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Your experience with Roon

vacuum_tubes said:
It really isn’t a well developed or thought out bit of software now.
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As a retired software developer with 42 years experience, the last 30 of which was developing mission critical software that ran across multiple platforms I concur with the above. They have made architectural decisions that will cause ongoing issues (has already?) going forward.

I also believe the internal design is very monolithic meaning that providing any degree of flexibility within the GUI isnt possible. By that I mean making the GUI configurable by the end user (having a home screen that contains what you want to see, selecting what metadata/information you want to see etc).

And it is the GUI that makes Roon somewhat unique... so why not go the extra mile and make it configurable.

Of course this lack of flexibility could be that the Roon developers are arrogant enough to believe the inflexible GUI they put out is all anyone would want... without considering people might have/want different work flows when playing music.

I do visit the Roon community forum every now and then to marvel at the sh*t show of issues they have.... it boggles my mind at the degree of instability that permeates the software. This shouldnt happen... this isnt a complex application so it maybe shows they have poor quality control. There are no excuses for this.

Peter
 
ricko01 said:
As a retired software developer with 42 years experience, the last 30 of which was developing mission critical software that ran across multiple platforms I concur with the above. They have made architectural decisions that will cause issues (has already?) going forward.

I also believe the internal design is very monolithic meaning that providing any degree of flexibility within the GUI isnt possible. By that I mean making the GUI configurable by the end user (having a home screen that contains what you want to see, selecting what metadata/information you want to see etc).

Of course this lack of flexibility could be that the Roon developers are arrogant enough to believe the inflexible GUI they put out is all anyone would want... without considering people might have/want different work flows when playing music.

I do visit the Roon community forum every now and then to marvel at the sh*t show of issues they have.... it boggles my mind at the degree of instability that permeates the software. This shouldnt happen... this isnt a complex application so it maybe shows they have poor quality control. There are no excuses for this.

Peter
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So, in other words ... you very much like it.

I don't need mission critical software (at least not unti I can launch my own cruise missiles) so Roon will do nicely.
 
RoA said:
So, in other words ... you very much like it.

I don't need mission critical software (at least not unti I can launch my own cruise missiles) so Roon will do nicely.
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Sure but not being mission critical shouldnt stand in the way of a well designed, flexible, stable product.

Yes Roon has many great features and most end users accept its foibles but at least for me, I couldnt accept the many issues I saw .... given I knew that with some small effort the stuff that rankled me didnt need to be there (like an additional 22 genres that werent in my files as an example of many illogical design issues I saw)

I tried it four time over a period of 4 years and to me, it got worse.

In the end, I wrote my own GUI to front end LMS that suited my music browsing style and yes, it is completely inflexible in its GUI design but thats because it has a user base of one (this also included a voice control module with spoken word feedback, in case I go blind in later years)

If I was writing a GUI for many users then configurability of GUI objects would have been a paramount design criteria.

Peter
 
my experience with roon so far is limited but positives and negatives. I love the interface and run my roon via a 24" touch screen monitor which is next to my listening position. Big art work looks nice and have found im am listening to more music than ever. just updated my rron front end and am loving that.

ATM I dont have nay music on my core just via qobuz. From time to time roon says qobuz is running slow and it stops playing. My system is ruinning wifi which i know might cause issuse but when i check my speed it running at 30 mbps which is fast for my house. Some times my end point doesnt show up and i have to reset everything and in the end it turns up.
 
I’m a bit perplexed that LMS has been referred to as clunky. It’s a bit of a pioneer in the music server world and has great development and support. It does much of what Roon does for no cost. When I used Vortexbox it was great. Now I’m in Pi terrain, it’s equally great with some lovely remotes to hand. Sound quality wise it is at least the equal of Roon. I liked Roon when I had it. I even used Roopiee. But I am just as satisfied with LMS and Material Skin.
 
Lol no it does not! You have to configure it, and to some extent may I add you need to be geeky as heck to get it to do what you want, it does not just work! (Nor does Roon)

Has there been any major changes to LMS in the last few years? If there has I would be happy to give it another go.

Just works, haha!
 
garyi said:
Lol no it does not! You have to configure it, and to some extent may I add you need to be geeky as heck to get it to do what you want, it does not just work! (Nor does Roon)

Has there been any major changes to LMS in the last few years? If there has I would be happy to give it another go.

Just works, haha!
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It does just work and it’s being continually updated. There is now community firmware for Touch and Radio and a host of other options. I listen to it everyday. There’s plenty of support and advice to support. I’m not geeky but a bit of reading has helped me along the way. I like the fact that I interact with the system. And it’s full of surprises that you won’t get with your nipped in commercial systems.
 
The last time I tried it you had to install a number of plugins and set up a last.fm account with LMS to replicate most of the functionality of Roon. No great challenge for someone computer literate but not quite Apple levels of "it just works". Also, LMS could search (very effectively) your local OR streaming service but not across both in the same search as Roon does. Has that changed?

While I understand the point about the inflexibility of the UI, making it configurable would be a really good way of massively increasing their support workload.

I completely agree about the atmosphere on the Roon forum - here are times when it makes ASR look like a model of patience and tolerance.
 
I am sure John was after the problems with Roon rather than the alternatives, sadly there aren't any that cover everything roon does. Once one comes along I will happily move on. Plex AMP is coming along nicely apparently so I am keeping an eye on that one. I really want one unified library of content, home, streaming services etc all in one list. At least last time I tried LMS does not offer this.
 
There is another feature of Roon that I really like, the possibility of quickly finding other versions of the same composition with a filter by artist and or recording.
Does this also work with Roon's cheaper or free alternatives?
 
I am not sure roon has a cheap alternative, you pay each year for a subby and you get everything that is on offer.
 
I'm not sure either, in fact afaik there are no real good alternatives at the moment.
But I never used LMS, Plex amp, or Innuos Sense so I was asking people who prefer these or others over Roon.
I now have a yearly subscription but will probably go for a life subscription before the end of the first month so that what I've paid for the yearly subscription is deducted from the life subscription.
 
garyi said:
Lol no it does not! You have to configure it, and to some extent may I add you need to be geeky as heck to get it to do what you want, it does not just work! (Nor does Roon)

Has there been any major changes to LMS in the last few years? If there has I would be happy to give it another go.

Just works, haha!
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I honestly don’t know what you’re on about. I installed and configured LMS and the plugins I chose to use, scanned my library and haven’t had an issue since. My numerous endpoints are Chromecast Audio and my hi-fi endpoint is a Raspberry Pi 4 running RopieeeXL using Squeezelite. It just works. I’d even go as far as to say LMS is probably one of the most consistently stable apps I have ever used, and I first started using it 22+ years ago.

if you want to get the most out of Roon you’ll be spending time configuring its behaviour too.
 
radamel said:
I'm not sure either, in fact afaik there are no real good alternatives at the moment.
But I never used LMS, Plex amp, or Innuos Sense so I was asking people who prefer these or others over Roon.
I now have a yearly subscription but will probably go for a life subscription before the end of the first month so that what I've paid for the yearly subscription is deducted from the life subscription.
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Its really expensive like that, I suppose I should have taken the punt when it was 500 particularly as next year I will have been running it 5 years but hey ho. If you have multiple endpoints then Roon makes a lot of sense, I couldn't personally justify 700 quid or what ever it is for just one hifi.
 
evand said:
I honestly don’t know what you’re on about. I installed and configured LMS and the plugins I chose to use, scanned my library and haven’t had an issue since. My numerous endpoints are Chromecast Audio and my hi-fi endpoint is a Raspberry Pi 4 running RopieeeXL using Squeezelite. It just works. I’d even go as far as to say LMS is probably one of the most consistently stable apps I have ever used, and I first started using it 22+ years ago.
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This thread is about roon, I am disengaging from the convo on LMS now, by all means start an LMS thread and we can chat about it there.
 
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