You can run Roon all on a single computer.
i heard it doesn’t work that well and sounds bad etc
also the idea of me not using the AI since i dont do the radio
The same kind of people will tell you that ethernet cables can sound different. I used a standalone Roon setup on my work laptop feeding a Jotunheim/Multibit. It worked great and sounded fantastic.
I never use Roon Radio, either. The AI will still give you personalized recommendations on the home page and makes recommendations as you browse albums. Even without Roon Radio, you get tons of features like seamless integration of local/streaming, extensive metadata, great sound quality, etc.
they just tell you this and how its mostly meant for if you have multiple things
oh that’s really really cool… i was just very nervous
That’s interesting. I guess that would be a good use of the Roon trial period to see how it works on your hardware.
i did use it
and then blew it because in exclusive mode i couldn’t really pause it then go into a youtube video and watch that, so i immediately cancelled the subscription only to find out that after an hour it already ended the trial
it was great when i had it (it sounded punchy but it wasn’t AMAZING), but besides it seemed pretty nice
https://twitter.com/ianbrown/status/1370504860395839490?s=20
Spotify just took down a song because they disapprove of the lyrics.
Most of the time i listen to spotify i am either in front of my computer working, or just reading forums/the news/emails etc, and then quality isn’t much of an issue with spotify imho.
When i do sit down and just listen to music, if it is an album i have bought (either physical that i have ripped to flac, or bought lossless) i do listen to the flac file in foobar instead of streaming it on spotify. There is a difference, but how much depends a bit on the type of music and the production i feel, as the compression might have a harder time dealing with more “complex” sounds.
When Spotifys “cd quality” subscription gets available, i think i will switch to that just to know that i get the best possible quality available at all time 
You want a FLAC ?
Deezer.
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I’m currently using Amazon Music HD. I dabbled in Spotify and I actually liked the service, but I’m glad I switched. So far I am very satisfied with the service and love the quality of the stream. The discussion of FLAC and playing FLAC files locally made me curious so I went and got 2 albums in FLAC - One is Peter Frampton Forgets the Words. What an album, BTW!
Well, let me just say that Playing this great album in FLAC locally through Foobar 2000 is just ripper! As good as it sounds streamed, it’s bloody good doing it this way. With the added bonus of Foobar having a nice EQ so with the headphones that I have I can trim to taste. There, I said it, I am in the Pro-EQ camp! With my ears I need all the help I can get. Only thing is getting music in FLAC 'aint cheap. About 18 bucks per album in this case. I think the occasional trip to a local store to hunt CD’s will now be a thing! But in the end, I’ll be keeping AMHD for now.
Tidal Premium, but i’m currently testing Deezer, sometimes i feel like i like Deezer better, although it has some minor nuisances i still gotta get used to.
I’m just gonna say one thing. Yar Har Yar Har, a pirates life for meeee.
I’m just gonna say one thing. Please don’t promote piracy on the site lol (since it could cause problems later on)
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YouTube music and Amazon HD.
YouTube music: Hold up! I know YouTube music has a bad rap, but considering I pay for YouTube premium and it’s included makes it a nice pairing. I mainly use it for songs that are hard to find. Also I found that the discovery portion is very strong. Audio quality is good enough to listen to in the car or put on while I work.
Amazon HD: I found the quality to be the best I have tried so far. Between Spotify, YouTube music, and tidal. This is my preferred streaming service.
Special mentions
Bandcamp: not really great for playlists. Great for downloads and discovering really obscure bands.
Value village CD section: for $2-5 a CD it’s great. Selection is a crap shoot lol.
I tried YT music. It was OK but screw YouTube. I gave Amazon Music HD a shot and preferred it by a wide margin. Even if I didn’t, screw YouTube.
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I can respect that sentiment lol. I just hate ads so YT premium was where I went. Plus at the time I already had google play music and loved it. It’s a shame that went away.
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Welcome to the community Nikky! Tidal has been a bit of a hot topic service recently due to all the MQA controversy. Nobody here should be giving you any flack about what you enjoy, but some may disagree that Tidal is the serious option for quality. Good to hear you are enjoying Tidal though! as a diclaimer I’m not a fan of Tidal based my experiences with the other options like Amazon music HD. It could be worth a look at some of the free trials out there if you are curious to hear some of the other championed options out there.
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Had just been using Spotify for convenience and discoverability, but I finally tried Amazon HD today, and what the actual…??? It’s so much better sounding. I was convinced that there couldn’t be that big of a difference, but I was wrong.
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I’m right there with you. I still have a Spotify Premium account because I like they have a huge library and it is really good for discovery sessions or just getting artist bio information etc. etc. Amazon HD does sound so much better though, IMO.
However, recently I got into Qobuz and for me the sound quality difference over Amazon HD is almost as much, if not equal to the jump from Spotify to Amazon HD. Amazon does have more titles though, of what I like, but if one has to go - for now I’d drop Amazon HD. Primarily due to their lack of support in other apps, roon for example, and the fact that Amazon won’t release their stream api to any devices other than “commercial” devices. For example if you were to build a pi and run RoPieee, Moode, Volumio or similar. Also, Amazon can’t seem to work out their “exclusive” mode and that irks me personally, and is why I think Qobuz sounds better - right or wrong.
Spotify I will keep because they keep promising lossless - but if they don’t get it out by the end of the year - they are a gonner too.