Your point about those who listen to music via a Naim eco system is a very good one.
I think this pretty much sums me up and I and many others I am sure. We are a good example of why the Naim way works, perhaps not too dissimilar to an Apple user in that regard.
I bought my entire Naim system in one go, including my UServe and it has been a fantastic ripper/server for the 8 years I have owned it, it’s basically a ‘rip and forget’ solution and was exactly what I needed…and that has not changed. No faff and no worries. The reason for that is because I am simply not interested in the tech/app side of music streaming.
Roon looks to be a very good music library aggregator app, but unless it improves the sound of the music, it’s simply not necessary to listen to music.
Having said that, I can completely understand those that have a dispersed music listening solution, or rather have created their music library via various solutions, would target Roon as their ‘final solution’ .
And going back to the beginning, I suggest the U/Serve or Core is designed to be a ‘Naim final solution’.
I resisted Roon for a long time. Thought it was crazy to spend that kind of money when free applications like Kazoo and Lumin were available. I have a mixed ecosystem including Naim Qute, Sonore MicroRendu, Squeezebox Touch and PC with Volumio.
I finally did a trial and love it. It does a great job bringing a mixed ecosystem together. I love the app much more than either Kazoo or Lumin. I love that playlists span multiple control points. It doesn’t improve music quality, but it does improve the quality of the user experience for me. I love that I can select the same playlists from my phone, tablet or PC.
Its not for everyone and I got my lifetime subscription weeks before they raised the price, but it has its place. I spent over $1,000 USD on a NUC Server and the Lifetime subscription.
While it may make suggestions, these might stop you finding things as much as they help you find other things, so you’ll never know what you lose by allowing your tastes to be chanelled by their algorithm.
Anyway, some excellent news - I finally got Kazoo working again last night and again today. And this time it really gave me what I’ve been seeking for 2 years - that upnp SQ boost.
Very pleasing, and it takes Roon off my shopping list for the foreseeable future.
I’m pretty sure that Kazoo is working through the bubble upnp software server. But not certain - because yesterday I also installed Audirvana on trial on the same pc that plugged in to my first Cisco via ethernet cable.
Unfortunately, the service has glitches - it plays fine gapless for say 4 tracks, then it will play say 30 secs of a track, then stop for maybe 10 secs, then repeat this cycle a few times.
Seems like a buffering problem - probably in the laptop, which only has 4 GB of RAM, of which 3.7 is usable.
But could be some kind of buffering problem in the 272 too??
The same type of thing happened with Audirvana too.
Anyway, if I can get that issue sorted out, I’m going to be very happy indeed.
Audirvana UPnP is very flaky. In addition it can produce some kind of huge screeching white noises to my Linn Klimax DSM, so I gave it up in preference to Roon.
Respectfully Jim, I’m not sure how that would work (keeping one from finding things), but keep convincing yourself. Everyday I find something great and new by following on with their recommendations, both for similar albums, but also the ‘artists similar to’ recs. Sure, sometimes it will steer you down the wrong road, but it’s free to listen and know that’s not for you. Perhaps you didn’t use it long enough for the algorithms to kick in properly? There’s so much music out there, that before Roon I found myself listening to the same few dozen things over and over. Yeah, I also use bandcamp to find music that isn’t on Qobuz, but one can get pigeonholed by just about anything if one allows themselves to.
I’ve never tried Roon.
I discovered Mahavishnu Orchestra on one of the few occasions I looked at the Tidal app - that was a good find.
But I have found dozens of great musicians via the Naim app and internet searches.
In the end, that’s fine for me and it saves me money that I can spend on improving SQ.
Linn Klimax DSM/3 with Katalyst, the RoonServer runs on a 2012 Mac Mini with 16 GB RAM.
I find Linn Kazoo is OK, but it lacks all the things that I want such as Qobuz + local library aggregation, the ability to play music continuously, music discovery, etc.
If you are on an iPad I had good luck with iPeng before I moved onto Roon. It costs I believe around $10; not sure if there’s a free trial or not. Worth investigating.
The ‘profile’ feature in roon allows a certain level of separation, although not for a completely separate library.
“ Profiles make it easy to keep track of the music you love. Each person in your household can have their own profile, and we’ll store their playlists, tags, play history, and all of their favorites there, including albums, songs, artists, and more. Profiles also allow for social sharing and Last.fm scrobbling.
Profiles do not contain library level changes, so you can’t use profiles to have different libraries per user. For that, we suggest using Focus, Tags, or the profiles favorites.”
My roon core NUC 7i5 setup is very similar to yours, with a 19v ZeroZone PS. I run my NUC under W10 as I use it as a general purpose computer as well as a roon core.
As Jim, I don’t need something that suggests me what I can listen, because I am doing these researches outside of listening to music. On iTunes, Allmusic, Bandcamp, …
No. I’ve been working on getting a upnp service going with Kazoo and MConnect apps via bubble upnp server software instead.
I don’t want to buy a Sonore upnp box from the US because by the time it arrives my Qobuz trial will be over anyway.
So far Qobuz doesn’t sound significantly different to Tidal. But it’s impossible to be sure as the Kazoo and MConnect apps are so unreliable and quirky it’s hard to use them to make stable comparisons between the 2 services.
Are you saying I should try Roon anyway using my wired laptop as both Roon Core and Roon output/endpoint?
I’m certainly not going to make decisions for you but why not? It won’t cost you anything and it may scratch the itch one way or another.
Unless you try it you’ll never know.
