It could be because I’ve assembled computers and installed OS’s that roon seems very simple to me. When I say roon sounds better to me than other player software it’s a purely subjective opinion, I’ve never done a blind listening test. I think the main reason I feel it sounds better on Roon’s OS, ROCK is it doesn’t interfere with updates and running other processes in the background. Music not suddenly stopping for some unknown reason. ROCK is an extremely small linux OS designed by Roon specifically optimized for Roon playback. I assembled a NUC for about $600 installed Roon core and connected it to my network. I assembled a raspberry pi4 running Ropiee which also uses Roons transport protocol RAAT as a bridge and connected that to my network and to my DAC by USB. This all took about an hour and I was playing music. I also connected my ripped Flac files by USB to the NUC. I don’t really use a "dedicated " streamer, roon’s core/server acts as the streamer. If I wanted I could attach the NUC directly to my DAC and forgo the raspberry pi4.
Why would I need Roon?
I have a Blue sound streamer with plenty of files at my fingertips, via a hard drive plugged in the back and multiple streaming services. Can someone help me understand what Roon would add to my set-up? Thanks.
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It could be because I’ve assembled computers and installed OS’s that roon seems very simple to me. When I say roon sounds better to me than other player software it’s a purely subjective opinion, I’ve never done a blind listening test. I think the main reason I feel it sounds better on Roon’s OS, ROCK is it doesn’t interfere with updates and running other processes in the background. Music not suddenly stopping for some unknown reason. ROCK is an extremely small linux OS designed by Roon specifically optimized for Roon playback. I assembled a NUC for about $600 installed Roon core and connected it to my network. I assembled a raspberry pi4 running Ropiee which also uses Roons transport protocol RAAT as a bridge and connected that to my network and to my DAC by USB. This all took about an hour and I was playing music. I also connected my ripped Flac files by USB to the NUC. I don’t really use a "dedicated " streamer, roon’s core/server acts as the streamer. If I wanted I could attach the NUC directly to my DAC and forgo the raspberry pi4. |
Interestingly, I find Roon's UI was the major issue. I get all of those things with Spotify Premium in a much better and easier way across all my devices. Tidal, Qubuz etc do not come anywhere close to Spotify Connect. As for music quality, nothing will change the original source. AudioNirvana helped a bit, but again, clunky UI across devices. Spotify has incredible depth of music for those who listen to a range of music, including Scandinavian, African, old jazz, etc. Tidal is around 90%, Apple Music around 95%, and Qubuz and Amazon around 80% of my playlists. |
I agree that Spotify offers a better UI than Tidal and Qobuz. Since I can't access my Roon library from my phone, I usually use Spotify with Apple Carplay in the car. I also find it good for finding new music, although Roon Radio has gotten extremely good at recommending new content. I think Spotify's search is better than Roon. If I see a recommendation for a song that doesn't include the album information, it's often a lot easier to figure out what album it is on using Spotify than Roon. If Spotify offered uncompressed CD quality (let along hi-rez), it would be a lot closer to meeting my needs. But the ability to create a combined library between my ripped CDs, downloaded hi-rez files, Tidal, and Qobuz, makes Roon the clear winner for me. The ability control multiple zones and have them synchronized when I'm playing the same content is also a big plus, as is having DSP functionality (upsampling and EQ when needed). |
There are numerous ease of use reasons to use Roon. SQ is at least as good if not better than other choices, but the major benefits are best understood by the true Music Lover, rather than the pure audiophile. Artist's bios, album essays, photos, lyrics, and links to other artists etc make Roon a wealth of information and an extremely rich experience for those who care about such things! Used in conjunction with Qobuz and/or Tidal etc. make the search feature extremely rewarding. Roon Radio is a constant source for discovery of new music. |
FAQ: What's Radio and how does it work?
Designed from the ground up with machine learning technology, Roon Radio can play a mix of your favorites along with music from beyond your library, using the vast catalog of music from TIDAL and Qobuz. Roon Radio makes recommendations based on not only your own music preferences but also those of other Roon subscribers with similar tastes in music. Use the thumbs up and down buttons to craft a personal, one-of-a-kind radio experience. As you listen to and interact with Roon Radio over time, it learns more about what you like and helps you discover new music by curating great recommendations. How do I start playing Roon Radio?You can choose to start Roon Radio any time by navigating to an Artist, Album, or Track and choosing the Roon Radio playback option. Roon Radio uses this initial selection to queue up similar tracks. By default, Roon Radio will also start once your current queued content has finished playing. This can be seen on the Queue screen, and you can turn this feature on and off from there. How do I customize my Roon Radio queue?Once Roon Radio has started, you can head over to the Queue to view upcoming track selections. If you see something you like, give it a thumbs up to add the track to the queue. Clicking thumbs down will skip that track and generate another recommendation, but you don't have to make any selection if you don’t want to --- once the current track has finished the next selection will start playing automatically. When you skip a track, you can optionally choose why you decided to skip the selection. This data will help us improve Roon Radio over time as more data is gathered. Upcoming track information will also be displayed in a pop-up toward the end of the current track. You can disable this notification by going to Settings | Setup | Enable Roon Radio Notification. Roon Radio FAQsCan I set quality requirements for Roon Radio selections?For a given track, there may be many different versions, including different sample rates, between what is available in your local library, TIDAL, and Qobuz. Our selections are based on what version is the most popular, even if there are potentially versions with a higher sample rate available. At this time that is not something that can be changed. Can I set Roon Radio to only pick tracks from my library?Yes. On the Queue screen choose the 3 dots option and select Limit Roon Radio to Library. Can I filter out tracks with explicit lyrics?You can filter out explicit content by going to the Queue screen and choosing Filter Explicit Content in Roon Radio from the 3 dots menu. Please note that, while we do our best to filter out all explicit lyrics, the quality of this data is highly variable and we might not always know if a given track is explicit. What if I don't have TIDAL or Qobuz?If you don't have a streaming service connected in Roon you can still use Roon Radio. In this case, Roon Radio will be limited to your local library and does not take advantage of our machine learning technology. We recommend using TIDAL or Qobuz for the best Roon Radio experience. All this and more can be found here:https://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_User_Guide#Browsing_and_Playing_Music |
@twb2 - thanks for providing the FAQ. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite do what I said. It will only play songs similar to the artist chosen when Roon radio started. It even says "Playing music similar to..." There's no way to choose a wide range of music types that can be done in Deezer, Spotify and GPM. |