Roon Discussion

Discussion in 'Computer Audiophile: Software, Configs, Tools' started by AllanMarcus, Jul 3, 2016.

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  1. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    oh Jesus you're probably right. That sounds similar to what someone on the roon help forums was saying but in a much more convoluted way I did not understand.

    Not good if that's true. Dealbreaker for sure.

    Tidal is not closed to other apps/services accessing my favorite artists. As you can see, TuneMyMusic had no problem doing it.
     
  2. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Can confirm what @monacelli said, which is what I said back in your Tidal thread @rhythmdevils - Roon only adds to your “Artists” view based on the albums or tracks you have added to your library. It doesn’t care about “favorites” in Tidal. All your views from the main Roon menu, be it Artists, Genres, Composers, etc only look at the albums or tracks in your library (local files and on Tidal/Qobuz).

    However, also in your menu is a “Tidal” item where you can get into your Tidal favorites etc (this is my phone screenshots, but the same things should be accessible from laptop or tablet):

    478C213C-99E9-48FC-A821-B7889E58BA4A.jpeg

    21E161B8-43B3-411E-A331-96D8A2B573B5.jpeg
     
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2020
  3. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    What a ridiculous pain in the ass. If that’s true I’m off roon. Sad I sat down the other day to get started tagging artists and I was all excited about being able to organize my library. I don’t use albums who does? I use artists. WTF is roon thinking. I kind of want to punch someone right now. Go full on Andy Bernard.
     
  4. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    I think this is one of the main differences between Roon and Tidal - Roon just isn’t refacing Tidal. It was originally intended mainly for people with their own library of files - streaming services were added later and Roon is really one of the only (if not the only) interface that will bring them together in one view for you. Because Roon started as a local library viewer, it didn’t really make sense to “add an artist” since all the artists in your album library are already there. You can still navigate through the Tidal view though if you want and get at all that stuff.

    By the way, once you’ve added a single album by an artist, when you visit that artist’s page, all their Tidal albums will show up in chronological order under the albums you have added to you own library as well.

    So for instance, I’ve only added one Lana Del Rey album to my own library from Tidal, but there are 6 others from Tidal directly underneath that I can listen to whenever:
    06FA1887-B6E4-4AC5-BC45-9B1EDF51328E.jpeg

    By the way, I’m not trying to sell you in Roon, it may totally not be up your alley or how you prefer to manager or play your music - just want to help you understand it before putting a bullet in it.
     

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    Last edited: Sep 14, 2020
  5. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    eh, it just feels like another layer of Tidal. Another interface trying to force me to browse my library in a certain way. Tidal does so via ignorance and lack of trying, and roon seems to do so via being absolutely f'ing retarded.

    I'm not interested in adding individual albums just to appease roon's stupid f'ing interface. Really this just makes me mad, I'm so sick of how cumbersome it is to navigate my library, and here's this service that is designed for that very purpose and they have their heads completely up their asses.

    I've contacted roon directly about this, someone I emailed back and forth several times about the service before signing up. I'll report back with what they say. Their customer service is excellent at least.
     
  6. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    Will you look at that, they just replied. I'll just post the whole reply here for information sake. And so you can see how amazing their customer service is. I haven't clicked on the links yet...

    Hey Whitney,

    Thanks for staying in touch and for finding a moment to let us know of the progress in your journey of discovering Roon. I'm actually glad you're asking all these questions, so, please, don't hate reaching out :)

    Let's take the artists in your Tidal account. Generally, once you enable your Tidal account in Roon, all the artists/albums that you've favorited (not those that are in your catalogue) in Tidal will appear in your Roon Library. Geoff Coupe, a veteran Roon subscriber has a brilliant explanation here:

    https://community.roonlabs.com/t/tidal-favorites-are-different-than-roon-favorites/63575/3?u=rebeka

    Sometimes, it may take quite a few hours for everything to sync. See everything about how Tidal works here:

    https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en...wsing_TIDAL_and_adding_albums_to_your_library

    Favorites do sync between Tidal and Roon, it's just, sometimes they take a day or two to catch with each other. Here's Andrew Cox, one of our Roon subscribers that explains it clearly:

    https://community.roonlabs.com/t/roon-tidal-favourites-synchronisation-resolved/53457/2?u=rebeka

    You can always do a manual sync by going to: Settings > Services > Edit > Sync Library Now .

    As for adding albums to your library, this article explains what happens when you do so:

    https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en...ry-and-albums-outside-of-my-library-17-3-2020

    Please, let me know if I missed anythig,
    Rebeka​
     
  7. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    But (here comes the but ;) ) they all do this. Pandora, Spotify, Tidal, Roon, fill_in_the_blank have a UI/browsing philosophy of one sort or another. You obviously prefer the Artist/genre/"internet radio" emphasis of Spotify, Pandora, and the like. Speaking for myself, when I first started using Tidal I tended toward this way as well, but shortly thereafter I got Roon and now I naturally think in terms of Albums and genres first. When I have to use the Tidal app traveling or in the car, I do alot of cursing and I never really adjust to its UI philosophy to be honest :cool:

    There are things Roon does not get right, its hideously expensive, and I don't like their Bob Stuart support/connections, but I admit it's head and shoulders above any other musical UI/browsing philosophy I have used up until this point...
     
  8. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    What are you using to browse/control your playback @rhythmdevils? I mainly use my phone, and you know what, it doesn’t have a “favorites” view when I go into my albums - but my IPad does! (and the iPad mimics the desktop app, so it should be there too).

    So there you you go! Smart idea checking with the actual experts on this ;)
     
  9. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    @crenca and @rlow can do a better job typing this stuff up than I can when I am drunk.

    And this is why Roon and Tidal + Qobuz do free trials. If Qobuz was an ass and didn't allow Third Parties to access their services with APIs, then I would ditch Qobuz a long time ago because I think their interference on mobile and PC app sucks. I honestly only access Qobuz directly when I'm buying music from Qobuz or I need to update my payment options.
     
  10. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    A MacBook Air. I haven't tried the iOS apps. Haven't gotten even close to that point.

    Despite what the nice lady at roon said, I did an experiment. There were 151 artists in my roon library in artists view, which is where all the action happens. I went on the Tidal app, and "unfavorited" an album. It did take a little while, but today in artist view, it says 150.

    So my conclusion is that any song or album you favorite, that artist gets added to your roon artist library. But it does not add any of the actual artists you favorite to the roon artist library.

    This is absolutely asinine.

    I can access my Tidal favorite artists by clicking 1. Tidal 2. favorites 3. artists 4. all

    And then I get an alphabetical list of artists. Just like Tidal. Yay. But with 4 extra clicks.

    I thought I could maybe circumvent this by tagging artists in this Tidal artists view, and then they'd show up in my tags and it wouldn't matter in the end, but of course the geniuses at roon won't let you tag an artist while in the Tidal > favorites > artists > all - view.

    So basically my conclusion is that roon is completely useless and accomplishes nothing. I might as well save 10$ per month and not have to sign in every time I launch my music app, and just use Tidal and hope they add customizable folders as I suggested to them.
     
  11. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    Yep, Roon does a batch "metadata" sync job in the middle of the night (England time) once a day, so there is always a up to 24 hour lag if (un)favorite an album/track in Tidal directly and look for the result in Roon.

    I can't recall the opposite scenario, (un)favoriting in Roon and then checking the behavior in Tidal app. I believe there is no lag going that way...
     
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2020
  12. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    Roon has one feature, that I have not seen in any other UI, which is tags. I found that I can do almost anything I want using tags. But that may be because my library is not very large and I have limited expectations. When I had to use Tidal UI without Roon I hated it, the same with Qobuz.
    In any case UI is not why I decided to go with Roon. Networking protocol (RAAT) and its ability to flawlessly manage steaming to different types of endpoints (OS, RAM, speed, buffer size etc..), and SQ, those were the most important reasons.
     
  13. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    Roon is opinionated. Some love their opinions, some hate them. I much prefer an opinionated app that does not try to be everything for everyone (universal mediocrity). Lots of other apps and service out there. Roon works for me, but I'd not try to defend them (they don't need it anyway) to anyone who has very different needs.
     
  14. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    I just can't fathom how what they seem to have done is even a valid opinion. Adding your favorite albums and songs to the rooon artist library, and ignoring all your favorite artists is just idiotic. They should at least give you a check list of artists, albums, songs, and let you check which you want imported into roon's artist library. The rest I can see as an opinion or way or dealing with a music library. I can't even get mine into roon. And I don't see how any of you did either. Who just favorites albums on Tidal, and browses a hugemongous list of albums when they're deciding what to listen to? That's non-sensical.

    I probably come off as angry, I'm just very disappointed. I've endured years of Apple slowly removing functionality from iTunes/Music apps and then trying to cope with Tidal, and then hearing of a program that's specifically just UI management got me so excited that I might be at peace with my music collection and be able to find things.

    The Tidal desktop app is absurd, all the gigantic circles makes it take forever to scroll through your catalog and there isn't even a scroll bar...
     
  15. beemerphile

    beemerphile Friend

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    Well Roon works for some and not for others. But they are steadily improving it unlike Apple, who slowly and it seems intentionally, works to obfuscate and cripple the interface, or Tidal who seems uninterested in improving it (and pushes hip-hop in your face). The Tidal interface truly sucks. The "Lightning" interface that came with my Auralic Aries sucked. Amazon Music sucks. The suck seemed to be universal for music interfaces. The interface was just something they had to have in order to function. For Roon, it is their only reason for being. At least, Roon seemed to be working to make it better and more universal. Independent of whether you used Auralic, Aurender, Ambre, or Raspberry pi. Independent of whether you used Tidal, Qobuz, or your own albums. I decided that if I was going to hitch my horse to a particular wagon (and I did with a lifetime sub) it would be Roon. I had to make a mindset change for Roon to be useful to me. I've also had to relax a bit about why they don't do things as I would have done it. "My music" is what exists on my NAS. It has 326 artists and Roon and I agree on who they are. I don't "favorite" anything on Tidal. I don't deal with Tidal other than to pay them every month. My main interface with Roon is the search bar. I keep a list of artists and albums I want to audition. I like that Roon can source from the Tidal library in searches, but I don't consider it "my" library. I'm discovering lots of new artists by starting with an interesting album or artist and seeing what Roon drags in to play when it finishes. For all the holes in their musical quality Swiss cheese, I always thought Pandora did the similar artists thing well with their "Music Genome". My hope was that Roon would one day become as good, and I think they working in that direction. But Tidal's music is not my music. If something really appeals to me, I buy it and it goes on the NAS. One day all of this might evaporate and I want some music that is mine. But this way, I can enjoy music by renting it and make sure it is something I really want to own. Much better than the old process of buying it on a hunch and being often disappointed. And (big and) I don't have to re-invent, re-load, port, or start over every time the hardware or music provider changes.
     
  16. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    That's ideal, but I don't have access to my Mac Pro right now where all my music is or I wouldn't even have a Tidal subscription, I'd have an iTunes alternative app or use culumn browser in iTunes which works for me good enough despite them removing all my artwork and then I'd by an alternative iOS music app.

    Maybe I'd have a Tidal subscription iike you for iistening before buying.
     
  17. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    I'm going to send a version of all these pots of mine to roon and see what they say, maybe also post in the feature request forum.
     
  18. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    I do not get this point. IMO It is not even the main reason why people use Roon. In Room forums people argue about UI and Roon is getting better at it. But without audio zones, quality of endpoint support, or RAAT in general, they would become just like everybody else with maybe better UI, which is still the matter of individual taste and needs. For example @rhythmdevils is very upset about the lack of functionality that I did not even notice in my 3 years of using Roon.
    But Roon dropped RAAT networking capability, I think their user base would shrink to 5%. T
     
  19. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    “Functionality”? I can’t even get my Tidal library into roon. I think that’s a bit too mild a word.
     
  20. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    Sorry, missed that point. I never had a problem with that.
     

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