Roon

[Sloop John B]

Only one mention of Roon when searched on Tir na Hifi.

Is there anyone else here using it?

For me it's the game changer for audio streaming, it has me rediscovering my music collection.
At a loose moment when I saw in mentioned on PFM that Roon worked on Squeezebox I downloaded it to try as it's website actually does a pretty poor job of explaining it.

Well it has won me over big time. Browsing my ripped collection has changed "from browsing in MS-DOS to Windows 7". It drags metadata from all over the planet so you have album reviews a and artist overview for all the music in your collection (well 90%+). This metadata is impressive, playing Rhinostone Cowboy (don't ask!) I clicked into Glen's artist page, this shows all the albums you have that Glen appears on including compilations etc. On the list was Pet Sounds, WTF I thought, but clicking through I find Glen played 12 string guitar on Pet Sounds.

For me it's one of the best upgrades to my music collection in years.

SJB

[Sligolad]

Its a great service/player alright and I treated myself to it at Xmas.
The metadata is excellent and it is not complex to get around once you get used to it, and I am glad they did not go for all the customization options like in JRiver which I gave up on a long time ago.

I have been running MusicIP with squeezeserver and LastFM for many years for generating playlists and finding music but Roon does it all.

Lights down immersed listening is still on a headless minimal system but for everything else Roon is perfect in the background.
Hope they stick around for a few years!!
Cheers, Pearse.

[Fran]

Excuse the lazy question - but is this a replacement for squeezebox or ipeng etc on a phone?

[Sloop John B]

Excuse the lazy question - but is this a replacement for squeezebox or ipeng etc on a phone?

In the same way a Lear jet would be a replacement for a bicycle.


SJB

[Fran]

I'm hearing ya. I might try this later with Daphile see if I can get it running.

[Sloop John B]

It won't work on phones just yet, just tablets and PCs.

Main program runs on PC / Linux / Apple machine. Others used as remotes.

The best way to appreciate it is to take the trial.

SJB

[james]

http://www.tonepublications.com/spotlig ... th-review/

This is a review .. It states ..

"[In 2007 we declared the] Sooloos music server .. was the future of music – at least the future of digital music delivery. In the six years since the introduction of the iPod in 2001, Sooloos hit the scene with an ease of use that was, and to a major extent still remains untouchable today. Computer audio was in its infancy then, but like our laptops, cellphones and other things technologically related, it has taken off. For many listeners, the Sooloos interface is now the gold standard of functionality.

The guys at Sooloos weren’t sleeping. Though they sold the company to Meridian a couple of years after it’s inception to find a better hardware partner, so they could continue to develop the application, porting the Sooloos look and feel to the newly developed iPad in 2010, and a few somewhat lower priced endpoints have been released on the hardware side. Meridian managed to smooth out the rough edges on the initial hardware platform, but unfortunately, the cost of admission stayed high with the Sooloos system remaining available to mostly well-heeled customers.

Meridian continued to improve the sound quality of the Sooloos Control units, and paired with their flagship 800 series disc player/DAC, serves up good sound. However, the Control 15 has never played terribly well with other DACs, another limitation.

Fortunately, this system no longer needs tens of thousands of dollars worth of specific hardware to run; it’s equally at home, running on mac and windows platforms, with tablet support due shortly after release. You can buy a lifetime subscription to the Roon software for $499, or subscribe on an annual basis, as you would Photoshop or Office for $119 a year. New users can try Roon free for 14 days."

[james]

Roon seems to require a PC to run. I have my music on a QNAP NAS-server running Squeezserver and Asset-upnp. The QNAP uses very little power so I can leave it on all the time. The need to run a PC strikes me as a disadvantage with Roon. I just have a desktop which is upstairs and uses a fair amount of power. I would not want to leave it on all the time.

James

[Sloop John B]

Indeed that's the main disadvantage.
I trialled it knowing it needed the PC on to run but was so taken with the software and metadata etc I got myself one of these.



in a nice little tranquil PC case




and it's nicely "watching all my music files on my qnap nas.


SJB

[james]

Indeed that's the main disadvantage.
I trialled it knowing it needed the PC on to run but was so taken with the software and metadata etc I got myself one of these.





and it's nicely "watching all my music files on my qnap nas.


SJB

That makes sense. Would not really work for me since I've gone the naim ndx route.

James