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Review of Roon Media Player and Server
- Thread starter amirm
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The "wierd" thing with roon and Tidal is that I am almost exclusively listening to new music and exploring genres I never would have.
No longer that interested in playing back one of my old favourites for the zillionth time .
Its $120 for a year , $10 a month.. or even at the $400 mark for lifetime subscription.. those figures are chickenfeed for most that post here.
No longer that interested in playing back one of my old favourites for the zillionth time .
Its $120 for a year , $10 a month.. or even at the $400 mark for lifetime subscription.. those figures are chickenfeed for most that post here.
Having read enough about Roon over the past week, I must say there seem to be a lot of compelling features in the product. I must admit, however, to a couple of misgivings:
1) Although it shouldn't be a big surprise -- the price. Even for the stereotypically well-heeled (which I'm not) audiophile, $500 is a **** of a lot of money when other options are available for free or less than one-tenth Roon's cost. Of course, it's all relative...if Roon provides more than $500's worth of improvement in the user and listener experience, even the relatively-high price tag would be justifiable, if we could count on that experience for the long-term. Which brings me to point 2...
2) It would appear that much of Roon's appeal lies in the rich metadata provided by the service -- which all comes directly from Roon itself. Now, while we all hope for the best in new, promising audio companies, the fact remains that Roon Labs is a recent startup, and the track record for such ventures is hardly something that lends itself to blind optimism. Should, two or three years down the line, the company fail and pull the plug on its servers, what is going to be left for the consumer? How much of the "Roon experience" is predicated on a functional online connection to the company? I can understand that you would no longer have access to their metadata for newly-entered music, but would you still have local access to the data for music you already had entered? If you had to change hardware, would that catalog data be able to be moved as well? For that matter, since the core is only licensed for one machine, would you even be able to uninstall it from your old machine and reinstall it on the new hardware, or would any such attempt fail because Roon could no longer verify the license? What about entering a new CD -- in the absence of a connection to Roon's servers, you obviously wouldn't be able to take advantage of their metadata, but would you be able to enter everything on your own, or would the system balk because it couldn't obtain any information with Roon Labs? Finally, would Tidal integration continue to work under such circumstances?
Those are all unresolved questions for me. And, while relying on a media system with such outstanding questions is a gamble in any event, it becomes an even bigger gamble when the price for a place at the table is $500.
1) Although it shouldn't be a big surprise -- the price. Even for the stereotypically well-heeled (which I'm not) audiophile, $500 is a **** of a lot of money when other options are available for free or less than one-tenth Roon's cost. Of course, it's all relative...if Roon provides more than $500's worth of improvement in the user and listener experience, even the relatively-high price tag would be justifiable, if we could count on that experience for the long-term. Which brings me to point 2...
2) It would appear that much of Roon's appeal lies in the rich metadata provided by the service -- which all comes directly from Roon itself. Now, while we all hope for the best in new, promising audio companies, the fact remains that Roon Labs is a recent startup, and the track record for such ventures is hardly something that lends itself to blind optimism. Should, two or three years down the line, the company fail and pull the plug on its servers, what is going to be left for the consumer? How much of the "Roon experience" is predicated on a functional online connection to the company? I can understand that you would no longer have access to their metadata for newly-entered music, but would you still have local access to the data for music you already had entered? If you had to change hardware, would that catalog data be able to be moved as well? For that matter, since the core is only licensed for one machine, would you even be able to uninstall it from your old machine and reinstall it on the new hardware, or would any such attempt fail because Roon could no longer verify the license? What about entering a new CD -- in the absence of a connection to Roon's servers, you obviously wouldn't be able to take advantage of their metadata, but would you be able to enter everything on your own, or would the system balk because it couldn't obtain any information with Roon Labs? Finally, would Tidal integration continue to work under such circumstances?
Those are all unresolved questions for me. And, while relying on a media system with such outstanding questions is a gamble in any event, it becomes an even bigger gamble when the price for a place at the table is $500.
$10 a month for lossy audio. Not what's best forum worthy that's for sure. The Hifi lossless subscription should be absolute minimum at $20 a month.
Two points:
1) There is no $10/month subscription option -- only yearly for $119 or lifetime for $500. I'm not inclined to "try it out" for any longer than the two-week free trial, because I see little point to subscribing for a year and then deciding whether to go lifetime, because that would essentially raise the total price to $619. No thanks...I first want to get the answers I need, then, if they're favorable, try it out for two weeks, period. If I like it enough, I'll shell out the $500; if not, I'll delete it and be done with the whole thing.
2) The bigger point is that the questions I have raised (about what will happen if Roon ceases to exist) cannot possibly be answered by "trying it for a few months." All that will tell me is that it's running fine now, while Roon is doing well. The issues for which I need answers can only be resolved with straightforward information from Roon itself about how usable the product will be if Roon itself no longer exists (both in terms of metadata access and entry and whether it would be even possible to uninstall Roon Core from a computer and move it to a newer one). And, while I understand that Roon might not want to talk about "what happens if we go bankrupt," knowing that the product will still be usable without the company there to provide a continuous data connection would do a lot to increase my confidence in a product before shelling out half-a-grand for it.
James, someone else posed your question of "ceases to exist" to Roon on the Roon Forum. I suggest you go on the Roon Forum and do a search and see if the Q/A meets to your satisfaction. If not pose your follow-up questions to ROON as they are very responsive to all.
Ahh ok. But Roon without Tidal wouldn't be near as cool. At least get the Tidal trial, and use it with Roon. And of course HQplayer, so you can get the best sound.
I suppose that's the risk you must take. You can't get out of bed these days without taking risks. One thing I know for certain is, you won't get a cooler media player to enjoy without taking the risk. You only live once, enjoy the best of what the world provides while you are on this planet
I , for once , agree with Blizzard... Roon AND tidal make a potent front end.
Roon is a "cosmetic" add on .. it really has nothing to do with SQ unless they add a DSP section.. as such , either you like the way it works or not
Roon as a stand alone without tidal would be a good add on for a large collection..
I got life membership on a special offer for $230 .. so I went for it..
Roon is a "cosmetic" add on .. it really has nothing to do with SQ unless they add a DSP section.. as such , either you like the way it works or not
Roon as a stand alone without tidal would be a good add on for a large collection..
I got life membership on a special offer for $230 .. so I went for it..
They did add a DSP section, and the best one available. HQplayer. They knew they couldn't do better, so they teamed up with the master.
HI
So far "playing" with Roon. Very powerful interface. I can't have TIdal when in Haiti . Regardless a very nice interface. Withholding effusive praises .. Let's say I am impressed.
I understand that it can be customized to organize your collection by folders if I am to understand a recent post in WBF. Well worth the $599 price IMHO... Put your music collection much closer to you. Again, mightily impressed.
So far "playing" with Roon. Very powerful interface. I can't have TIdal when in Haiti
. Regardless a very nice interface. Withholding effusive praises .. Let's say I am impressed. I understand that it can be customized to organize your collection by folders if I am to understand a recent post in WBF. Well worth the $599 price IMHO... Put your music collection much closer to you. Again, mightily impressed.
I don't think that's right ... HQPlayer has nice sonics, but it does not offer the ability to plug in third party parametric eq (such as Fab Filter Pro, which is highly transparent) or other "dsp" effects. For me, once Roon enables third party plugins it will replace J River ... unless I've missed a huge upgrade to the HQPlayer functionality?
I am not sure but I would think that the same interface they created for HQplayer can be used by any other plug-in to do any type of DSP processing wanted. The only reason this would not work is if the interface they created for HQ is private.
Hqplayer has an 64 bit multichannel convolution engine. You can create the most advanced DSP profiles with many different software packages, and import the profiles into the engine. But no VST support because VST plugins degrade quality. It's also the only software that can apply the DSP to DSD without conversion to PCM.
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The last time I traded emails with HQPlayer's developer, plug-ins were not something he was going to support - the vibe was that noise shaping and upsampling were "acceptable digital processing" but mucking with response curves wasn't.
Blizzard ...
So, there's a way to take the PEQ settings from Fab Filter Pro and convert those to a convolution file with the appropriate sampling frequency and bit depth for HQ Player to process it?
I've tried convolution engines such as Acourate and AudioLens, and while powerful, they did "too much" and sucked a bit of the life out of my system. Fab Filter Pro works a lot better for me.
It's not obvious that VST plugins have to degrade quality. Sure, some are lousy, but not all of them are. Just as with most audio products. It should be entirely possible do the noise shaping and upsampling that HQPlayer excels at following the application of a plug in or convolution engine.
So, there's a way to take the PEQ settings from Fab Filter Pro and convert those to a convolution file with the appropriate sampling frequency and bit depth for HQ Player to process it?
I've tried convolution engines such as Acourate and AudioLens, and while powerful, they did "too much" and sucked a bit of the life out of my system. Fab Filter Pro works a lot better for me.
It's not obvious that VST plugins have to degrade quality. Sure, some are lousy, but not all of them are. Just as with most audio products. It should be entirely possible do the noise shaping and upsampling that HQPlayer excels at following the application of a plug in or convolution engine.
Yes "VST plugin's" are not supported. This is because they degrade quality, and are only PCM compatible. You can use software like the free REW program:
http://www.roomeqwizard.com
With it you can do all kinds of EQ and room correction
Or even advanced FIR room correction with Acourate convoluter:
http://www.audiovero.de/en/acourateconvolver.php
And import the impulse responses into the HQplayer convolution engine. This of course is if you want the highest sound quality possible, as well as DSD compatibility, combined with the slick Roon GUI with integrated Tidal.
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