Thanks for all the advice. When I upgraded the system to bring streaming into my life, little did I know how complicated it can get. The Core was sold to me as the optimum ripping and storage solution which clearly it’s not and is the source of my Roon issues. Luckily I still have vinyl and cd sources, where I can go old school and read the album cover. Im going to park Roon for the time being and just enjoy the music as it is.
I think most of the ‘turnkey’ systems are fine most of the time for most users - until you want to do something slightly off-piste. They do a good job of hiding the technology, but conversely that leaves many people just scratching their heads when it doesn’t work as expected. I suspect Naim might wish they’d done things differently; but hindsight is wonderful, and they were in the game pretty early.
Borrowed a friends Auralic and an Innuos Zenith he was looking to sell. After I reported my results he too didn’t believe me and spent a week back in his own 3 system set up ripping the same 50 albums. Same outcome bar 3 albums which he did finally get to show up properly. I can’t recall how.
I will happily hold my hands up to having an eclectic music selection but no more so than many members on here. Obscurity is an accusation that’s been levelled at me several times but the vast majority of my albums charted so obscurity is very much in the eye of the beholder.
I have often thought that the case for accurate metadata is over-stated and the level of obsession with it speaks to something other than a love of music. Album, artist, alpha is all I need.
All that said I have to say that my experience with streaming services in general is largely mirrored by my limited experience with Roon. For all the claims of it being a way forward it comes nowhere near coverage of my 1600 albums.
It’s a good point, but the Core was a later to market product in the timeline of streaming/ripping which has been gaining strength for 20 years now … the Core was also a second generation product for Naim, I personally think Naim had ample chance to evolve how it worked… for me it was a missed opportunity.
Roon doesn’t overwrite. Perversely the only thing Roon can do to your data is delete ( if user selects delete).
.sjb
Indeed Roon creates its own local user database, of which you have full control, but doesn’t modify the files themselves… which I think on the whole is a good thing,
good point - the addition/combination/deletion of metadata is within Roon’s own database - though for users, that’s what you’re looking at…
It is… but it sort of ties you in.
When I’ve worked to correct the metadata in Roon I’ve been mindful that maybe I should be doing this to the files in case I end up moving away from Roon.
But it’s so damn easy to do everything in Roon and hope they don’t go bust or change ownership/direction etc. Pebble’s a bit of a cautionary tale.
yeah I did go a bit lax on metadata for a while as Roon compensated but I’m taking care again as I now use Auralic’s 's LDS for more serious listening and Roon for causal listening and discovery.
.sjb
That does cross my mind… I suspect the most likely evolution is that they will be put up for sale at some point, and if so, it will be interesting to see who buys them.
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Hmm… ‘may you live in interesting times’…
I also wonder if Roon would allow a manufacturer to integrate their software (or a version of it) into a streamer as the main control interface rather than just an optional extra. It might save an awful lot of effort for someone!
Or perhaps, as they already have their own Core hardware, they might produce their own streamer/endpoint.
I suggest you talk to Roon Support, I am sure they would love to find out if this is really the defect of their software. I guess they or someone there would come back to you in a couple of hours.
Why?
It’s not really a concern of mine. I was trialling the Zenith really. Roon was just a recommended thing for the period I had the loans. I’d looked at their site and wasn’t sold on it and then tried it and wasn’t sold on it.
They could produce a 100% success with metadata and it would not sell me on the concept itself and especially the interface. I’m all for reading about an artist and being linked to new music but I’ve never yet found a recommendation system or algorithm which takes me anywhere other than to a blander version of what I’m already listening to.
As a buyer I tend to read lots of music mags and reviews and know what I’m likely to want from existing artists I like; what I like from people related to them and how to find myself surprises or take myself somewhere completely different. If you like I do my reading before I listen rather than during or after and I’m not especially concerned with the idea that because I like artist A here I will like artist A there or like artist B because they’ve played with artist A. That’s an unstimulating dead end for me.
So, Roon was interesting for a few weeks but not for me. I found it poor with my music and the links it made utterly uninspiring. The metadata was simply a bit of a distraction to that. It’s of concern to someone who loves the service and interface and wants to invest… but I do not.
Onward with the thread I think.
If you only have one endpoint to stream too, and you don’t care about the discovery aspect, then Roon is way under utilized for your needs so not worth the cost. I first trialled it when I had only local rips, and just didn’t see the point - I know my own music and can Wiki Miles Davis thank you very much. It wasn’t until I started with a streaming service (Tidal first and now Qobuz) that the aha moment came and the ability to seamlessly integrate my music with the online ones. It’s fun going ‘record shopping’ on new music Friday mornings and adding a few titles to my ‘collection.’
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Agreed.
I do wonder how many owners of cassettes, CDs and vinyl felt the need to “seamlessly integrate” them though. Seamless integration is a function of poor interface design rather than the consequence of multiple sources.
I guess that’s called ‘shelving.’ Living in a smaller 1909 house here in Seattle with two younger children, the vinyl and cd’s just had to go - I typically ended up just listening to the dozen or so stacked around the cd player. Not exactly sure what you mean though - with seamless one doesn’t have to jump back and forth between different programs, which imo is a good design interface.
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I have read this a few times, and it makes no sense to me at all… is there a typo? Do you mean I suspect seamless integration is a function of good interface design… if so then you are spot on.
There are too many disjointed interfaces out here that are a slave to the technology rather than the other way around.
It takes me back to the 90s where I used a database programme on my PC to index and catalogue all my CDs, cassettes and DAT to gain easy access… but it was never ideal.
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You could read it both ways Simon. The Roon argument is that they present multiple music sources as seamlessly integrated into one whole and that is advantageous.
The counter argument to that is multiple sources are not one whole and simply need to be elegantly presented as being clearly differentiated.
In the old days one never felt the need to make a cassette look like an LP or to put it on the same shelf. The need for integration is thus a consequence of poor design in this new wave of technology. Roon simply should not be needed.
Ok I see, I think I can see your argument, however to me that would be cataloguing the artefact, as opposed to the musical recording.
For me it’s the latter, when selecting a recording to play, it’s the recording that is relevant rather than the physical artefact or media location. However I guess if you had rare pressings then the artefact may well be more important than the music recording… in which case as you suggest Roon is probably not for you but an artefact cataloguing app might be more useful.