Current quality of Rune

Sorry if this has been said but someone created a "Roon optimization guide" on head-fi. There are a number of helpful suggestions in the thread.

@phishhhhh4, Vermont phan here. Maybe our paths will cross at the Garden on NYE!

@sls883 Ha--it's an ancient Germanic version of Roon.  Notwithstanding phish's experience and the PITA that is Roon support i still highly recommend it--as long as you don't have a complicated file structure to your library--it's the best interface i've seen (i used to use J River) for organizing music and imparting a near vinyl album cover experience with all fo the information about each artist.  If you decide to go with Roon's trial, you should also check out threads on Tidal v Quobuz as those are the two streaming music source services that work with Roon.

@wyoboy It's been interesting and informative. I appreciate all of the comments! 

Unfortunately, people searching for information on Roon will have to search for Rune.  Lol.  I blame my damn autocorrect... 

@phishhhhh4 Thanks--i've enjoyed as well and hopefully we've  helped @sls883 understand that there can be issues with Roon and Roon support although that's probably true of any streaming interface.

Thanks @wyoboy 

I've enjoyed our discussion 

You sound like a good dude 

@phishhhhh4  That was supposed to say "last year"

Oh and BTW i was trying to understand your moniker here on A'Gon but it all makes sense now 😀 

@phishhhhh4 You need to meet a buddy of mine here in AZ--all he listens to is Dead and Phish. I"m a fan but not obsessed 😀  I think the reason Roon Support couldn't help you is that there's no good explanation for why Roon couldn't handle your file structure--doesn't really seem that complicated to me so it must have had them scratching their heads.  However, glad you found a solution with Innuos Sense App--but i do think your situation is so rare that's the reason they don't advertise that Roon can't handle certain library structures--i actually think i remember seeing your issue in the support forum lst year?  If everything progressed as you say then i agree with you that Roon should have offered at least a partial (at least 50%) refund on the Nucleus, especially if they promoted it as a solution to the problem-

You kinda got me going.

Apologies 

But why didn't the number of tech support people I dealt with know what the issue was within a few weeks?

It's because you rarely get to deal with the people behind the curtain

You get people that just go down a basic list they have in front of them which takes weeks or months to get through given their atrocious support structure

After all that time of yours wasted you then finally get the privilege of dealing with someone who knows the product

After the 1st year of all this I expressed reasonable frustration to them and they then threatened to ban me from the forum

It is a terrible company and I will still say it's a great product for most users.

The company SUCKS 

I'm a reasonable guy

Put in your advertising that it can't handle some libraries and then let me decide.

If u advise me over 2 years to spend $$$ to fix issues then refund that money when it's discovered the service won't work for me.

And for Gods sake if I'm paying for your service respond with competent advice within 24-48 hours

@wyboy

I have really just 2 bands I listen to.

Grateful Dead and Phish

I have around 5-6 TB of their music on a NAS

I have 2 folders (one for each band)

Within each folder are folders devoted to each year the bands have performed...both bands have around 30 years of performances.

Within each year are up to 100 folders that are the concerts for that year.

Each concert folder contains 15-25 FLAC files.

I wouldn't think that folder structure is anything complicated but it is for Roon.it amounts to just over 140,000 tracks and I know some Roon users have more than that. It's how I have them organized.

I can't find all that music on a streaming service.

Roon still has no language in their advertising that mentions the fact that it cannot handle all music libraries.

I was astounded how the Innuos Sense App has no trouble at all.

I mean most of my streaming is either albums not in my library or higher resolution versions of albums in my library that i find on Tidal so my library format really doesn't matter--but sounds like you're saying you downloaded (or wanted to download) your library into Roon and then stream it rather than just playing your files or CDs independent of Roon?

thanks for responding--certainly sounds like you have a unique situation though but it has made me curious about the nature of your library that made it unusable by Roon?

@wyboy

Thanks for asking

Apparently I have a unique music library (Roons words)

From the very beginning Roon never worked well for me.

I spent over 2 yeas in that terrible support model trying to get things to work.

Over that time I began to realize the people I was dealing with knew very little about the product.

They initially advised me to buy a nucleus + (I has been using a NUC)

I bought the Nucleus + and though it helped a bit things still were fraught with issues . After like 9 months a was then instructed to add memory to the Nucleus= more $$$$.

When that still didn't improve things I finally got in touch with a Roon person who understood the product (I even dealt with one of the Room founders)

After working with the guy who knew his stuff for 3 months he informed me that due to the unique nature of my music library Roon would be unable to handle it 

Again this determination took 2 years and like $2000 due to their advice.

I then asked for a refund for the nucleus + and memory I bought.

My request was denied as they said Roon worked fine and my library was the issue. I responded that no where in their advertising was mention of Rooms inability to handle certain libraries and given that and the fact over 2 years no one at Roon ever told me that I should get my $$$ back. They said no.

So that's the story of Room screwing me over 

Im a reasonable guy but this was unfair

I then purchase an Innuos unit and the sense app handles my library with no issues And it's free(after you purchase the equipment obviously )

And their customer service is superb. I've even had Nuno the founder help me within 24 hrs.

So Roon is junk and has the worst customer service for anything that you pay for. It's actually worse than Xfinity the cable/internet company which is also atrocious.

Again thanks for giving me the opportunity to tell my tale 

@flkin , my experience is completely different. I consider my system to be “higher end” . . . Not the highest, but very good, and Roon definitely does not sound “mediocre.”  I don’t use any fancy settings, it is sounds just great.  I have CAT8 from my Upscale Audio RS9 server to my MSB Discrete DAC and have only been please with the way it sounds.  But I agree with you that Roon is the pinnacle of music discovery and management, and I like the way that it handles Tidal, Qobuz and my large digitized album collection on my music server.  And you can easily choose between the several versions of classic albums.

@phishhhhh4  How did Roon "screw you over " ? 

While their support model is a pain if you're looking for something instant, i've never seen them "screw over" anyone who asks them a question. They always respond and try to help and i've never seen actual Roon Technical Support personnel just say "reboot Roon" although i've seen other forum members suggest that even though it's always the first obvious step.  It's just that it can be a lot of back and forth until a problem is solved but i've always been able to find an answer on the forum anyway without the need for Roon's Technical Support.

While i love Roon most of the time i'm with @moto_man on ARC--it's useless so i just stream directly from Tidal when i'm away from home

Thank you @moto_man 

Their support model is atrocious

Yes they will respond to a post needing help 

You get a response in like 3 days and it's usually ..."please reboot Roon"

When that doesn't fix the problem you post again and wait another 4 days for a response .

In my experience you don't get to a person who truly knows Roon and can help you until weeks into the process

The people you get initially really don't know much

Great product if it works

The worst customer support for a paid product ever if it does not

They screwed me over 

I live to reveal the truth about who they really are 

@sls883 

As long as your streaming has sufficient speed and memory resources, Roon doesn't really have a "sound quality" per se unless you are using its dsp features which i don't.  More depends on whether you are using Tidal or Quobuz as they provide the sound quality.  Although its signal processing features have been added, Roon's original goal was to just pass that through without messing with the stream, and just organize Tidal and Quobuz into a great library interface--IMO it's the best interface i've used but as someone mentioned if you need support it's a PITA.  However, most support issues can be found on its support pages once you get the hang of searching.  Remember--you have to subscribe to either Tidal or Quobuz or both--that's where the music comes from--not Roon.

I run Roon on an old M1 MacMini to an Innuos Pulsar as a Roon endpoint. So much better than the MacMini straight into the DAC. I get all the Roon features and audio quality of a dedicated streamer.

I have to throw my hat in the ring of Roon fans.  I think that it is excellent.  Great interface, works perfectly, randomly plays new music consistent with what I was listening to and have through that discovered new music and artists!  It is stellar. I also like the writeups about the albums and have actually learned things about music that I have listened to for years! I bought a lifetime plan when it first came out and that has been a great purchase.  However, as @phishhhhh4 pointed out, their tech support is below subpar.  if you have a problem, you must post it on their community forum.  To Roon’s credit, they do actually respond to those support posts, but it is cumbersome to post a problem, wait for a response, then respond to that, wait again, etc.  Luckily, I have been able to troubleshoot any issues myself.  The one thing about Roon that really is glitchy is their ARC app, which supposedly lets you stream to your iPhone when you are away from your network.  It is useless.  It works maybe 25% of the time, if that.  Most of the time it can’t connect.  it is perplexing that a free program like Plex, for example, has no problem connecting to the home server, but Roon can’t figure it out.  So I usually use Plex outside of the home.  But other than that, I can’t imagine another way to manage my music.

@sls83

Congrats on walking away

Worst company ever

@sns Yup, agreed. For sure if you focus enough on making Roon sound good it can achieve very high levels. The effort is worth it as the interface is so good.

It doesn’t take much to beat the design of the Stylus interface haha. But considerable effort to top the sound of an optimized Stylus, maybe beyond those getting started in streaming.

I too use Euphony OS (still) on my optimized Pink Faun 2.16x with 3 point-installed OCXO Ultra clocks playing an optimized Stylus to the Pink Faun Ultra USB bridge externally powered by an external Teflon Paul Hynes DR7t+. This single box combination along with QSA Landri wires gives me my best sound to date. Looking forward to besting this with the new PF OS with a Roon install which is my preferred interface.

@flkin I have Euphony OS on custom build streamer, also have Sonore OpticalRendu streamer. Running in bridged mode, custom build contains Roon core, OR Roon Endpoint. I can also go Roon core on custom, Stylus endpoint on OR. Finally in unbridged mode, custom build only streamer, OR out of system, full Roon or full Stylus. I won't go through sound quality with each option, but running bridged mode, Roon core on custom build, Roon endpoint on OpticalRendu best sound quality, betters Stylus endpoint. As for running full Stylus, which I can do with and without the optical conversion setup with the Sonore equipment, user interface with Stylus terrrible vs Roon with my huge library. This to the point don't care if  Stylus does sound a bit better. I can only say improvements in Roon sound quality directly correlate with system improvements, no sins of commission I can detect.

My theory as to Roon sound quality variations is Roon will sound best with powerful processor/low latency streamers since Roon requires much from processor resources. All the conveniences of Roon demands work from processor, work means noise. With my processor, 9 cores I'm often using  only 1 or 2% of processor resources, this means low noise.

It's not only Roon that has a sound type, in my experience it's the OS type and setup that Roon operates in that affects Roon's final sound.

Until recently, Pink Faun used Euphony as their OS. This OS offers many playback setups including Euphony's own Stylus and Roon. Roon didn't sound nearly as good as Stylus in this setup.

Recently Pink Faun wrote their own OS with dedicated drivers to talk directly to their output cards and set it up so the heavy requirements of Roon search and playback were managed properly. Now Roon sounds better than Euphony/Stylus and will be their standard for their streamers going forward.

Roon is really the pinnacle of music discovery and management, it is acknowledged as the best there is with many hifi brands licensing or pre-installing it into their machines. The main problem with Roon is that it usually sounds only mediocre for higher end hifi enthusiasts. But it can be made to sound good if it is setup well in the correct OS, something difficult but worth doing.

Canceled my Rune, I mean Roon, free trial. I really like the program, but I don't think I could get it to sound as good as my Innuos streamer and Sense software 

I did see that my Innuos streamer has an experimental mode that would use Roon software, but use the Innuos player software.  Might get good sound quality that way, but I'm good with the Sense software, so I see no reason to try it. 

If you never need Roon support them it's great

If you do you will discover it is the worst support model that has ever existed for a service that you pay for .

Thankfully I found Innuos Sense.

Everything Room should be with amazing support 

Roon support sent me on a 2 yr wild goose chase only to then tell me Room could not handle my library ...

This after I purchased a nucleus at their suggestion. They then refused to refund my $$$$ 

Terrible company 

I have a lifetime roon subscription. I guess it will continue when I die for the rest of my family.

I don’t like the file Manager system, it’s difficult to work with. Communication with a PC dermatologyfrom the nucleus Device is really difficult and the interface for this is requiring very sophisticated PC skills. Also the organization of albums I wish were more flexible rather than just throwing them all out there in one massive Collection of album cover pictures

I love commentary on so many individual albums and is blown away by the extent of information available. And it’s really quite good content.

Love to know how those with 1000 albums organize all this stuff Beyond just alphabetical.

There was a thread like this awhile back.  I picked out a few features in the ROON interface that I found really helpful and that I liked. I ask the question what other streamer apps have these features......Crickets.

@pinball101 Gustard X-30.

I'm very happy with the performance of the dac.  I upgraded from a Gustard R-26 dac. 

Pour we were Aurender dealers and found that a superior server running Roon far outperformed the Aurenders Roon servers can all sound different we went from Aurenderer to innous to the 432evo servers and each step brought improvements

to date we have tested Aurender, Auralic ,sotm, Baetis, Innous and finally 432EVO

Dave and Troy

Audio Intellect NJ

432EVO dealers

@pourdecisions and others using Roon dsp, you can do far better dsp with HQPlayer. One of my streamers allows 1/2 hour auditions of HQPlayer, so this compared to Roon no contest, Roon opaque, artificial sound quality. One has to be aware using dsp requires tons of processor resources which may stress processor,result noise, glitches.

Out of curiosity, what is your DAC?

In my experience, the Innuous and Aurender apps sound better than Roon, but with Roon I can use the DSP function to correct for room/speaker interactions which results in a better sound.

I also think Roon has a much better UI and discovery mode.

I’ve subscribed to ROON with Tidal and Qobuz for around 18 months and I’m never going back…

Sound quality is excellent and “ROON Radio” new music discovery algorithm is in my opinion the best I e experienced yet.

Lifetime subscription is looming!

roon can sound magnificent it does depends on how you run it and how you connect it to your dac.

if you are connecting to your Dac via USB, then the quality of the server absolutely matters 

we were Importing the 432evo servers from Belgium which were designed to be a Roon core as well as delivering an ultra clean noise free Usb output to your Dac.

the 432evo servers combine a proprietary low latency operating system compartmentalized to run roon in its own cpu core with a state of the art clock  and USB cards and two outboard linear power supplies all designed to eliminate radiated noise,\.

the result is a much more analog sound from your Dac.

Dave and Troy

audio intellect NJ

Roon specialists and $#2evo dealers

Don't know if this still holds true for Innuos, but Innuos used to be in minimal processor low noise camp, other streamer manufacturers are in fast, powerful processor low latency camp. Roon requires more processor resources, works and sounds better with fast processor low latency camp streamers. Makes sense that sense app sounds better in Innuos streamer, that app designed specifically for their philosophy.

@erock79 its an awesome program. Tons of features, but still very easy to navigate. 

@sns I'm learning that my laptop is playing a bigger role than I had thought. Makes sense, though. 

My son is kinda in the "bits are bits" camp. It took him a while to hear the difference because he had convinced himself that there wouldn't be any.  It was fairly obvious to me when I first tried Roon. It was confirmed when did the comparison.  Roon did sound really good, but the Innuos is better. I love the Roon interface, but the Sense app is good, too.  I'm sure Roon sounds great in other systems. 

@sls883 You're correct on everything, bridge in dac is endpoint or actual streamer. Agree with the others here, Innuos should be superior.

Also agree turning off many of these 'extras' with Roon is good, no volume leveling, throttle library analysis, no dsp. All these extras only add to work processor in streamer has to do, adds noise and may cause glitches if processor stressed. This also part of reason why general purpose computers not good as streamers, the operating systems alone take up far more processor resources than need be, dedicated streamers have operating systems optimized for streaming only, processor barely working which means low noise and no glitches. And I could go on and on about optimizing interfaces such as ethernet, usb, I2S, etc. general service computers don't give a crap about any of this, serious audio streamers pay great attention to all this.

I’m a big Roon fan, running the Nucleus + core. All digital media is on the internal hard drive, it is reliable, streams to my primary system and to any other system with a Roon compatible device attached. I use Roon Arc anywhere in the world to access my library plus Quboz, Tidal. Fantastic digital solution. 

@lalitk makes sense.  Given the gear that I have, I think I'm best off using the Innuos streamer. I do like the Roon GUI, but there's nothing wrong with the Sense app. 

@dougthebiker I changed the volume in Roon to fixed. It was set to "use device" which is fixed.

I don't find any equalization settings. 

@sls883  I have found the secret to great SQ in Roon is to turn off any equalization or volume control in Roon.  Don’t let it mess with the signal at all and it’s great.  IMHO.

“I could swear it's a little softer sounding than my Innuos streamer.”
@sls883 

Rightfully so…your Innuos is a purpose built streamer designed to sound best with its proprietary Sense app. Just like Aurender is designed to sound best with its proprietary Conductor app. Roon functionality with Innuos, Aurender and Lumin is an added convenience. In contrast, if you listen to Grimm, Merging, Pink Faun, Taiko which are optimized for Roon experience, you will find Roon is anything but soft or recessed. My Merging Roon player competes favorably with any $50K Vinyl front end. 

@sls883 

Thanks. If you were using the digital volume control in Roon, I thought that might be contributing to the "softness" you're experiencing. Clearly not the case.

@catastrofe The output on my dac is set to fixed.  I'm using the volume control on my preamp. 

@sls883 

Apologies if I missed it, but how are you controlling volume?

You can also configure roon to use your innuos as endpoint. Check that out as well. 

@sns If I'm understanding correctly, my laptop is the Roon core. My dac has a built in bridge, or whatever it's called. They are both connected to the network, but there is no USB connection. It works well, but I could swear it's a little softer sounding than my Innuos streamer.

I think everything is set correctly. 

Things seem a little softer and less defined with Roon.

This is consistent with my findings as well. And this is with pretty much every Roon endpoint I’ve tried.