Roon 1.8

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Interesting update on social media from Roon announcing Roon 1.8 due on 9th February. Worth having a quick look at the video they have released for early indications of content

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Interesting - Iā€™ll take a look later.

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Yes just got an email. Sounds like a big change, very exciting. :+1:t2:

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Just watched the video.
Iā€™m intrigued: I donā€™t use focus so I hope what they have done makes it interesting.

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Looks awful unless thereā€™s a ā€˜dark modeā€™ setting. Far too much white.

I detest those cropped circular icons (for artists) we see everywhere these days.

It looks like something Apple would have produced some years ago for iTunes/iOS.

New Focus options look handy, and did he mention links to old music press reviews or something?

I guess proof of pudding will be in the eating.

Time to download the current installer perhaps!

Yes, Iā€™m a cynic.

If thatā€™s the new icon for Roon it might be handy as I have too many similar dark icons on my Macā€™s dock.

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Iā€™m fearful about the promise of a completely ā€œnew lookā€.

I am aware that a relatively large number of people on the Roon forum complain about the look and feel of the Roon interface, but for me that aspect of Roon is just about perfect. Roonā€™s introductory video doesnā€™t do much to allay my fears Iā€™m afraid. I can only hope that it will grow on me.

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I completely agree with you!

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ā€˜Focusā€™ itself doesnā€™t appear to have changed - just the way you access it. The new access route may be more obvious, but visually much more boring!

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I have to say I like what I see so far. Iā€™m sure it will take a bit of getting used to as it is a radically changed release but it seems to add some consistency that was lacking before.

If you look on Darko audio thereā€™s a link off the home page to an article with loads of screenshots and explanations. The classical functionality looks like itā€™s had a needed improvement.

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Me to, the video I just watched, I thought it looked fantastic and much nicer than what we have now.

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They did tease pre-Christmas on the Roon forum that it will be a pretty big update that will address many long-standing issues. Exciting.

(I so hope they improve artist handling, currently it seems to insist on creating duplicate artists after you enter them manually, my biggest gripe currently as I am fast ripping through my CD collection. And sometimes I can later merge them but other times I canā€™t, and I have not found out why)

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Circular wonā€™t fix the real problem of so many artists just being a gray blob :slight_smile:

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Theyā€™ve clearly taken a leaf out of Naimā€™s book as Classical Music is ā€˜reimaginedā€™.

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Donā€™t understand why people spend so much money on this product, IMO of course

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Focus is interesting, I can see myself using it a lot.

I donā€™t like the overall look, too much empty white space to my liking

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I agree, ā€œFocusā€ looks very very interesting.

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Itā€™s not so much, I spend several times that on Sky & Netflix. And I do because there is no other remotely as useful solution that lets me ā€¦

  1. ā€¦ have streaming content and ripped files in one UI. (And I have a lot of ripped CDs that are important to me and not available on streaming. I even import a fake flac if a release is not on streaming and I only have the vinyl, this way I still have everything in one place and can add the metadata; often, Roon has the metadata anyway even if the music is not on Qobuz. Into the flac I put a female computer voice telling me to go fetch the vinyl, in case I forget and play it)
  2. ā€¦ removes the pain from adding detailed metadata as well as it does (not perfect, but sufficient to make it feasible to enter the stuff I care about and that it does not know about, e.g., itā€™s not very good with Austrian punk from the 70ies-90ies :wink: )
  3. ā€¦ mine my collection for interesting connections, such as who engineered what, or even simply lets me focus on e.g. all releases in my library from a certain label. This is important to me, e.g., I own nearly the complete catalog of SST Records.
  4. ā€¦ gives me a quick glance on at least fundamental info on artist/albums/lyrics. Yes I can google, but I prefer to do this only if I have a deeper interest. When checking out something quickly, a quick summary of what it is about is nice. (And the blurbs are often not bad - not an in-depth critique, but good enough as a quick summary)
  5. Tags. Show me only my vinyl. Show me only my CDs. Show me all artists that I saw live. Show me all album covers I like.
  6. More granular rating than a binary favorite yes/no. I want to remember many albums for a variety of reasons. That doesnā€™t meant I want them to clutter my favorites.
  7. Buttons for artist website etc., integration with Songkick for local concert dates
  8. More

That said, they should have gone with Discogā€™s model for entering credits and artist names

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Hope they fix the consistent crashes on the iPhone app!

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Excited to try the new look. It needed a refresh as some areas didnā€™t work as well as others due to inconsistencies added by some new features. Also Iit looks like a lot less wasted space which is my main gripe. Might make using the phone app much better.

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Reading through the articles linked in the thread on the forum and this is all pretty cool. Focus including Qobuz in total instead of just the library is fabulous

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