Anyone using Roon?

[HDFan]

I just discovered on some audiophile sites references to Roon

https://roonlabs.com

and decided to check it out. It is very expensive ($119 a year, $499 lifetime), but I am very impressed. Features supported include:

1. MQA. My explorer 2 DAC has never been so happy with all three lights (blue and white) lit up.

2. Tidal. You can listen to Tidal masters at up to 192kHz/24 bit on the explorer 2, even higher bitrates on other DACs.

3. your iTunes and Tidal libraries accessible via one common interface

4. iTunes and Tidal playlists, although you do have to import iTunes playlists.

5. Integrated playlists! You can create Roon playlists which have tracks from both iTunes and Tidal.

6. Codec support for most of those that won't play in iTunes such as Flac, OGG, even DSD256 (DSF, DFF)

7. Curated collections

8. IOS and other clients via the server which runs on your Mac

It is a complex program, but their documentation and instructions are very clear. Questions I've posted to the Community forum are responded to quickly, and have a very high level of technical expertise. I don't remember been this impressed by support (other than Apple) in some time.

In short you have one place which will integrate all of your audio so you don't have to use different players for codecs that iTunes doesn't support.

There are issues, of course. I'm still exploring, but you can't favorite Tidal albums unless in a Roon Playlist. Can't update a Tidal playlist. They are working on these issues.

 

[cbautis2]

If you have roon client streamers (e.g. Sonore Microrendu, Auralic, etc) for your 2 channel setup, bedroom setup and want all access to them, IMO it's worth the price. Buf if you have only 1 source, IMO it's not unless you like the UI

 

[Hawk999]

I use Roon and I love it. I have discovered so much new music since I have been using it. And I am really enjoying the hifi Tidal integration. Within a few months I will take a life-time subscription. My endpoint is the Bluesound Node 2 and it sounds great. I still use Apple Music for when I am on the road.

I hope Apple will wake up and upgrade their airplay protocol to enable high def audio streaming.

Airplay downsamples high def audio to 44.1/16 cd quality. They have developed ALAC files that can have a very high sound quality and then they downsample them when they are streamed through airplay. It’s weird.

 

[Uofmtiger]

I have trialed Roon with my own collection. Too bad iTunes does not use the metadata the way Roon uses it. I was also impressed with the Airplay options in the iPad app. If it worked with Apple Music, I would probably pay up for it, but it doesn't, so it isn't worth the money to me.