Even if I had no local music and only streaming, Roon would still be worthwhile for me. Not sure if you followed the link at the end of my post that I linked above, to the older post. Only one item of my “like” list in the older post is related to local music, the others are valid with only-streaming as well (or even more, as with local music you can achieve much by file tagging, though laboriously, while you don’t have this option with online sources)
E.g., rating music more finely grained than just “favorite yes/no”, e.g. for remembering albums that I find historically significant but that are not personal favorites of mine; adding metadata (like for credits) where it is missing, and editing existing metadata where it has omissions/errors; having a distinction between original release dates and reissue release dates, so that sorting by date actually uses the original dates and not random reissue dates that sort 60ies albums into the 2000s; leisure browsing by e.g. clicking on performers on an album and seeing what else they did; focused searching with a powerful interface that lets me only display “albums from 1980 to 85 where XY performed” or “albums released by SST Records where Spot did not engineer”; tagging my music with made-up criteria like “only performers I saw live”, “covers I like/hate”; the simple convenience of having many things in one place right next to the music (credits, review, lyrics, …) that I otherwise would have to look up on Google/Allmusic/Wikipedia/etc
Roon is not perfect but it is very good, has nice easily accessible features on the surface (just click around) and becomes increasingly powerful if you decide to dig into it. Regardless, it is up to the individual and their habits whether it is “needed”
That’s a great answer. And so much that is annoying such as the release dates. All these little annoyances do have clumsy workarounds though. So for now, as I’m, as I said, overloaded as is…lol…I will once I’m more acclimated to everything, or bored…retry it. I did when I got the Atom but I was busy familiarizing myself with it and the Naim game.
Thank you very much for all the responses. I appreciate that. For now I have decided to use the Qobuz section on the Naim app together with the Qobuz app to select music. But I will explore the Roon options as soon as I have figured out how this will work with my Nova.
One other thing that came to mind is that Roon knows (not flawlessly, but generally ok) all versions of a track, including cover versions. I like that a lot.
But yeah, don’t overcomplicate it and start with the Naim/Qobuz apps and see if there is anything missing for you.
A Roon subscription. (Monthly or a lifetime license)
A Roon-ready endpoint to output music. This is your Nova.
The Roon app to control Roon. This is an app that you can install on Android, iOS, Windows, Mac.
The Roon Core. This is a media server software that runs on a computer (Windows, Mac, Linux), NAS (e.g., the app can be installed from the Qnap store or other NAS manufacturers), or turnkey appliance (like the plug-and-play Roon Nucleus or Roon ROCK installed on a third-party machine, typically an Intel NUC), located on the network within your home.