Quitting the roon habit

[essrand]

Anyone done this and survive to tell the tale?

Most other UIs really suck, but I want to get out of Roon so I can get a real streamer, and have a one box solution, not a streamer/NAS/roon core blah blah.

Have you done it? Did you go back to roon afterwards?

 

[IndianEars]

I dont like the roon interface, absence of folder search, inability to play .cue +wav file combos, inability to mount n play SACD image files.... n the recurring fee of $ 100+ per year.

Yes, & I did not like its sound, atleast in my setup that uses USB, not ethernet.

Took my refund well before the trial periid, n stayed as a happy camper with JRiver

 

[thedude]

Not a fan of Roon. Neither it’s UI nor it’s SQ. Only thing I really liked is it’s track recommendations. Which I really miss in Audirvana. But the UI is so much better and sounder more lively to me, on A+

I would vote for a good streamer.

 

[OM_2K19]

Anyone done this and survive to tell the tale?

Most other UIs really suck, but I want to get out of Roon so I can get a real streamer, and have a one box solution, not a streamer/NAS/roon core blah blah.

Have you done it? Did you go back to roon afterwards?

I am asking this myself for a long time, but I can't just go back to any other solution because of the way it manages my Music Library. I absolutely love it.

 

[chander]

I might be the worst person on the planet to comment on this, as I always seek the compromise between the sound and convenience rather than perfection. Like @IndianEars mentioned I didn't like the limitations and sound was not much different (read better), however I was a big fan of the UI, not the way it was designed but what it did. I loved the little write up about the artists, a similar interface to Last.fm on similar artists etc, it was very similar to Zune (yes Zune - I still have both the non-touch and touch versions), I spent a lot of time reading up on the artists because of this feature, which added to my experience.

However it was cumbersome and needed too many components and I always had to run a Music Bee in parallel when I wanted to just play anything at all. Moving to a simple streamer/dac combo, made life much easier and I DO NOT MISS Roon at all.

 

[essrand]

My subscription ends in August. Need options before that.

I have Audirvana 3.5, but those buggers have gone the Roon way. Losers.

What's a streamer that has an half decent UI? If I do away with the PC/Mac what options do I have for a streamer/server with a decent UI?

Is the Aurender app any good?

I might be the worst person on the planet to comment on this, as I always seek the compromise between the sound and convenience rather than perfection. Like @IndianEars mentioned I didn't like the limitations and sound was not much different (read better), however I was a big fan of the UI, not the way it was designed but what it did. I loved the little write up about the artists, a similar interface to Last.fm on similar artists etc, it was very similar to Zune (yes Zune - I still have both the non-touch and touch versions), I spent a lot of time reading up on the artists because of this feature, which added to my experience.

However it was cumbersome and needed too many components and I always had to run a Music Bee in parallel when I wanted to just play anything at all. Moving to a simple streamer/dac combo, made life much easier and I DO NOT MISS Roon at all.

What is your UI/Remote that controls your streamer?

 

[chander]

What is your UI/Remote that controls your streamer?

Now it is iPAD/MacBook/iPOD/Android/Windows Laptop through Apple Airplay 2 or just over wifi. I am using the BlueSound Node 2i, which is no great shakes as far as the audiophile devices are concerned, sounds great to my ears and is extremely convenient to use. The music is streaming apps primarily - Spotify, Primephonic.

 

[powerslave]

@essrand won't Nucleus or Nucleus plus solve the issue? At least your Mac mini can be replaced by Nucleus.

 

[AKT]

If you want a Roon alternative, you have only three options in my opinion:
1. BluOS
2. Auralic Lightning DS
3. Audirvana

Plex also comes close (in terms of interface) but it is not bit perfect, hi-res is clumsy and is not available on most music-only endpoints.
It's also a matter of habit. Use one of them for almost a month and it gets easy.

note: I have neither used nor including, ultra high end music manager interfaces of the likes of dcs etc.

 

[thedude]

My subscription ends in August. Need options before that.

I have Audirvana 3.5, but those buggers have gone the Roon way. Losers.

What's a streamer that has an half decent UI? If I do away with the PC/Mac what options do I have for a streamer/server with a decent UI?

Is the Aurender app any good?

You can continue to use Audirvana 3.5.

I heard Auralic Aries (with Notrhstar Supremo) felt it was better vs Lumin T1. You could go a bit higher to the G1 or even higher depending on budget.

Aurelic app isn’t as snappy as Audirvana. But quite usable!

 

[chander]

@essrand just noticed you are in Goa! I never noticed that before.

On the matter of UI, I do not have any experience with Nucleus, Audirvana, Auralic and Lumins of the world. So I can't comment there. However if you stream the advantage with node 2i is that you get to use the streaming app as it is. So you do not have to get into a new UI (pardon my ignorance if any of the ones mentioned above do the same).

For local playback sticking a pendrive with your music works too and can be controlled from the BlueOS app. I plan to transfer all my local music on a 2TB M.2 SSD in an Orico case and try with that, but I haven't yet so can't comment.

 

[drkrack]

Anyone done this and survive to tell the tale?

Most other UIs really suck, but I want to get out of Roon so I can get a real streamer, and have a one box solution, not a streamer/NAS/roon core blah blah.

Have you done it? Did you go back to roon afterwards?

I went Streamer way from Roon nearly 2 years ago, used jriver and Audirvana. Variety of Allo Volumio options, Cxn v2, Blu sound briefly... None of them offer a decent user interface anyway comparable to Roon. Most of the Streamer bundled software is "just usable" ; but nothing matches the user friendliness of Roon, not even halfway. I will definitely save up to buy a decent Streamer, but I am currently sorted out on the Software front. Audirvana has a relatively decent experience (in spite of bugs) but the recent move to subscription based model, just defeats the purpose.

Got back to Roon Few Days ago, Felt like Coming back To home ; The tags, discovery, auto album detect, Over sampling options, DSP, Parametric EQ, Album Suggestions ; there's no looking back. This time I went with Lifetime Subscription instead of Yearly one.

My Suggestion is Just wait for few months to see how Apple Lossless plays out (buy yearly subscription) , if they work out a option for integration with Roon, its definitely worth investing in lifetime subscription, otherwise you can weigh on how much Apple Music matters to you (you may not like but you can't ignore Apple Lossless) and take a call. I'd definitely like to see Roon integration with Amazon Echo devices and Apple Music in the future.

 

[msankadi]

If you want a Roon alternative, you have only three options in my opinion:
1. BluOS
2. Auralic Lightning DS
3. Audirvana

Plex also comes close (in terms of interface) but it is not bit perfect, hi-res is clumsy and is not available on most music-only endpoints.
It's also a matter of habit. Use one of them for almost a month and it gets easy.

note: I have neither used nor including, ultra high end music manager interfaces of the likes of dcs etc.

Jriver works quite well for me along with bubble upnp although the effort to setup is not close to as seamless as rune, albeit with more control without rune

 

[essrand]

@essrand won't Nucleus or Nucleus plus solve the issue? At least your Mac mini can be replaced by Nucleus.

Yes, or using an NUC with Roon rock. I heard the SQ is the same in both cases (darko audio says so).

But if you want an SOTA server/streamer then Roon becomes two boxes.

If you want a Roon alternative, you have only three options in my opinion:
1. BluOS
2. Auralic Lightning DS
3. Audirvana

Plex also comes close (in terms of interface) but it is not bit perfect, hi-res is clumsy and is not available on most music-only endpoints.
It's also a matter of habit. Use one of them for almost a month and it gets easy.

note: I have neither used nor including, ultra high end music manager interfaces of the likes of dcs etc.

Have you used the Auralic?

You can continue to use Audirvana 3.5.

I heard Auralic Aries (with Notrhstar Supremo) felt it was better vs Lumin T1. You could go a bit higher to the G1 or even higher depending on budget.

Aurelic app isn’t as snappy as Audirvana. But quite usable!

3.5 has no future though.

Let's see how Auralic develops further....if worse than A+, won't bother for now.

@essrand just noticed you are in Goa! I never noticed that before.

On the matter of UI, I do not have any experience with Nucleus, Audirvana, Auralic and Lumins of the world. So I can't comment there. However if you stream the advantage with node 2i is that you get to use the streaming app as it is. So you do not have to get into a new UI (pardon my ignorance if any of the ones mentioned above do the same).

For local playback sticking a pendrive with your music works too and can be controlled from the BlueOS app. I plan to transfer all my local music on a 2TB M.2 SSD in an Orico case and try with that, but I haven't yet so can't comment.

Just changed my profile details last night, moved to Goa, 7 months back, so about time

I went Streamer way from Roon nearly 2 years ago, used jriver and Audirvana. Variety of Allo Volumio options, Cxn v2, Blu sound briefly... None of them offer a decent user interface anyway comparable to Roon. Most of the Streamer bundled software is "just usable" ; but nothing matches the user friendliness of Roon, not even halfway. I will definitely save up to buy a decent Streamer, but I am currently sorted out on the Software front. Audirvana has a relatively decent experience (in spite of bugs) but the recent move to subscription based model, just defeats the purpose.

Got back to Roon Few Days ago, Felt like Coming back To home ; The tags, discovery, auto album detect, Over sampling options, DSP, Parametric EQ, Album Suggestions ; there's no looking back. This time I went with Lifetime Subscription instead of Yearly one.

My Suggestion is Just wait for few months to see how Apple Lossless plays out (buy yearly subscription) , if they work out a option for integration with Roon, its definitely worth investing in lifetime subscription, otherwise you can weigh on how much Apple Music matters to you (you may not like but you can't ignore Apple Lossless) and take a call. I'd definitely like to see Roon integration with Amazon Echo devices and Apple Music in the future.

@drkrack You know exactly what I am talking about, and where my frustrations lie......

Roon is the Microsoft of Audiophilia (actually more like Apple) I feel, and right now every other choice is a big compromise (I have tried so many times to switch to Android

 

[square_wave]

My subscription ends in August. Need options before that.

I have Audirvana 3.5, but those buggers have gone the Roon way. Losers.

What's a streamer that has an half decent UI? If I do away with the PC/Mac what options do I have for a streamer/server with a decent UI?

Is the Aurender app any good?


What is your UI/Remote that controls your streamer?

Lightning DS ( Auralic ) and Lumin apps are the best in the market now. They have fabulous support and are very stable. I have been using Auralic for a while.. Will move to Lumin soon.

 

[sameer kumar]

Lumin U1 (streamer) & Lumin L1 ( media storage)

Simple two box solution.

if you already have a NAS on your network then you don’t need L1.

 

[rsjaurr]

My subscription ends in August. Need options before that.

I have Audirvana 3.5, but those buggers have gone the Roon way. Losers.

What's a streamer that has an half decent UI? If I do away with the PC/Mac what options do I have for a streamer/server with a decent UI?

Is the Aurender app any good?

Early this year I had installed a trial version of Roon on the laptop. I have never looked at pretty pictures of artists while playing music and have always used Folders to play music. This is how I rip my music instead of going artists-wise.
Anyway they charged me after the trial period without sending a prior mail which they promised during the free trial. I sent them an email and they quickly refunded the whole amount.
Also the way I have set up my system I do not need Roon either.

If you need a dedicated streamer you have excellent choices depending on your budget. I would consider dCS Network Bridge, Aurender, lumin and Auralic G1 preferably in that order.
Auredner is more alike to Auralic and dCS more to Lumin.

All of these have excellent apps with UI. Only Aurender is not Roon endpoint but probably has best app. Auredner and dCS are my favourites.

 

[amitk777]

I went back to Logitech Media Server ( LMS ) . LMS has its mobile app which is pretty good and fail safe.
It also has lyrics.
Sounds much cleaner.

My tastes are Bollywood and Hindustani Classical, for which Roon did not have any recommendations any ways.
Now I build my own playlists on Tidal / Spotify and it works just fine.

 

[zeta148]

I didn't want to spring for Roon and I bought Audirvana a few months ago and installed it on my 'headless' Intel NUC. It allows local playback and TIDAL to be controlled from the qquite usable iphone app. This works well and is pretty stable. Now I am trying various options to isolate the NUC from the DAC so as to hopefully increase the sound quality. One of the things I tried is UPNP playback from the NUC to a borrowed PI2aes based renderer running RopieeXL. This is reasonably stable with Audirvana ver 3.5.46. Unfortunately, I don't think the one time payment license version of Audirvana is available anymore. if anyone is able to get hold of of a macmini/NUC which has the one time license version of audirvana pre-installed, this could be a good alternative to Roon.

I have Audirvana 3.5, but those buggers have gone the Roon way. Losers.

AFAIK the license for 3.5 is still valid so you can continue to use it without a monthly subscription. See https://audirvana.com/assistance/#faq

 

[hydra]

I was a die-hard Roon skeptic: Until I actually tried it. Now I'm a big fan. I don't think I can ever go back to a non-Roon control/library management/interface or delivery system.

I'm currently on a yearly subscription. The only reason I've not sprung for a lifetime sub is that I'm open to the possibility of a better option coming up in the future, within 5 years. Until then, it will be Roon for me.

In both my systems/zones, using Roon also sounds far better than other sources (Tidal App + Ipad or Tidal App + Windows Laptop or Tidal Web App + Windows Laptop or USB-out from dedicated, optimized Music PC running JRMC).

I also find the Roon discovery engine excellent, and it works really well for the kind of music I want to listen to.