Alternatives to Roon

[evand]

As “sophisticated” as Roon is I’ve gotten to the point that the issues Roon refuse to address are driving me to consider alternatives. I bought into Roon for the metadata integration, and they’ve done a pretty good job at that, but the continuing direction of travel coupled with missing basics holds no further interest for me, to the the extent I could frankly go without the metadata.

Has anyone tried ampache and/or an alternative like Rompr with a mpd backend to drive their music ux or have any other suggestions for a decent UI/UX?

 

[thegreathopper]

I am very pleased with Roon, but to be honest the Blue Sound OS I had before was very good, especially as it’s free!

 

[flutteringwow]

Theres no alternative to Roon if you use all its functions, the multi speaker control is one of the primarily reasons I bought it, so I guess it depends what you want. Audirvana is always worth a look, SQ wise was better for me with AV.

Roons arrogance over fixing issues and the heated arguements by the Roon 'defenders' on the Roon forum is like a mob sometimes, so it does let the whole company down.

 

[manicatel]

At what Roon does, there is nothing I’ve seen that’s better. Or even equal.
Audirvana, if you’re a Mac user may be worth a go, or the native apps such as BluOS or the Naim app etc if you have their gear.
It strikes me that with this kind of “library/streaming management” type thing, there are so many different demands & needs on how it should do things it will be unlikely you will ever get one app which will do everything in a way that everyone is 100% happy with.

 

[garyi]

I have found nothing better than roon for my use case, which in essence is multiple music points around the house that everyone uses.

 

[mikeyb]

Logitech Media Server with the Material Skin, highly recommended, and free

 

[AndyU]

I haven’t found anything that comes close to Roon if you take all its features together, though some alternatives do some things better. Their support is poor, and the attitude of the boss is unpleasant, but what can you do. Best I can hope for is that they survive, and fix rather than deny the obvious weaknesses, including support.

 

[evand]

Logitech Media Server with the Material Skin, highly recommended, and free

Thanks, I'll take a look. I used LMS for very many years prior to switching to Roon and it did just fine with multi room streaming etc. I don't use a streaming service so could quite happily go back. Whilst Roon provides unparalleled metadata richness and integration I'm sick to death of having to deal with its bugs, lack of basic functionality like being able to sort search results and performance issues that mean I spend more time looking at the bloody Roon logo pulsing than I do actually navigating my local library.

 

[flutteringwow]

Thanks, I'll take a look. I used LMS for very many years prior to switching to Roon and it did just fine with multi room streaming etc. I don't use a streaming service so could quite happily go back. Whilst Roon provides unparalleled metadata richness and integration I'm sick to death of having to deal with its bugs, lack of basic functionality like being able to sort search results and performance issues that mean I spend more time looking at the bloody Roon logo pulsing than I do actually navigating my local library.

..and if you mention a 'Roon' bug (which there are many) on the Roon forum, you'll get told its your hardware, with anger and discontent that you even mentioned that Roon isn't perfect!

If you're just using it for NAS playblack, then theres loads of options out there really. Roons main superiority for me was the multiple zone selection with all my Naim Muso's, no other software can do that. But I bought in at £300...now its like £800 or something?

 

[evand]

Roons main superiority for me was the multiple zone selection with all my Naim Muso's, no other software can do that. But I bought in at £300...now its like £800 or something?

LMS does just fine on streaming to multiple endpoints - these days you'd need to run some variant of Squeezelite on a Pi or like to feed the hardware but it worked like a charm when I Iast used LMS. I bought Roon lifetime at the outset so I guess I've had value for money if one values dealing with a tool that doesn't quite deliver and is riddled with under the hood bugs that reveal themselves the minute you start dealing with a large library with different artists sharing a name or start trying to explore in earnest. From that point on it quickly devolves into the shitshow that it is. Don't regret buying a lifetime, but I'm pretty damned sure there"s no way I'd renew if I were a subscription customer.

 

[Sloop John B]

Hit the wall Evan have you?

I don’t have anything like your library size but do wish to focus more on the albums I’ve bought rather than added through a streaming platform. We did a big retrofit on our house in 2017 and all my CDs which were on numbered shelves went into storage never to return to shelves. I took them from the cases at that time and put them in plastic wallets and added the shelf number to Roon as a tag.
Now the tag A1 or L2 will mean nothing to anyone bar me but this tag alone would keep me using Roon as it mirrors a chronological order of CD purchases which means a lot to me and is often a starting point to many a good listening session.


My point? Perhaps with all the imperfections and annoyances it’s still the best show in town?

.sjb

 

[evand]

Perhaps with all the imperfections and annoyances it’s still the best show in town?

Truth be told Roon gets in the way of my enjoying music rather than enhancing it. Some of it may have to do with library size, but for the most part it's always been this way. I just can't stomach having to deal with that pulsating logo, longstanding bugs and missing basics any longer. As things stand I'm no more interested in continuing to do battle with Roon than they are in addressing bugs in their code. Perhaps a simplified experience using something like LMS would do me a world of good and give me a newfound appreciation of Roon, but suspect it'll just reaffirm that to me Roon is layering lipstick on a pig.

 

[garyi]

LMS is good, I prefer the daphile variant. Its not a patch on roon though for the raft of endpoints that just show up, or the DSP functionality, merging of streaming and local libraries etc.

And the absolute shower that is iPeng sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it.

 

[chartz]

Hi,
I don’t really see the point of Roon at all. And it’s expensive too.
I have tons of CDs and records and I like my music coming from physical objects, not some servers I can’t see.
To me the best alternative is a CD player or a turntable.
But I’m getting a little long in the tooth I guess.

 

[evand]

the raft of endpoints that just show up, or the DSP functionality, merging of streaming and local libraries etc

My only endpoints are USB DACs and Chromecast Audio devices. I appreciate it has DSP and streaming integration, but I don't use either. Perhaps I'll use DSP once my listening room is built and I battle with not turning a "lounge" into a listening room proper with whole hog acoustic treatments like I had in a previous life.

Regarding control I would probably default to a browser on a tablet. At least the UI would take me where I want to be, find the stuff I know I have and cut through all the crap, presenting me with just my music without once showing me a pulsating logo whilst the back end tries to retrieve something it displayed a screen or two back.

I'm going to try a few alternatives also - it'll be interesting to see what's available for mpd and also for ampache. Ampache would give me music on the go from anywhere in the world also.

 

[flutteringwow]

LMS does just fine on streaming to multiple endpoints - these days you'd need to run some variant of Squeezelite on a Pi or like to feed the hardware but it worked like a charm when I Iast used LMS. I bought Roon lifetime at the outset so I guess I've had value for money if one values dealing with a tool that doesn't quite deliver and is riddled with under the hood bugs that reveal themselves the minute you start dealing with a large library with different artists sharing a name or start trying to explore in earnest. From that point on it quickly devolves into the shitshow that it is. Don't regret buying a lifetime, but I'm pretty damned sure there"s no way I'd renew if I were a subscription customer.

It's all faff. I like having an app on all my devices where two buttons and I have music coming out of whatever speaker I want, and I can group them all together and have them in sync in each room. This is what made Roon for me, not so much the content.

My library is around 3TB large, I've never found a programme that handles them perfectly, but Roon does a better job than most...Audirvana for me was a daily stress fest!

 

[evand]

To me the best alternative is a CD player or a turntable.

Nooo, I could bever go back to physical media - I abandoned that the day I discovered slimserver aka LMS. Two weekends back, much to my wife's dismay I took the first of 3 huge steel trunks out of the garage to unpack and sort the CDs so I can take out the valuable ones and drop the rest at a charity shop. They've been in polystyrene lined steel trunks for over a decade, just occupying space I no longer really have at my disposal.

 

[Amber Audio]

I've tried pretty much every popular solution over the last 20 years, if you use all the toys and have a somewhat varied/complex system nothing beats Roon. I use mixed music sources - local rips (many TBs), downloads, radio, Roon radio (a fave feature) and Qobuz+Tidal. I also have endpoints from several different manufacturers including SONOS, they all show up and can be controlled/manipulated from Roon including HQP. I also use the Sample Rate/EQ bells and whistles. Same control App experience on all my Computers, Tablets and Phones and almost every product I can buy is Roon friendly these days. In my usage context I don’t think Roon is expensive.

If you have simpler needs then the supplied free App or LMS with Material would likely be a better choice.

 

[simon g]

I have to say that the problems the OP is reporting are just not an issue for me. However, everyone wants everything done in a slightly different way, for whatever reason.

My ripped library is modest at around 2,500CDs. I use Tidal & Qobuz. I use a Nucleus with remote on an iPad Pro. End point is an Auralic Aries G1. Ethernet cables and switch.

Searching is blindingly fast. No drop outs. By using Focus, along with the many other features of Roon, I can easily find specific ripped albums, if needed. More or less instant response to inputs. 'Spinning logo' only appears briefly. I never visit the Roon forum; I have no need for it.

I'm still unsure of the future for Roon with me; it tends to just open up so many new avenues to explore that I'm spoilt for choice, which can be distracting. I got a year with the Nucleus so I'll decide on that anniversary.

 

[flutteringwow]

I'm still unsure of the future for Roon with me; it tends to just open up so many new avenues to explore that I'm spoilt for choice, which can be distracting. .

Quite. It sends you off on journeys, which can be enlightening, but also infuriating as I find I become more about one song glory than the whole album, something I continually criticising my millennial girlfriend for!