We want Spotify, we want Tidal ....... We want Roon

At a hardware level Roon is essentially 3 things:

Core

It finds and manages your music, both online (Tidal) and locally on the computer’s hard drive and/or your NAS. Like Sonos it can manage music from multiple sources at the same time. Today it’s normally installed on a computer.

Core can also sit on a dedicated server/streamer so you don’t need a computer in your audio playback setup, just a NAS for your music.

SoTM’s sMS-1000SQ already supports Core. ELAC just announced a product with Roon Core and Antipodes have confirmed they have products in the pipeline. The Antipodes solutions will appeal to people who simply want 1 box to act as ripper/storage/streamer. Roon Core is quite flexible in this way.

Personally I think we will see a mix a of streamer and server/streamer products with Roon Core. Some people are happy to manage a NAS, others are not.

Assuming the Naim servers don’t get updated, Naim would likely implement Roon Core on streamers. Music would reside on your NAS. That said with Naim's server and streamer experience there no reason it couldn't build a product with streaming and storage.

Control

E.g. a Computer, iOS or Android app

Roon Ready (Endpoint)

Roon Ready is to Roon as Airplay is to iTunes. e.g. you tell Roon which Roon Ready device you want to send the music. Like Airplay, Endpoints can be made by any manufacturer so you are not locked in to one hardware manufacturer. Lot’s of companies have announced support for Roon Ready.

In principle Naim could add Roon Ready to streamers, Dacs and Mu-so. 

This all begs the important question with Roon Core and Roon Ready, will the manufacturers own software be rendered irrelevant. It also breaks open some existing hardware restrictions. For example a Naim streamer with Roon Core could send music to non Naim devices.

TN posted:

Sorry for the very basic questions but I'm trying to understand how to implement Roon in my system, if I were to try it.

Right now the easiest and cheapest way to experience Roon would be to install it on a computer with an optical digital out; Mac or Windows, and hook it up to the optical input of your NDS. The NDS is the DAC. If you don't have an optical out on your computer, you can buy a USB to SPDIF converter. They start at about GBP 10.

Roon on HDX would be cool:-)

Absolutely! I've been kicking the tires on an Aurender recently.  I'm happy to tinker but the idea of a Roon enabled HDX style server/streamer from Naim would make me very happy:-) I'd be ok if they dropped the CD ripper, but I'm being picky.

Thanks Greg.

ChrisByrd posted:

Wasn't the title of the thread meant to be just a bit ironic?

 

"I am just a man whose intentions are good,

Oh Lord please don't let me be misunderstood".

At least someone understands!

SJB

Sloop John B posted:

Well as a UniQute and Superuniti user I would hope Naim might look seriously at integrating Roon. 

Until then yes it's use another end point as Roon confusingly call them, apparently there will be announcements shortly. 

At the moment and I'm open to correction as I'm quite new to this, it's a Mac, PC, Auralic Aries or Squeezebox ( Logitech Media Server to be precise - so there are raspberry pi options )

SJB 

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I will not act yet, but keep my eyes open to developments to come.

I would like to try roon, last time i did this software which serves music would not run on windows server, which was a fail.

however they appear to have fixed that, but when i try and link to the server from an ipad, it does not work.

frankly they want too much money for flakey software. I have a server with all my music on, therefore roon needs to run from there or its a no go

Their forum is regularly visited by the coders so a query there should elicit a response from people who can help. 

i have already have had 2 of my queries resolved by their head of tech. 

SJB

I installed it on my mac in the end which did the trick. I don't like their 'we need your credit card details for a free trial trick' I thought that was reserved for apple.

What roon is doing is no different to what PLEX is doing, only plex is far cheaper.

I think you need the plex pass for all the features (3.49 a month), but all that rich meta data in plex is identical, they are obviously pulling on the same resources. So for my money roon does not make a lot of sense.

I see it has some options to hog audio output etc for a supposed improvement in sound quality, I cannot detect this although I am in my shed with an old pair of monitor audio speakers so perhaps I need more to get the benefit

I suppose if you are into tidal then it makes more sense.

Roon Detail:

[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1932755/roon.png[/img]

Plex Detail:

[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1932755/plex.png[/img]

Sadly img links do not appear to work on this new fangled, 21st century forum.

Does plex integrate seamlessly with Tidal? Been very impressed with Roon but have not investigated alternatives

Ah but it's about so much more than that piece of metadata.

1. click on "focus on similar" and a list of similar albums is populated, you can choose one, or more, or shuffle them all.
2. click other versions and if you have other versions of this album they will show up here, Ron only shows the highest definition recording of an album if it's duplicated (this can be controlled in options) but I find it very handy not to see 3 of every Beatles album and Rory Gallagher album in my collection.
3. Click the credits and this gives you full information (in most cases) of who played on the album, produced it, mastered it etc. click on any of these people to fond any other albums they appear on.
4. If there are other version of any of the songs in your collection this is highlighted and can be clicked into. I was listening to "out of our heads" by the stones (UK version) and I see I have 2 other versions of "Cry to Me", one by Solomon Burke and one by Betty Harris so I listed to the 3 of them, all quite different versions.

and that's just from that screen before we mention, Radio, focus, discovery and the excellent way classical music is handled.

It like the difference between teletext and the internet to me.

SJB

SJB did you sign lifetime membership?

Ralf

Hi Slop, roon is certainly better, I get that. And I guess its horses for courses. Plex offers the ability for one click playlists based on genre, artist etc plus lyrics support as well, plus of course I can listen to my entire music collection anywhere in the world.

Roon appears to have benefits as well, but its an expensive option. I would struggle to justify circa £30 a month with tidal, for me at least I would find more enjoyment and benefit from spending 30 quid on amazon which tends to get you around 6 cds nower days. 

I am not overaly keen on roons interface either its very bleached and white ala the general move by companies nower days.

I shall continue to play though. I have 12 days left

T38.45 posted:

SJB did you sign lifetime membership?

Ralf

Indeed I did for £165 less than the price of a powerline. I think it will give me at least as much enjoyment as the powerline.

SJB

I find the concept Roon intriguing but the pricing unrealistic.

Its amusing to see how reviews proliferate around the web - the same review of the Zappa album appears on allmusic.com.  That site is free.

garyi posted:

Hi Slop, roon is certainly better, I get that. And I guess its horses for courses. Plex offers the ability for one click playlists based on genre, artist etc plus lyrics support as well, plus of course I can listen to my entire music collection anywhere in the world.

Roon appears to have benefits as well, but its an expensive option. I would struggle to justify circa £30 a month with tidal, for me at least I would find more enjoyment and benefit from spending 30 quid on amazon which tends to get you around 6 cds nower days. 

I am not overaly keen on roons interface either its very bleached and white ala the general move by companies nower days.

I shall continue to play though. I have 12 days left

Indeed Horses for Courses, you can change the colour scheme though!

Theme can be light or dark.

SJB

Well I am really liking it. So much more interesting than the dry Naim app. It inspires me to listen to something different, especially with the Tidal integration. Just so easy to use and gives you lots of ideas of things to listen too. I can really see it broadening my horizons musically which is great.

I am so impressed I am thinking of adding a Hugo/2qute to my 272 to get the nest possible sound quality from my mac mini: just can't see me using the Naim streaming interface until/if Roon is enabled.

PhilP posted:

I find the concept Roon intriguing but the pricing unrealistic.

Its amusing to see how reviews proliferate around the web - the same review of the Zappa album appears on allmusic.com.  That site is free.

Allmusic is one of their sources, as credited within Roon.

The key difference being Roon collates everything into a single, beautiful GUI, as well as hyperlinking the majority of key information, which can used to further explore your music collection, and expand out into Tidal.

I dont think Roon's evolved as much as the developers would have liked (they have high ambitions) - but part of that is exactly because they are extremely interactive with their users and work to keep them happy - trying to add features to accommodate everyone's needs.  That said what they have achieved so far is amazing, and I could never go back to using anything else.  It's maybe hard to appreciate what it does 'on paper' if you haven't used it, but if you like a nice interface, and to explore music, then its well worth a try.  

They are also pushing for their own advanced audio transport (RAAT) with sound quality and reliability at its core, and hence why so many hardware manufacturers have announced 'RoonReady' partnerships.  It would be a shame if Naim weren't one of them.  I sold all my Naim gear a while back, but was looking at something like the Muso for the bedroom.  RoonReady would be the clincher.

I guess some manufacturers like Naim - with their own streaming Apps etc might be worried about people not using theirs anymore, but it seems more likely that the extra choice will just be better for sales.  I mean, they include Airplay, Spotify, etc and neither of those are really 'audiophile' level additions, so RoonReady would simply be another offering at the high-end.

I also felt Roon was expensive at first, but it didnt stop me buying it  - certainly the 'lifetime' is an absolute bargain (assuming it stays around for many years), since you get free updates for life including all their new features which they haven't even dreamt up yet.  If they continue at the pace they've been at since launch, it might just turn out to be one the best value bits of software I ever bought!

On another note, its nice to see the Naim forums have been updated too.

Indeed it will be very interesting when Roon devices that can receive RAAT come onto the market.

The developers at Roon seem to think it is far better than UPnP (and I know they would say that wouldn't they) so it will be interesting when I can compare RAAT to music streamed through UPnP to my SuperUniti.

As you rightly say if RAAT is as good as it appears it might it would be a great addition to Mu-So type products as well as the whole Naim streaming range.

We will never know if Naim are working on it, but it's good to be aware of what is out there, I'd be kicking myself now If I'd bought into a streaming solution that couldn't avail of Roon.

I created a bookmarked list of albums I know my wife listens to (or used to listen to) and for the first time she is showing interest in streaming.  When she selects this bookmark these are the only albums she sees but can do all of the filtering and use all the options as if it were the full subset she was viewing. She could never hack seeing 1600 albums when logging into the Naim app or iPeng. Simple stuff that brings music to life.

Would you guess I'm smitten?

SJB