I broke down and downloaded ROON...

[mneveux]

I gave Roon a try but ended up cancelling just before the trial was up. The sound quality was not even close to my iTunes using Amarra sQ+ as the sound engine.

[DaQi]

On 7/20/2018 at 5:38 AM, Kal Rubinson said:

That depends on what you mean by "entered."  There have been many who have tried it and found good reason not to purchase/subscribe.  I read about them almost daily on the Roon community.

I am one of those people. I have tried it a couple times but each time just don't feel it is worth it. Last time I tried it was when they announced Sonos integration. As I have Sonos throughout my house I gave it a try but in the end just didn't see it as worth it to justify the cost. My current JRiver works well and I am not THAT interested in the metadata to pay $100 more per year for it. 

[AudioDoctor]

Something I have noticed in Roon is that it has difficulty getting information on some downloaded albums.  has anyone found a way to work with this and help Roon out?

 

Two different downloads, one has data, the other has nothing.

[AudioDoctor]

I found a catalog number and upc, added that in via the edit menu, it found the CD that only has 10 songs on it.  My download has 11.  Song 11 is song 1, in French rather than English.

[ShawnC]

8 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

Something I have noticed in Roon is that it has difficulty getting information on some downloaded albums.  has anyone found a way to work with this and help Roon out?

 

Two different downloads, one has data, the other has nothing.

On the Roon forums this has been brought up before.  Roon uses 1 or 2 services for all their artist information/data.  It has been mentioned to add other services to round out the missing information but Roon says it costs extra money that they don't have yet.  Or as they put it, It's not high enough on there to do list.  Roon puts up with a ton customers requests and are doing their best to prioritize which services they need to provide first to the masses.   The companies that do provide the information are typically dealing with the most popular music genres and artist and then work their way to the less obscure.  

[AudioDoctor]

1 minute ago, ShawnC said:

On the Roon forums this has been brought up before.  Roon uses 1 or 2 services for all their artist information/data.  It has been mentioned to add other services to round out the missing information but Roon says it costs extra money that they don't have yet.  Or as they put it, It's not high enough on there to do list.  Roon puts up with a ton customers requests and are doing their best to prioritize which services they need to provide first to the masses.   The companies that do provide the information are typically dealing with the most popular music genres and artist and then work their way to the less obscure.  

 

Thanks, I suppose I should have checked there as well. I understand their position, everything eventually comes down to money.

 

I'd like an Aurender N10 ROON server please. ?

[Allan F]

On 7/20/2018 at 7:18 AM, n2it said:

I tried HQPlayer (I've got a PC that can do non 2s upsampling to DSD512 for what it's worth).  The library features and UI are OK, but not very flexible (and from seeing some of Jussi comments, its not an area where he is going to put in work - which probably means I won't buy the software).  Also no streaming integration.  Also is a perpetual license - haven't checked if upgrades cost $.

 

Use of the HQPDcontrol app on an Android tablet as a remote for HQPlayer more than addresses HQPlayer's very basic interface to my satisfaction. Ales Prochazka developed this app and it's available free from Google Play. He has issued updates to incorporate new features when introduced by HQPlayer. Unless one is subscribed to a streaming service such as TIDAL, I cannot see the justification of paying for Roon when the SQ of its playback and upsampling features are already performed better by HQPlayer. BTW, there is no cost for the HQPlayer updates that Jussi issues.

[Miska]

On 7/20/2018 at 5:18 PM, n2it said:

I tried HQPlayer (I've got a PC that can do non 2s upsampling to DSD512 for what it's worth).  The library features and UI are OK, but not very flexible (and from seeing some of Jussi comments, its not an area where he is going to put in work - which probably means I won't buy the software).  Also no streaming integration.  Also is a perpetual license - haven't checked if upgrades cost $.  If HQplayer had a plug-in to foobar 2000, that would get me closer to buying.

 

There's integration with Roon however, and that way you also get Tidal.

 

HQPlayer supports drag-and-drop from other applications, some people use it that way with iTunes or foobar2k.

 

Since HQPlayer Embedded can work as UPnP Renderer, Tidal can be used from various different applications with it (Roon, BubbleUPnP App, mConnect Player App, Audirvana+). And with it, HQPDcontrol can be used for local library.

 

[n2it]

5 hours ago, Miska said:

 

There's integration with Roon however, and that way you also get Tidal.

 

HQPlayer supports drag-and-drop from other applications, some people use it that way with iTunes or foobar2k.

 

Since HQPlayer Embedded can work as UPnP Renderer, Tidal can be used from various different applications with it (Roon, BubbleUPnP App, mConnect Player App, Audirvana+). And with it, HQPDcontrol can be used for local library.

 

 

Just tried the drop and drag from Foobar ... that might be a fairly reasonable low tech solution - thanks for the suggestion.

 

For me, I am not worried about Tidal - I am trying it out, but probably won't keep it as I already subscribe to too many other services for the family use.  Problem with iTunes is that I use if for Apple Music - so those wouldn't drop and drag (since they are protected files) (this is where it would be really cool if you had a pass through audio driver for HQplayer ... but I read your response to someone else on that - and totally understand why you wouldn't want to take that on) 

 

You mention HQPlayer Embedded - haven't had a chance to understand how it might work for.  Just a lot of pieces to put together and not a huge amount of time.

 

12 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

Use of the HQPDcontrol app on an Android tablet as a remote for HQPlayer more than addresses HQPlayer's very basic interface to my satisfaction. Ales Prochazka developed this app and it's available free from Google Play. He has issued updates to incorporate new features when introduced by HQPlayer. Unless one is subscribed to a streaming service such as TIDAL, I cannot see the justification of paying for Roon when the SQ of its playback and upsampling features are already performed better by HQPlayer. BTW, there is no cost for the HQPlayer updates that Jussi issues.

  

That is on my list to try ... thanks for the suggestion!

[Miska]

4 hours ago, n2it said:

Problem with iTunes is that I use if for Apple Music - so those wouldn't drop and drag (since they are protected files) (this is where it would be really cool if you had a pass through audio driver for HQplayer ... but I read your response to someone else on that - and totally understand why you wouldn't want to take that on) 

 

You mention HQPlayer Embedded - haven't had a chance to understand how it might work for.  Just a lot of pieces to put together and not a huge amount of time.

 

HQPlayer Embedded in this context is upsampler box you put between mac/Windows computer and DAC. A bit like you would with dCS Upsampler, etc. But in addition it still can do all the other stuff like being standalone HQPlayer, Roon endpoint, UPnP Renderer, etc. And it is not restricted to digital inputs, it also works with analog inputs like vinyl.

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, n2it said:

Problem with iTunes is that I use if for Apple Music - so those wouldn't drop and drag (since they are protected files) (this is where it would be really cool if you had a pass through audio driver for HQplayer ... but I read your response to someone else on that - and totally understand why you wouldn't want to take that on) 

 

You mention HQPlayer Embedded - haven't had a chance to understand how it might work for.  Just a lot of pieces to put together and not a huge amount of time.

 

HQPlayer Embedded in this context is upsampler box you put between mac/Windows computer and DAC. A bit like you would with dCS Upsampler, etc. But in addition it still can do all the other stuff like being standalone HQPlayer, Roon endpoint, UPnP Renderer, etc. And it is not restricted to digital inputs, it also works with analog inputs like vinyl.

 

[rn701]

On 7/26/2018 at 9:36 PM, DaQi said:

I am one of those people. I have tried it a couple times but each time just don't feel it is worth it. Last time I tried it was when they announced Sonos integration. As I have Sonos throughout my house I gave it a try but in the end just didn't see it as worth it to justify the cost. My current JRiver works well and I am not THAT interested in the metadata to pay $100 more per year for it. 

 

 

I hacked together a couple of trackinfo displays for jriver that work for free. This one uses lastfm:

 

 

 

Find it here.

 

This one uses wikipedia:

 

 

Find it here.

 

Bonus: both show time and weather info at the bottom left.

 

[AudioDoctor]

Are you that interested in the weather when you're listening to music?  haha.

 

How did you do this?

[rn701]

3 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

Are you that interested in the weather when you're listening to music?  haha.

 

How did you do this?

 

Jriver has a thing called trackinfo. It pulls up an html web page that you design. It passes the currently playing artist, album, track and other info. You can embed javascript or whatever. That's what I used to hack these together. You can create as many as you want and select them from the menus to show while playing music. You select one and put it in full screen mode and that's what you see.

 

If you go to the links and download them you can look at the index.htm file to see how it's done. Everything is self-contained in there.

 

As for the weather, we have music playing throughout the day and it's nice to see the time and temp at a glance, so you can know when it's warm/cool enough to go out and walk the dog or whatever.

[AudioDoctor]

I'm impressed.

[rn701]

It's the poor man's roon. 

[Whitigir]

So, let me get this straight....people buy Roon because album artist display ?

[AudioDoctor]

Its more than that for me, I can't speak for anyone else. I do hope they integrate Qubuz though.

[ShawnC]

52 minutes ago, Whitigir said:

So, let me get this straight....people buy Roon because album artist display ?

Nope, if anything they’re the worst of all the software I’ve tried. They excel at metadata and through this  they create a vast linking system of discovery within your collection.  

 

I hope Roon soon has a major visual overhaul.  They waste too much space that could be used for bigger metadata of the current song selected and artwork. JRivers theatre view is the best, especially with the changing still shots of the artists in the back ground as the music plays. Plus there metadata is displayed nice and large on the screen. 

[AudioDoctor]

Personally, I like the Discovery and Focus features that help keep me out of the rut of listening to the same music I all too easily get caught in. I am awaiting a Nucleus + demo and hoping that improves sound quality over using my computer as player and control.

[AudioDoctor]

Then there is the Artist view, where I can see upcoming concerts, as well as links to other websites/social media for more info.  I can't tell you the number of times I have missed an artist by a DAY because I didn't know about the performance in time. I missed Kat Edmonson and The Hot Sardines by a day, luckily they came back relatively soon.