this is a huge business risk for Roon. The clock is ticking on Roon's lost year (2021). Despite Enno's claim Roon is NOT focused on hi-res services, because Tidal and Qobuz also have lossy streams. Amazon HD, Apple Music, Deezer et all are not any different in this respect. If Spotify ever goes lossless, as promised ... watch out. Roon isn't ready, nor is it responding to users ASKING about any of this. Look at their forums for proof. Roon's incredible hardware freedom becomes completely kneecapped when the audiophile dad wants the family to enjoy in the fun, sending music to any device. If you live alone or don't live with other music lovers, Roon remains fantastic ... same as any other traditional audio nerd scenario. Streaming isn't my preferred way to consume music --- not by a long shot --- but it is the new-new and it is now a basic requirement for casual listeners who ARE BEING ASKED TO HELP PAY FOR DAD'S EXPENSIVE HOBBY. Happy wife, happy life. Are you gettin' me here, dudes? Got a subscription Family Plan for Tidal or Qobuz? Joke's on you: Roon wrongly treats each streaming login as a "new library," a fundamental lie. Witness: You have a Tidal or Qobuz login. Your wife or kid has their own Tidal or Qobuz login under the Family plan. They leave the house and play music using their login. Your Roon Tidal or Qobuz stream back home STOPS, and vice versa. Locked into a annual plan? Oops, THAT was a blunder. In contrast, my ripped CDs are not treated as separate libraries for whomever logs into Roon. Additional users need only launch a separate instance of the solitary, shared library, by selecting a song. This is BASIC database management 101. Qobuz or Tidal access should be no different, because each user request for a unique song still pulls from the solitary library controlled by Tidal/Qobuz, like a giant CD library in the sky. These are NOT separate libraries. They are merely separate instances. Huge difference. Feel free to place blame on the streaming service API if you must, but come CLEAN to users by acknowledging them. Fair?
Tomorrow I finish my 2-week free trial of ROON and yesterday I paid for a one-year subscription as I am convinced of its value. I set up a Roon Core on my sold Sony Vaio laptop. I upgraded to 8-GB of RAM, a new battery and a 1 TB Samsung external SSD. I’ve started ripping CDs again and I have a subscription to Tidal. My laptop is connected to a Bluesound Node 2021 with a digital coaxial cable to a Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ We’ll see, maybe upgrade to a Roon Nucleus next year. Great vid Randy👍👍
I didn't get it and struggled to get my Wiim Pro going but now... Wow! Love it. ❤. Great recs. Great radio, Wiim is more responsive and doesn't stumble on Tidal track intro. Every favorite, be it rental or owned at your fingers. Works well with two people trading off control. I'm pretty much sold on Roon now. Yes its money but enjoyment= value in some cases.
@@cheapaudioman with your work ethic? You'll be fine. Just dont make the mistake that some do, of being repetitive. From what I've seen. I don't see a problem. God bless you, brother. Good luck!
Great interview Randy. Thank you for the great questions and bringing up subjects that are more than explaining what it is and how it works. Time to start my trial.
Great interview. I haven't investigated Roon yet, as I don't normally stream, but now that I know what it is, I will have to check it out at some point in the future. Excellent way to get the brand out there and find new users.
This was great. Thanks, gents. I've been on Tidal for several years, but honestly have been scared off of Roon-- too tech, too much, too whatever. This interview has convinced me to just dip my toe in and give it a shot. As much as I love Tidal, it's lacking a ton of features--search sucks, sorting albums by genre, etc, etc.
I've been experimenting with Roon a little less than 36 hours, and it is already apparent to me this has soooooo much more to offer than my previous setup (Winamp on PC and large mp3 collection for the most part). This video was great to help me understand what Roon really has to offer... so thank you for the great interview. Eno seems like a very knowledgeable and cool dude, and I wish him and the company the best. I haven't committed to switching to Roon yet, but my initial impression is that I'll be signing up for at least the annual subscription if not the lifetime subscription for Roon. Edit: If raspberry pi's were available at their non-inflated price, i'd prob go that route. That being said, I'm considering the ifi zen stream, schiit stack, and kef ls50 metas as a kind of "high-end intro" build.
Randy, Great video! Excellent quality and production. Roon is amazing and I could not imagine not having it with my FLAC files combined with ny Tidal and Qobuz subscription. I use a PI, Ropieee and run the core on a Synology NAS. Very solid setup.
Great video as always. You are a nonchalant, informal interviewer. I really like Roon, but I need to learn way more on how to use it. This was a basic start. I would really like to have more detailed info on how to use DSP in Roon, especially EQ and Room Correction. I look forward to learning more. Thank you for the work that you do.
I use the built-in Room EQ that comes with my Denon, but I believe what they are referring to is Roon's ability to take the *output* from Room EQ Wizard (free software, but you have to buy a mic like the (recommended) UMIC-1), and apply it in a way that corrects for it via DSP in Roon... you can do similar by buying a mini-DSP, but I beleive, with Roon, the idea is you can save yourself that money on mini-DSPs (for as many systems as you have and want to Room EQ for), and let Roon apply the DSP correction at the core, before the signal arrives at the endpoint...
Fredric, each endpoint can have its own EQ assigned to it, and not just bass/treble. Each endpoint can have several parametric curves applied. And if you run them all in the house simultaneously, use a STRONG Roon server with an i7 or M1 CPU for that .
Roon is effectively positioned as a premium product delivering better metadata, possibly better ML, and more seamless multi-device connectivity. The UI is Google clean, but not targeted at the mass market. While audiophile vinyl can charge 5+ times standard new vinyl, it's not clear to me that the value prop of Roon is worth 2x a standard Tidal subscription unless it's a very specific use case. Which all means great product, but has limited scalability.
I'm still not convinced roon is what I want/need. It's not so much about the money as it is about the need for another middleware/computer/server to run in the background all the time. My idea of relaxed music listening is to press one button on the streamer's remote to start listening to my favorite playlist. The extra information is a great thing, but I wouldn't use this option that often in my everyday life.
I bought wharfdale small bookshell for $350, Meh, I returned them and bought Definte Technology D7's for $400 they are also small bookshelf speakers and they were keepers. I also took your advise and bought a emotiva mini Basx2 and I really like the amp, really good bang for your buck. Love your show for both your reviews and for entertainment value. You should do more jokes, you are funny.
Think that would ever happen? idk Apple is notorious for objecting to any standard outside of their own. FFS can't even get their highest quality on non-apple devices. I think they should, though. Another revenue stream.
Great interview. I have had Roon for a year and really like it. I have it on my desktop and stream to a Cocktail Audio N15 on my main audio system, a Bluesound Node 2i in my home theater and a Sonos Beam on another tv. I only use it to stream my library, not any streaming services.
Roon is the highly priced solution to not having BluOs, and the saviour of Arcam, Audiolab, Yamaha, Denon and Pioneer streamers. Very good software, and very disappointing that it needs to exist.
As a software engineer, I completely disagree. You get what you pay for and as an extensive Roon user I feel it is THE centerpiece value product in my home that leaves me free to pursue really any of the high value hardware I want to without any worry about compatibility or restrictions to a hardware vendor’s walled garden. Roon saves me money with every new hardware choice I make and magnifies my enjoyment of those purchases with a constant stream of great new music tailored to my tastes.
I can't understand the need for this to exist. Even if you have 50 thousand albums Tidal/ Qobuz have millions more. Seems to me that they appeal to listeners with large collections that they think they need and can't part with. If you can't be bothered to get up and insert a cd or play some vinyl, why go to the bother to set all this up and rip all your music when like I said it's mostly covered from the main steaming services. If it's not just buy the download. If Roon came out 10 years ago it would have had a place. As of now its obsolete. I collect vinyl and CDs of only the music I like. When i don't want to physically get up and change the music I use Tidal/Spotify. So why do I need to buy another subscription that costs nearly as much as a streaming service full of content? Just because I can't be arsed to change my music. 👀🤷♂️ Biggest take I got from this was the bit where he mentioned about customers who don't have any content and only use the streaming side. He said having 60 million songs on a steaming service can be daunting. So essentially if you have zero content to add in you library you are paying for a learning service that's basically already on the streaming services.
I like ROON but 12.99$/mo for me is just insane, it's more then a Tidal subscription. Like everything in "audiophilia" they are abusing the market for they're gain...imagine if Plex did this ( mandatory 12.99$ sub. ), no one would use it. Guys if you are not super rich get something with blueOS ( node, powernode, c700...etc ), I have a NAD C700 and I'm super satisfied with blueOS.
Ive been on the fence about trying roon due to cost After watching the video last night I pulled the trigger signed up for the trial. I downloaded and installed the app on my laptop as the core in < 5 min. It immediately started cataloging my music files. Within 10 mins I had the app on my tablet and it immediately connected to the core. No ip addresses, no connections to set up, it just did it. Connected to my qobuz account seamlessly. Love the fact that it doesn't care where the music is, it just plays it. Gonna be hard to give it up in a month.
Lol and Tidal is an absolute no-go. If they drop rap music suggestions and MQA (and even make transparent their stream codecs and quality) , I would give it a try. MQA is a scam.
Trying to figure out why you couldn’t use it with an IPad Pro these days. I’m sure I would love it as I’ve always been about reading liner notes. Great interview boss. 👍
I love room correction. I've just installed nice little speakers in my bedroom, and I was having to sit in the middle of my bed to get the proper balance. A quick tweak in speaker distance and it's all sorted. I just wish the extensions were easier to sort out. I really want that automatic CD ripping working on my system.
Use Roon for a long time; in fact, the description fee was cheaper, and as I have over 1200 CD and much more down loaded various music files format, room had no problems to play them all. I can connect to BluOs as well, which is very convenient if you like to stream into various rooms. I have most of my music on two exctential hard drives, each has8TB.
I was going to try them out on their free trial but they require your credit card info to start. I don't give that info to anyone unless I purchase. I'll pass and stick with Spotify. I like Tidal but they have limits on their album collections Unlike Spotify nearly has everything.
Have Roon lifetime subscription for years now. Use it everyday up to 12 hours a day in my home office. Would hate to live without it. 9 endpoints throughout the house. If you like streaming and have ripped and downloaded music, you ought to give it a try. The integration of owned/streamed music, UI, tremendously reliable function, ease of setup/use, algorithms, hardware/software versatility, corporate commitment, great community, etc. offer the most engaging non-live music experience I know.
I'm using roon at the moment, for a little while with the 3 month trail of tidal with mqa. Tidal makes a difference compared to spotify. Roon makes it sound great too, but I don't know if Room is worth a monthly payment. I rarely use the group room feature and I kinda hardly listen to my mp3s as tidal sounds better 😂
Roon is great. But I left Tidal, then I left Quobuz, so, I had to leave roon. Now I'm on Amazon and have a spare NUC for sale or waiting for roon to incorporate Amazon.
This is THE major business risk today, for Roon. They've wrapped themselves up in local liberties and 2 services AND all with the assumption of a single-user experience (if subscribing to streaming.)
Thanks for the great video! Comes at a great time for me. I am currently running 3 raspberry pis using volumio for multi room playback of the same songs from my nas. Works. Tidal connect is kinda finiky. Wondering if Roon would be a better way to go and use RoPieee.
Maybe someone can help me here. I want to pick up a decent streamer, maybe look harder at Roon, but I can’t justify spending hundreds of dollars on something that doesn’t support multiple accounts for Tidal. Only two of us in the house, but that’s a dealbreaker, and absurd to me it doesn’t seem to be a thing. As far as I can see, Roon isn’t interested in supporting that, or the Blue streamers. Any ideas who does?
Thank you for the video but I have a question... So, whether it's Sense (Innuos) OR Roon, both of them are just Software... Meaning, it's about interface qualities of life NOT sound quality, correct?? Roon doesn't make "Improvement" on sound like switching USB cables can or upgrading you power can or music streamer in general... Please advise. Thank you
I totally get Roon but as the sort of person who doesn't even have playlists on any of my digital music services, I suspect that it wasn't built for me.
If Roon integrated with Amazon Music HD and Apple Music, it would be worth considering because they are my main streaming services and I would love to have all of Roon's liner notes and track information available. However, until it does, it doesn't make sense for me. I also do not really comprehend the Roon core concept at all and how that works. For example, I do not know what a "NAS" is or how to integrate a storage device with my system. That seems like the only good option since I would not want to have a laptop running the Roon software on it constantly.
I still really don't see the point of it, if you're a stream person. It was mentioned that the advantage of roon for streaming is: 1. that you get greater in depth background info about an album (I'd really question that in and of itself, Tidal for example has full credits, as well as Album review - do I really want to pay $12.50 a month on top of my Tidal sub just to get a little bit more info on a record, that can easily be found via google?) and 2. Roon has that sense of album "ownership" by cataloguing your streams into "my albums"? Erm...what streamer service doesn't do that already? All "my albums" in Tidal are in the albums section. I don't understand why Roon thinks this is a unique feature, or did I miss something? I totally get why someone might find roon useful if they already have a huge archive of FLACs and indeed want to consolidate it into a nice user interface, with the further potential to then dip their toe into streaming and have everything all combined into a single app, but for streaming users alone it seems like you're pretty much paying a ton of cash just to have a different "skin" on your user experience. One thing that bugs me about Tidal (compared to Spotify) is its search function - you have to be very exacting otherwise Tidal won't find what you want. Spotify is way better as I can make mistakes or guesstimate and it almost always understand what I'm searching for. So to that end, Roon might/might not be better than Tidal, but would that alone entice me to get roon? Nope. What I would really dig, would be a leasing deal, rather like how we buy our internet subscription and get a router from the provider. If Roon and Tidal collaborated, and I "lease" a Roon core hub thing, and you could choose your streaming service (Tidal etc) as part of your monthly plan - i.e the hardware and stream subscription is combined and you pay something like $20 per month for the whole shebang. THAT would be an interesting proposition.
No mention of how Roon provides no tech support. They expect other users to help you solve your problem on the forums or you have to spend hours reading thru meandering threads to try to solve the issue yourself. Roon's support, or lack there of, is a glaring shortcoming of the software.
I was hoping this interview would clearly explain what Roon is, how it works, and what the difference is between it and other music services. I'm still a bit fuzzy.
@@thenexthobby So what's the difference between listening to a song you ripped from a cd to your roon server vs streaming a song ripped by Qobuz or Tidal onto their server? I have a CD transport and get that it's (at least theoretically) a higher quality source than streaming a digital file, but I don't understand what difference it makes where a file is streamed from. I'm not trying to be snarky, I legit don't get it. Thanks.
@@stevenmichael7770 Fantastic question Steven, even though I was referring to something other than sound quality. There may not be any difference in sound whatsoever. Or there may be a difference you'd never know about unless you had the opportunity to compare how each sounds. More practically, streaming services are at the mercy of the artist or their label for supplying content. Old content has a way of getting re-released in ways that are not always improvements. And so the service isn't going to keep 10 versions of Dark Side of the Moon online, people would lose their minds and rightly so. I've experienced this with R.E.M. and The Who titles, for example. A new producer comes along and decides a new mix is best, or a "re-master" that isn't automagically better than before. Only an eBay purchased CD is gonna save you there. (or, the original LP ... )
@@stevenmichael7770 Here's what my comment was about: Roon allows freedom of hardware choices. That's its strength, although they like to talk about music discovery and so on too, which only really kicks in if you connect a streaming service to it I suppose. If you have just one stereo for one room, hardware freedom won't matter. But for example, I can sit with my wireless laptop and send music to a connected DAC for headphones or on to speakers and not worry about the signal chain screwing it up. Every alternative "player" makes hardware demands (purchases) to ensure that happens. I have a Bluesound Powernode. The BluOS (phone or computer) replicates a slice of what Roon does, on a very limited scale albeit with far reduced feature set and execution success. And of course I'm locked in to Bluesound hardware to use it. Bluesound stuff is insanely attractive, but if I were to declare it (or Sonos) functionally or theoretically just as good I'd be forced to ignore all sorts of attributes Roon has. None of this is "best." They all annoy me for different reasons and that very much includes Roon. A CD player running a traditional sound system might still be best! Once we begin down the rabbit hole of software no one seems to get all the puzzle pieces correct. Super frustrating.
Ok why Roon as part of CHEAP audio? Now I use both Roon and LMS and I agree Roon is better by OMG it costs twice Tidal subscription.... If I buy it I will spend price of good (ish) audio equipment I mean 700$ I don't want to pay for it every month or even year :/
I have one huge issue with switching streaming services. As a 47 year old entry-level Audiophile, I have Spotify as my current streaming service and I hate the playback quality of the music. It would be a pain in the ass to switch service with the multiple playlists i have (thousands of songs). I wish these lossless streaming services would allow you to import playlist. If they create this feature, I would be sold.
I think maybe I'm confused, but aside from Roon being a large media library, it isn't much else? Like,if you use Spotify or Tidal, chances are you already own a device you can stream from and or stream to, so in general, Roon is an extra addition that basically eats your data and displays it to the screen. On top of that, the ML (machine learning) concept I'm not sure how it can be implemented with Tidal, or the like, does it find songs similar to it through Tidal or x streaming service? I haven't used it so all these questions are actually legit questions, and to top it off, I think I'll try the trial to see what I think, even if I'm not an audiophile, I always find it tech interesting in all shapes and sizes.
Here are a few things to keep in mind, and yes your questions are great. When you listen through a subscription service's app or web page, you are now forced to use the hardware running that software. It might not be either good sounding nor a good experience. With Roon, you could control the music via phone or computer but the music isn't coming from the phone or computer. It could be coming from a server and be sent straight to whatever makes sound. All sort of choices now open up, but I won't claim that's important to you. Subscription services do not curate, despite what they claim. They'll even host bootlegs and other dreck. Roon will curate what the subscription service provides by default, and yes you can override and yes it looks at all the stuff you never browsed yourself to offer suggestions. Their community forum is great for digging into use cases and scenarios.
Ifi zen dac or schiit modi/magni stack. Which sounds better and which has better soundstage. Main use music, games and movies and has anyone listen to Fosi Audio Q4 very cheap and very good Amazon reviews.
not that I'm anxious to add another service on top of Apple MUSIC in my HT and my SONOS setup; but where is ROON in supporting spatial audio (Dolby Atmos, SONY 360)???? To me, without this, it's a non starter.
i do enjoy my master tidal sub. I've been using Bluetooth from a killer ROG laptop to a new,ish Yamaha receiver but struggle with bluetooth to send flac files to the receiver,, at least from this crazy laptop.. from my phone to the receiver,, tada signal info shows flac,, any suggestion's ? driver and looked at the o.e.m. bluetooth driver and cannot find what codecs it uses,, now sometimes when jupitar and mars line up i do transmit and receive flac files from the laptop. why the double lkj, is the phone so much easier to do this .. are there generic bluetooth drivers that give one the option to choose what codec to use ? thanks
I see many evangelists for Roon, but it’s such a confusing product. I honestly don’t know what I need to get, or understand what works with it. I use Apple Music with Sonos a lot because of my phone and their music locker. I can’t figure out if Sonos will work with Roon. It strikes me as a product that will just frustrate me. Hopefully it matures into something that can make a clearer value proposition
I don’t see the added value of Roon vs say Bluesound or Aurender’s control app unless you have a megaton of music files. More importantly, Does Roon add any coloration to a system?
A library's size doesn't really have anything to do with whatever Roon does or does not provide. There's a free trial; you can hear how it "sounds." I have Bluesound hardware. The BluOS controller isn't comparable except in the most rudimentary ways. And .... with Roon I'm not limited by Bluesound hardware, right? Will an Aurender setup send music to hardware Roon can? I'm not saying "you" or anyone "needs" any of this.
Hi great video! I’ve been using Roon on my Mac and MacBook Pro for awhile now. I have been able to download the Audeze presets on it in the dsp settings and I’m wondering if there is a way to get the oratory1990 eq settings down loaded on Roon using Mac and MacBook Pro?
You can just recreate them yourself, right? Frequency/Q/amplitude ... and adjust to your preference. oratory1990 publishes those values as starting points, not "recipes" that much be followed.
Unfortunately when I have asked myself what is Roon in the past the answer I've come to is overpriced. Especially if you are throwing in a the cost of a Tidal subscript.
to each their own. I spent way more than I spend on streaming when I bought CDs constantly. and for me it was fun to make a core and do the pis. not for everyone I can understand that
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-------apos.audio?sca_ref=552340.TY98BPcZ6P
--------massdrop.7eer.net/qnOye5
----------Amazon Unlimited Music and Disney Plus Free Trial amzn.to/3DRAVj9
------------www.patreon.com/cheapaudioman
I signed up using this link. The trial expired and I was billed...no extra 30.free days. Anyone thinking of doing this, be sure to cancel before the 14 day trial is up if you aren't planning to stick with it...you very well may be charged for the first month.
The friend referral link with the additional 30 days no longer works. Has it expired? Could you please post a fresh link that will work? Thanks!
Been a lifetime subscriber for nearly 3 years. Running a Roon Nucleus, streaming Qobuz and accessing my download and ripped FLAC library (Inc hi-res) on a NAS, playing on 4 Linn digital streamers, a Sonos 5 and various Apple devices. I love it and it’s improved a lot over the years. Keep up the good work, Roon!
Outstanding interview Randy. I love Roon and can't imagine not having it in my life. But I find it difficult to articulate my passion for it to others. This interview unearthed some very good ways to evangelize Roon. Thank you.
For sure I respect Roon despite it's cost (hardware - because at some point one will "need" dedicated hardware IMO - and software). I think that this kind of service should be paid!!!
BUT I am very impressed that in this channel (CHEAP Audio Man) no one even mentions the LMS/Squeezelite "ecosystem"! From my point of view it's the "poor mans Roon" that integrates all of your libraries from Spotify to Qobuz and local files! It requires just an RPi and you are good yo go! Or you can go the dual computer way (server/renderer) like Roon. Yes it does not have the advanced machine learning of Roon but the things it can do (including the GUI) with the right plug-ins are quite impressive given that it's FOSS!!
An indication that even Roon respects it is that they include Squeezelite support!
I do not mention ways to implement it. It's easy to find out with a simple search. There are a few out there with no cost or with a small cost!
My 2C!
Keep up the good work!!!
Me too I first did not get what Roon was exactly... then I gave it a try and I cannot live without it now. I have my Roon Core installed on an Intel Node. It is a brillant application, smart, and very well thought in any aspects of it. An absolute must have for all music lovers and audiophiles.
This was very cool and as someone who finally has the time to get serious about my music listening and enjoyment I think I'll check ROON out.
Thanks Randy and Ino for this interview that explains a bit and offers a trial that's worth signing up for.
I've been using roon for about a month and it the best I've used. It switches the sample rate on my DAC seamlessly between songs. Then there are all of the other features. But just the fact that it works flawlessly and consistently is what sold me on it immediately. No other player has ever done that for me.
I am really FED up with Volumio - it is so unstable. But I wish Roon had Spotify....
@@jungtarcph It's a good move to move away from spotify as an audio enthusiast. Roon elevates the experience of quobuz to actually exceed spotify's feature set but with lossless and high res audio.
Been a Roon user for years and love it. Randy, you asked a lot of right questions I wish I had answers to a few years ago. Great job man. The difference between Roon tested and ready is rarely covered and the fact they cannot be grouped together. Got burned on Kef LS50W because I didn’t read the small print that it was tested instead of ready. It just said “works with Roon” so I fell for it. Worked well but could not group with my other 5 Roon Ready devices.
All in all its very powerful and the multi-room/hardware possibilities is what sold me on it. That way you can have a main High Resolution rig when you want to do critical listening and yet have the whole house playing together with it when you need to.
Ah, interesting, so Roon can't group Bluesound with Sonos? That's a deal-breaker for me
@@nonkerdandy991 you can’t group them through their Roon Ready protocol (since Sonos isn’t). However Roon works with many protocols so you could group them in Roon using their Airplay 2 protocols.
@@audiorick841 I have had success using Airplay devices as Roon endpoints, not so much with Airplay2 devices. I purchased an Airplay2 soundbar and havent been able to actually get sound from it using Roon (though it appears connected to Roon). I read that Airplay2 works only with Apple devices, so Roon is out.
@@michaeldm8893 Too bad to hear that you couldn’t get it going. I run airplay and airplay 2 with Roon successfully. Ironically the same end devices do not cooperate running airplay reliably from my iPhone LOL
I love Roon but I would not buy it to use exclusively with AirPlay. I think the real strength of it is in its RAAT protocol. For me it has been absolutely rock solid. The other protocols are fine but for me these are more for convenience if you want to run music into a secondary room or another level in your house or something.
@@audiorick841 Agreed. I'm an Apple user, but Airplay has always placed a "double demand" on the user's WiFi setup. First to reach the controlling device and then on to the playing device. I suspect it can create unnecessary dropouts and other basic weirdness.
My main endpoint is FAR from setup ideally, being on the other end of the house and wireless. Roon doesn't care. If I get a temporary dropout it is quick to auto-correct. If that happens with Airplay or Bluesound I have to reboot something somewhere or wait. RAAT is brilliantly effective.
Thank you for all the great content, simplifying the abundance of hifi gear out there. Started to put together my first system, ordered the Aiyima A08 and got a good deal on some open box Elac UB52. Too be honest I was a little underwhelmed that the combo was a little flat and laid back. I decided to be brave and ordered three OPA1656 op-amps and cracked open the A08. Everything now sounds a lot more dynamic and the low end is better. I ordered the newly release Schiit Modi 3E. I don't think I have seen you mention as an alternative streamer, but I am an android guy, so I am using the usb output on the A08 directly to an NVIDIA shield tv and chromecasting Amazon Music from Pixel to it. Thanks again for your great content.
This surprises me as something advocated by the cheapaudioman from the perspective it's an expensive proposition for something that can be had in other guises for free / less money, albeit in a fragmented feature set.
I get what the Roon proposition is - I'm not knocking it - just saying that a perpetual subscription for what it offers versus the cost of an actual streaming music subscription seems to be expensive/unnecessary.
From January 2023, a monthly subscription is $14.99, annually it's around $149.88, and a lifetime subscription is $829.99.
I'm guessing a lot of the demographic of this channel could either find better uses for $829.99 in their audio setup by improving the experience via upgraded equipment, or aren't able to afford $829 up-front, or $150 per year ongoing in the first place.
Again, I do get the Roon proposition, I just wasn't expecting to see it reviewed here......
It feels like a subscription that is just a gateway to other subscriptions; the combined cost seems excessive. Even for audiophiles that do not own their own files, I'd tell them to spend that 50 bucks a month buying their favorite music every month. Or buying the cds used and ripping them themselves, and throwing the music on a usb drive or their phone it really is not that hard. Imagine taking that money and hitting up some used cd stores or ordering used online, for a lot of guys I doubt they have more than 100 albums they listen to regularly and they would have money left over for actual gear to listen to it through.
I love ROON so much I use it in the car. Using a NUC feeding a topping d10 and a 12.4 inch tablet with roon app. Amazing how well it works and sounds bypassing Android. Great video!
That's awesome, but how does Roon talk to headquarters? Are you saying it's completely offline?
The tablet is 5g and provide the "network". I recently switched to a custom PC and use ROCK and tether it with a Ethernet adapter.
Welcome to my Roon rant. Been playing with it a while now.
Roon is wonderfully hardware agnostic in a way nothing else is. It remains totally blindsided on the explosion of streaming services. And with both CDs and download sales tanking, this is a huge business risk for Roon. The clock is ticking on Roon's lost year (2021).
Despite Enno's claim Roon is NOT focused on hi-res services, because Tidal and Qobuz also have lossy streams. Amazon HD, Apple Music, Deezer et all are not any different in this respect. If Spotify ever goes lossless, as promised ... watch out. Roon isn't ready, nor is it responding to users ASKING about any of this. Look at their forums for proof.
Roon's incredible hardware freedom becomes completely kneecapped when the audiophile dad wants the family to enjoy in the fun, sending music to any device. If you live alone or don't live with other music lovers, Roon remains fantastic ... same as any other traditional audio nerd scenario.
Streaming isn't my preferred way to consume music --- not by a long shot --- but it is the new-new and it is now a basic requirement for casual listeners who ARE BEING ASKED TO HELP PAY FOR DAD'S EXPENSIVE HOBBY. Happy wife, happy life. Are you gettin' me here, dudes?
Got a subscription Family Plan for Tidal or Qobuz? Joke's on you: Roon wrongly treats each streaming login as a "new library," a fundamental lie. Witness: You have a Tidal or Qobuz login. Your wife or kid has their own Tidal or Qobuz login under the Family plan. They leave the house and play music using their login. Your Roon Tidal or Qobuz stream back home STOPS, and vice versa. Locked into a annual plan? Oops, THAT was a blunder.
In contrast, my ripped CDs are not treated as separate libraries for whomever logs into Roon. Additional users need only launch a separate instance of the solitary, shared library, by selecting a song. This is BASIC database management 101.
Qobuz or Tidal access should be no different, because each user request for a unique song still pulls from the solitary library controlled by Tidal/Qobuz, like a giant CD library in the sky. These are NOT separate libraries. They are merely separate instances. Huge difference.
Feel free to place blame on the streaming service API if you must, but come CLEAN to users by acknowledging them. Fair?
I was very happy to hear that aggregating other HD providers is part of the project.
Tomorrow I finish my 2-week free trial of ROON and yesterday I paid for a one-year subscription as I am convinced of its value. I set up a Roon Core on my sold Sony Vaio laptop. I upgraded to 8-GB of RAM, a new battery and a 1 TB Samsung external SSD. I’ve started ripping CDs again and I have a subscription to Tidal. My laptop is connected to a Bluesound Node 2021 with a digital coaxial cable to a Mytek Brooklyn DAC+
We’ll see, maybe upgrade to a Roon Nucleus next year.
Great vid Randy👍👍
I didn't get it and struggled to get my Wiim Pro going but now... Wow! Love it. ❤. Great recs. Great radio, Wiim is more responsive and doesn't stumble on Tidal track intro. Every favorite, be it rental or owned at your fingers. Works well with two people trading off control. I'm pretty much sold on Roon now. Yes its money but enjoyment= value in some cases.
Hardest working man in youtube land! Thank you Randy for quality and quantity of content!
Thanks, man
Agreed! He never slows down! Always on the cutting edge!
@@stephenstevens6573 well I just pulled the trigger and went full time so I’m hoping to ramp it even more
@@cheapaudioman with your work ethic? You'll be fine. Just dont make the mistake that some do, of being repetitive. From what I've seen. I don't see a problem. God bless you, brother. Good luck!
@@cheapaudioman those Sith Audio sponsorships kicking in hard.
Great interview Randy. Thank you for the great questions and bringing up subjects that are more than explaining what it is and how it works. Time to start my trial.
Rando-Calrissian! Thanks for this great interview with Roon! The video feature alone will make me give this another shot.
Randy you outdid yourself this is my favorite video you’ve done today
Great interview. I haven't investigated Roon yet, as I don't normally stream, but now that I know what it is, I will have to check it out at some point in the future. Excellent way to get the brand out there and find new users.
This was great. Thanks, gents. I've been on Tidal for several years, but honestly have been scared off of Roon-- too tech, too much, too whatever. This interview has convinced me to just dip my toe in and give it a shot. As much as I love Tidal, it's lacking a ton of features--search sucks, sorting albums by genre, etc, etc.
I've been experimenting with Roon a little less than 36 hours, and it is already apparent to me this has soooooo much more to offer than my previous setup (Winamp on PC and large mp3 collection for the most part).
This video was great to help me understand what Roon really has to offer... so thank you for the great interview.
Eno seems like a very knowledgeable and cool dude, and I wish him and the company the best.
I haven't committed to switching to Roon yet, but my initial impression is that I'll be signing up for at least the annual subscription if not the lifetime subscription for Roon.
Edit: If raspberry pi's were available at their non-inflated price, i'd prob go that route. That being said, I'm considering the ifi zen stream, schiit stack, and kef ls50 metas as a kind of "high-end intro" build.
the schiit stack is a beast
I’ve been put off by the cost of Roon for a while but it’s always nice to get the creator’s vision laid out in plain language.
Randy, Great video! Excellent quality and production. Roon is amazing and I could not imagine not having it with my FLAC files combined with ny Tidal and Qobuz subscription. I use a PI, Ropieee and run the core on a Synology NAS. Very solid setup.
This was really great. I get Roon now and why I would want to consider it. Great interview, thanks!
Great video as always. You are a nonchalant, informal interviewer. I really like Roon, but I need to learn way more on how to use it. This was a basic start. I would really like to have more detailed info on how to use DSP in Roon, especially EQ and Room Correction. I look forward to learning more. Thank you for the work that you do.
I use the built-in Room EQ that comes with my Denon, but I believe what they are referring to is Roon's ability to take the *output* from Room EQ Wizard (free software, but you have to buy a mic like the (recommended) UMIC-1), and apply it in a way that corrects for it via DSP in Roon... you can do similar by buying a mini-DSP, but I beleive, with Roon, the idea is you can save yourself that money on mini-DSPs (for as many systems as you have and want to Room EQ for), and let Roon apply the DSP correction at the core, before the signal arrives at the endpoint...
Fredric, each endpoint can have its own EQ assigned to it, and not just bass/treble. Each endpoint can have several parametric curves applied. And if you run them all in the house simultaneously, use a STRONG Roon server with an i7 or M1 CPU for that .
That was an amazing Convo. What a great guy and amazing story .
Convo? 😖
Roon is effectively positioned as a premium product delivering better metadata, possibly better ML, and more seamless multi-device connectivity. The UI is Google clean, but not targeted at the mass market. While audiophile vinyl can charge 5+ times standard new vinyl, it's not clear to me that the value prop of Roon is worth 2x a standard Tidal subscription unless it's a very specific use case. Which all means great product, but has limited scalability.
I agree, it does have limited scalability, but not for the reasons or comparisons you cited.
Love me some Roon! Great one guys!
Love Roon, use it daily. As I upgrade my stereo I always look to see if the new purchase is “Roon Ready.”
Great interview, good questions, audio, and video quality.
I'm still not convinced roon is what I want/need. It's not so much about the money as it is about the need for another middleware/computer/server to run in the background all the time. My idea of relaxed music listening is to press one button on the streamer's remote to start listening to my favorite playlist. The extra information is a great thing, but I wouldn't use this option that often in my everyday life.
I bought wharfdale small bookshell for $350, Meh, I returned them and bought Definte Technology D7's for $400 they are also small bookshelf speakers and they were keepers. I also took your advise and bought a emotiva mini Basx2 and I really like the amp, really good bang for your buck. Love your show for both your reviews and for entertainment value. You should do more jokes, you are funny.
Great video Randy, thanks Roon.
As soon as Roon integrates with Apple Music…I’m IN!!
Think that would ever happen? idk Apple is notorious for objecting to any standard outside of their own. FFS can't even get their highest quality on non-apple devices.
I think they should, though. Another revenue stream.
Thanks Randy! I’ve always wondered what exactly Roon did.
Great interview. I have had Roon for a year and really like it. I have it on my desktop and stream to a Cocktail Audio N15 on my main audio system, a Bluesound Node 2i in my home theater and a Sonos Beam on another tv. I only use it to stream my library, not any streaming services.
i signed up through your Link for Roon trial but its not a month, just 14 days...wheres my month? lol
Me too
Excellent, been really waiting for someone to do this video. Trying it out now :)
Ok, roon is f'n cool. Thanks again
Roon is the highly priced solution to not having BluOs, and the saviour of Arcam, Audiolab, Yamaha, Denon and Pioneer streamers.
Very good software, and very disappointing that it needs to exist.
As a software engineer, I completely disagree. You get what you pay for and as an extensive Roon user I feel it is THE centerpiece value product in my home that leaves me free to pursue really any of the high value hardware I want to without any worry about compatibility or restrictions to a hardware vendor’s walled garden. Roon saves me money with every new hardware choice I make and magnifies my enjoyment of those purchases with a constant stream of great new music tailored to my tastes.
I have BluOS (Powernode) and while there are similarities, Roon can do things BluOS and Bluesound hardware can't.
You're really the best, Randy!
you are
I can't understand the need for this to exist. Even if you have 50 thousand albums Tidal/ Qobuz have millions more. Seems to me that they appeal to listeners with large collections that they think they need and can't part with. If you can't be bothered to get up and insert a cd or play some vinyl, why go to the bother to set all this up and rip all your music when like I said it's mostly covered from the main steaming services. If it's not just buy the download.
If Roon came out 10 years ago it would have had a place. As of now its obsolete.
I collect vinyl and CDs of only the music I like. When i don't want to physically get up and change the music I use Tidal/Spotify. So why do I need to buy another subscription that costs nearly as much as a streaming service full of content? Just because I can't be arsed to change my music. 👀🤷♂️
Biggest take I got from this was the bit where he mentioned about customers who don't have any content and only use the streaming side. He said having 60 million songs on a steaming service can be daunting. So essentially if you have zero content to add in you library you are paying for a learning service that's basically already on the streaming services.
Well said 😸
I like ROON but 12.99$/mo for me is just insane, it's more then a Tidal subscription. Like everything in "audiophilia" they are abusing the market for they're gain...imagine if Plex did this ( mandatory 12.99$ sub. ), no one would use it.
Guys if you are not super rich get something with blueOS ( node, powernode, c700...etc ), I have a NAD C700 and I'm super satisfied with blueOS.
Ive been on the fence about trying roon due to cost After watching the video last night I pulled the trigger signed up for the trial. I downloaded and installed the app on my laptop as the core in < 5 min. It immediately started cataloging my music files. Within 10 mins I had the app on my tablet and it immediately connected to the core. No ip addresses, no connections to set up, it just did it. Connected to my qobuz account seamlessly. Love the fact that it doesn't care where the music is, it just plays it. Gonna be hard to give it up in a month.
it's pretty slick
Awesome stuff! Thank you, once again Randy.
Would love to try Roon if they supported Amazon music. I'd even sign up if Qobuz was available in Canada.
Lol and Tidal is an absolute no-go. If they drop rap music suggestions and MQA (and even make transparent their stream codecs and quality) , I would give it a try. MQA is a scam.
@@wabbasMEpern Yeah, too much rap music all over the place. MQA you can easily not use:)
Why on earth would I pay $12 a month for a software? Just ludicrous!
Trying to figure out why you couldn’t use it with an IPad Pro these days. I’m sure I would love it as I’ve always been about reading liner notes. Great interview boss. 👍
I love room correction. I've just installed nice little speakers in my bedroom, and I was having to sit in the middle of my bed to get the proper balance. A quick tweak in speaker distance and it's all sorted. I just wish the extensions were easier to sort out. I really want that automatic CD ripping working on my system.
Amazon Music HD Please. Only thing holding me back.
Love the interview videos!
Use Roon for a long time; in fact, the description fee was cheaper, and as I have over 1200 CD and much more down loaded various music files format, room had no problems to play them all. I can connect to BluOs as well, which is very convenient if you like to stream into various rooms. I have most of my music on two exctential hard drives, each has8TB.
Great Interview! Bravo👏👏👏
he said when people started shifting from CDs to digital? WTF?
Very helpful and educational video thanks heaps from Australia
Glad you enjoyed it
This was very informative!
Elac has a pair of 4 inch passive bookshelf speakers for $68 on Amazon. I just hooked mine up and they are quite impressive.
Helped clarify what Roon is. 👍
I was going to try them out on their free trial but they require your credit card info to start. I don't give that info to anyone unless I purchase. I'll pass and stick with Spotify. I like Tidal but they have limits on their album collections Unlike Spotify nearly has everything.
Have Roon lifetime subscription for years now. Use it everyday up to 12 hours a day in my home office. Would hate to live without it. 9 endpoints throughout the house. If you like streaming and have ripped and downloaded music, you ought to give it a try. The integration of owned/streamed music, UI, tremendously reliable function, ease of setup/use, algorithms, hardware/software versatility, corporate commitment, great community, etc. offer the most engaging non-live music experience I know.
There are already a few of these comments already. But yeah, if Roon can intergrate with Apple Music I’m in.
I'm using roon at the moment, for a little while with the 3 month trail of tidal with mqa. Tidal makes a difference compared to spotify. Roon makes it sound great too, but I don't know if Room is worth a monthly payment. I rarely use the group room feature and I kinda hardly listen to my mp3s as tidal sounds better 😂
love ROON more and more, just wish the extensions weren't so complicated to integrate
I Just Eqd my Porta Pros - I'm love again... :D - Tks Roon and Jaakko Pasanen EQ database in Github
Roon is great. But I left Tidal, then I left Quobuz, so, I had to leave roon. Now I'm on Amazon and have a spare NUC for sale or waiting for roon to incorporate Amazon.
This is THE major business risk today, for Roon. They've wrapped themselves up in local liberties and 2 services AND all with the assumption of a single-user experience (if subscribing to streaming.)
I bought a used i7 Mac Mini for $100 and dedicated it to roon, so its my rooncore, sits in a corner and don’t even have a monitor connected to it!
Dear both seems i love this as explained can you guide how to get this offer?
Would have been interesting to learn when (if ever) Hegel will be Roon ready.
Thanks for the great video! Comes at a great time for me. I am currently running 3 raspberry pis using volumio for multi room playback of the same songs from my nas. Works. Tidal connect is kinda finiky. Wondering if Roon would be a better way to go and use RoPieee.
Worth a try. I’ve run ropieee and it’s been very stable. I few less options to co figure
@@cheapaudioman Will definitely give it a shot. Thanks!
Maybe someone can help me here. I want to pick up a decent streamer, maybe look harder at Roon, but I can’t justify spending hundreds of dollars on something that doesn’t support multiple accounts for Tidal. Only two of us in the house, but that’s a dealbreaker, and absurd to me it doesn’t seem to be a thing. As far as I can see, Roon isn’t interested in supporting that, or the Blue streamers. Any ideas who does?
Let's talk about Roon instead... lol
Good idea :)
Thank you for the video but I have a question... So, whether it's Sense (Innuos) OR Roon, both of them are just Software... Meaning, it's about interface qualities of life NOT sound quality, correct??
Roon doesn't make "Improvement" on sound like switching USB cables can or upgrading you power can or music streamer in general... Please advise.
Thank you
I totally get Roon but as the sort of person who doesn't even have playlists on any of my digital music services, I suspect that it wasn't built for me.
If Roon integrated with Amazon Music HD and Apple Music, it would be worth considering because they are my main streaming services and I would love to have all of Roon's liner notes and track information available. However, until it does, it doesn't make sense for me. I also do not really comprehend the Roon core concept at all and how that works. For example, I do not know what a "NAS" is or how to integrate a storage device with my system. That seems like the only good option since I would not want to have a laptop running the Roon software on it constantly.
I still really don't see the point of it, if you're a stream person. It was mentioned that the advantage of roon for streaming is: 1. that you get greater in depth background info about an album (I'd really question that in and of itself, Tidal for example has full credits, as well as Album review - do I really want to pay $12.50 a month on top of my Tidal sub just to get a little bit more info on a record, that can easily be found via google?) and 2. Roon has that sense of album "ownership" by cataloguing your streams into "my albums"? Erm...what streamer service doesn't do that already? All "my albums" in Tidal are in the albums section. I don't understand why Roon thinks this is a unique feature, or did I miss something? I totally get why someone might find roon useful if they already have a huge archive of FLACs and indeed want to consolidate it into a nice user interface, with the further potential to then dip their toe into streaming and have everything all combined into a single app, but for streaming users alone it seems like you're pretty much paying a ton of cash just to have a different "skin" on your user experience. One thing that bugs me about Tidal (compared to Spotify) is its search function - you have to be very exacting otherwise Tidal won't find what you want. Spotify is way better as I can make mistakes or guesstimate and it almost always understand what I'm searching for. So to that end, Roon might/might not be better than Tidal, but would that alone entice me to get roon? Nope. What I would really dig, would be a leasing deal, rather like how we buy our internet subscription and get a router from the provider. If Roon and Tidal collaborated, and I "lease" a Roon core hub thing, and you could choose your streaming service (Tidal etc) as part of your monthly plan - i.e the hardware and stream subscription is combined and you pay something like $20 per month for the whole shebang. THAT would be an interesting proposition.
No mention of how Roon provides no tech support. They expect other users to help you solve your problem on the forums or you have to spend hours reading thru meandering threads to try to solve the issue yourself. Roon's support, or lack there of, is a glaring shortcoming of the software.
Thank you
looks intriguing, but, no apple music no deal.
An app that has access to my files AND uses this information AND *I* have to pay?
I was hoping this interview would clearly explain what Roon is, how it works, and what the difference is between it and other music services. I'm still a bit fuzzy.
I'm on the trial. It's easier for me to define it by what others don't do, rather than what Roon does.
@@thenexthobby So what's the difference between listening to a song you ripped from a cd to your roon server vs streaming a song ripped by Qobuz or Tidal onto their server? I have a CD transport and get that it's (at least theoretically) a higher quality source than streaming a digital file, but I don't understand what difference it makes where a file is streamed from. I'm not trying to be snarky, I legit don't get it. Thanks.
@@stevenmichael7770 Fantastic question Steven, even though I was referring to something other than sound quality. There may not be any difference in sound whatsoever. Or there may be a difference you'd never know about unless you had the opportunity to compare how each sounds.
More practically, streaming services are at the mercy of the artist or their label for supplying content. Old content has a way of getting re-released in ways that are not always improvements. And so the service isn't going to keep 10 versions of Dark Side of the Moon online, people would lose their minds and rightly so. I've experienced this with R.E.M. and The Who titles, for example. A new producer comes along and decides a new mix is best, or a "re-master" that isn't automagically better than before. Only an eBay purchased CD is gonna save you there. (or, the original LP ... )
@@stevenmichael7770 Here's what my comment was about: Roon allows freedom of hardware choices. That's its strength, although they like to talk about music discovery and so on too, which only really kicks in if you connect a streaming service to it I suppose.
If you have just one stereo for one room, hardware freedom won't matter. But for example, I can sit with my wireless laptop and send music to a connected DAC for headphones or on to speakers and not worry about the signal chain screwing it up. Every alternative "player" makes hardware demands (purchases) to ensure that happens.
I have a Bluesound Powernode. The BluOS (phone or computer) replicates a slice of what Roon does, on a very limited scale albeit with far reduced feature set and execution success. And of course I'm locked in to Bluesound hardware to use it.
Bluesound stuff is insanely attractive, but if I were to declare it (or Sonos) functionally or theoretically just as good I'd be forced to ignore all sorts of attributes Roon has.
None of this is "best." They all annoy me for different reasons and that very much includes Roon. A CD player running a traditional sound system might still be best! Once we begin down the rabbit hole of software no one seems to get all the puzzle pieces correct. Super frustrating.
Ok why Roon as part of CHEAP audio? Now I use both Roon and LMS and I agree Roon is better by OMG it costs twice Tidal subscription....
If I buy it I will spend price of good (ish) audio equipment I mean 700$ I don't want to pay for it every month or even year :/
I have one huge issue with switching streaming services. As a 47 year old entry-level Audiophile, I have Spotify as my current streaming service and I hate the playback quality of the music. It would be a pain in the ass to switch service with the multiple playlists i have (thousands of songs). I wish these lossless streaming services would allow you to import playlist. If they create this feature, I would be sold.
Tidal has the import feature - have not tried it
@@leogooner7671 thank man. I will look into it. If it works, GOOD BYE SPOTIFY..
@@Nolepower I've recently paid £2 for 3 months of Tidal, no brainer
Soundiiz is your answer. Transfers playlists from any service to Roon.
@@joeschudrowitz5513 oh that's great advise as well. Appreciate it, I've been looking for years.
Is it the best sounding player, better than Amara, Audirvana etc
I think maybe I'm confused, but aside from Roon being a large media library, it isn't much else? Like,if you use Spotify or Tidal, chances are you already own a device you can stream from and or stream to, so in general, Roon is an extra addition that basically eats your data and displays it to the screen. On top of that, the ML (machine learning) concept I'm not sure how it can be implemented with Tidal, or the like, does it find songs similar to it through Tidal or x streaming service? I haven't used it so all these questions are actually legit questions, and to top it off, I think I'll try the trial to see what I think, even if I'm not an audiophile, I always find it tech interesting in all shapes and sizes.
Here are a few things to keep in mind, and yes your questions are great. When you listen through a subscription service's app or web page, you are now forced to use the hardware running that software. It might not be either good sounding nor a good experience. With Roon, you could control the music via phone or computer but the music isn't coming from the phone or computer. It could be coming from a server and be sent straight to whatever makes sound. All sort of choices now open up, but I won't claim that's important to you.
Subscription services do not curate, despite what they claim. They'll even host bootlegs and other dreck. Roon will curate what the subscription service provides by default, and yes you can override and yes it looks at all the stuff you never browsed yourself to offer suggestions.
Their community forum is great for digging into use cases and scenarios.
Ifi zen dac or schiit modi/magni stack. Which sounds better and which has better soundstage. Main use music, games and movies and has anyone listen to Fosi Audio Q4 very cheap and very good Amazon reviews.
not that I'm anxious to add another service on top of Apple MUSIC in my HT and my SONOS setup; but where is ROON in supporting spatial audio (Dolby Atmos, SONY 360)???? To me, without this, it's a non starter.
The cost in 2023 is just too high for Roon for me to even justify it. I also use Apple Music and it is useless with Roon.
Roon might be compelling if their iOS app weren’t such a dumpster fire.
I really like Roon, but I would love to be able to control it from the TV like Plex...
Seems more like very old technology that does some file organizing. Not much value for me.
i do enjoy my master tidal sub. I've been using Bluetooth from a killer ROG laptop to a new,ish Yamaha receiver but struggle with bluetooth to send flac files to the receiver,, at least from this crazy laptop.. from my phone to the receiver,, tada signal info shows flac,, any suggestion's ? driver and looked at the o.e.m. bluetooth driver and cannot find what codecs it uses,, now sometimes when jupitar and mars line up i do transmit and receive flac files from the laptop. why the double lkj, is the phone so much easier to do this .. are there generic bluetooth drivers that give one the option to choose what codec to use ? thanks
I see many evangelists for Roon, but it’s such a confusing product. I honestly don’t know what I need to get, or understand what works with it. I use Apple Music with Sonos a lot because of my phone and their music locker. I can’t figure out if Sonos will work with Roon. It strikes me as a product that will just frustrate me. Hopefully it matures into something that can make a clearer value proposition
You mean , Roon don't make songs sound better?
I don’t see the added value of Roon vs say Bluesound or Aurender’s control app unless you have a megaton of music files. More importantly, Does Roon add any coloration to a system?
A library's size doesn't really have anything to do with whatever Roon does or does not provide.
There's a free trial; you can hear how it "sounds."
I have Bluesound hardware. The BluOS controller isn't comparable except in the most rudimentary ways. And .... with Roon I'm not limited by Bluesound hardware, right? Will an Aurender setup send music to hardware Roon can?
I'm not saying "you" or anyone "needs" any of this.
Hi great video! I’ve been using Roon on my Mac and MacBook Pro for awhile now. I have been able to download the Audeze presets on it in the dsp settings and I’m wondering if there is a way to get the oratory1990 eq settings down loaded on Roon using Mac and MacBook Pro?
I'm not sure, my man. I can try to find out though
You can just recreate them yourself, right? Frequency/Q/amplitude ... and adjust to your preference. oratory1990 publishes those values as starting points, not "recipes" that much be followed.
A bit strange .I would rather play a record . Less tracking don't you think ? great interview
Just tried the roon link for the trial and it only offers me 14 days
Way overpriced for software excluding content... Or hardware for that matter...
Unfortunately when I have asked myself what is Roon in the past the answer I've come to is overpriced. Especially if you are throwing in a the cost of a Tidal subscript.
IMO it is not worth ~$400 a year to listen to streaming music. If you want to know everything about a recording, it is on the internet.
to each their own. I spent way more than I spend on streaming when I bought CDs constantly. and for me it was fun to make a core and do the pis. not for everyone I can understand that