(sorry if there is one already, could not find it by search, please delete if so)
I checked out a Darko video, where he suggested using Audirvana music player and I gave it a try. Interestingly it featured upsampling feature like some high end DACs have built in. It sounded great, but not better than Roon and its interface was really lacking, also no lyrics were displayed. That made me wonder - what are your experiences with Roon and Audirvana? Or some other “premium” (read you have to get a licence) music players for PC?
I use Audirvana as I wanted an upgrade from Pine player. It sounds great but lags quite a lot on my Mac, I think it’s because all my albums (~750) are stored on an external hard drive so when I scroll through albums it lags a bit.
The Audirvana remote app also doesn’t ever work, which is a shame.
I would have got roon but the price is just unbelievable.
It was a hard sell for me, and they hurt themselves with the short trial.
In the end it was worth the $120 a year (that’s basically 2 games, or half my monthly cable bill), you’d have to be insane the buy the lifetime sub, or extremely convinced they’ll still be there in 5 years.
Value is a personal thing, but I have 4 systems I drive from the roon server and integrating/organizing my local content with streaming from Qobuz better than anything else was worth it to me.
I do wish they had a web interface in addition to the app, missing Linux support for the front-end means I have to resort to using my phone to control what’s playing while using my work machine.
For me the biggest negative about Roon is the lack of artist pictures - in MusicBee it searches the web for pictures of the artist and then presents them in a slideshow (you can stop it too if you see a picture you like etc.)
More themes for that money would be nice too and a similar upsampling feature to Audirvana
I have been able to test Audirvana extensively.
And found it quite good,with the software I can finally exploit my Dac with Dsd.
That I also decided to buy the software.
What I find a bit of a pity is that I get with the Tidal account is not what shows me the Tidal software when I open.
But otherwise I am satisfied with Audirvana even if the price is lush and justified somewhere.
And very successful it is also once set and all is well.
Especially with Tidal I find it good.
It would be desirable if you would also include other stream providers.
Roon I have also looked at but has not really convinced me.
Even if it should be good on the whole.
The other big one to mention is JRiver Media Center. It really nails local music playback and does photos and video too, but doesn’t have Tidal integration. Which is too bad, because it is pretty great otherwise for a more old-school experience. The owner of JRiver seems to have been convinced for years that all of these streaming services will shut down any day now.
When I demoed Audirvana, I found that aside from having Tidal, it was lacking a ton of features and didn’t add anything in terms of sound quality over JRiver.
Roon is absolutely phenomenal but the price is steep. It’s a luxury for sure, but it is remarkably well-designed. I love how easy and rich just browsing music and reading up about it is, and sound wise it is powerful and intuitive. Room is unquestionably the best out there IME, but I can’t help but think that they’re limiting its appeal by the high barriers to entry.
They have to pick a price, there is a tricky balance between accessibility, and the price.
Annual subscription sucks, but, gives them a mechanism to support existing users without having to continually find new purchasers.
I would assume they are employing actual full time engineers, and running servers, both are an on going none zero cost.
Even Volumio had to go to a subscription model to pay for the servers they use for Qobuz integration.
I get that the quality that Roon provides doesn’t come cheap, but I think a lot of people that would be interested in something like this get turned off when they see the high price and particularly all of their messaging about needing a dedicated computer to run it 24/7. They seem to go out of their way to make it seem more daunting than it really needs to be.
Maybe they would make more if they lowered their barriers some, because the core services are great.
I think I’m on my second year subscribing to Roon and it has been completely worth it. Occasionally there are some quirks that I dislike but on the whole it works exceptionally well and very reliably. Frankly, I don’t think anything comes close to their feature set. Not just in terms of high quality playback, but also library management and integration of streaming services.
Have not tested Roon myself.
And everything sounds good because I could use Tidal on almost any device.
However, the monthly price is an additional component that you have to add to a streaming subscription price-wise.
However, it requires at least a laptop if you want to listen to Dsd otherwise I can make a direct connection via Bluetooth to the Dac with the Ipad lder other tablet the Aptx can and experience with the Tidal Hifi just as good a result.
I’ve been a ROON user since…idk, not Day 1, but I was using the beta version of it.
The price is pretty significant, but if you’re running whole home, multi-zone, wireless high resolution/fidelity streaming in your home, there is nothing that competes with ROON and is absolutely worth the price tag.
If you’re on a budget, its probably not for you, although, I’d suggest just paying the hefty upfront cost of getting it for a lifetime. When I first started using ROON, the cost was $299 for lifetime…its now like twice that. I was lucky, I suppose. But, its the best, and I couldn’t imagine my life without it at this point.
Highest recommended audio product if you’re running wireless, digital streams.
If you a big money baller and you’ve got the highest end streamers…its for you. Its also for you if you can set up a $50 Raspberry Pi and connect it to a DAC of your choosing. If you have your own massive music collection and using a streaming service like TIdal or Qobuz? Its for you, too.
Its just a bite the bullet purchase, for me. I swear by it.
IDK, I would at least pick a more audio optimized pi streamer like a pi2aes or a allo pi streamer with a nice psu (or some of the other audio optimized pi streamers). Imo the stock pi kinda isn’t the best for sound quality, from my experience it’s worse than a normal modern laptop or desktop in some cases
I’m just trying to say, you can have full ROON functionality for pretty cheap as well. It doesn’t take an inordinate investment to do so. You could also go find yourself a little Chromecast Audio puck and get good enough audio out of it around your house, as well.
