Roon UI looks kind of tired, old. I think its future is in doubt unless there are some new innovations, improvements. I know that there is a tiny section of Roon loyal subscribers who rely on Roon for playing their local music libraries.
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What about the metadata? That was my biggest problem with it. For example, if I pick a classic jazz artist and want to browse their discography in chronological order I canât. Instead of using the original release dates, Qobuz uses the dates they added the albums to Qobuz, or the most recent reissue date from the label. That is completely useless, and makes it hard to find something in a artists catalog if they have many recordings (like Charles Lloyd, for example).
At the moment I canât even use the iOS app. It keeps telling me, for example, that the artist Charles Lloyd (or any artists for that matter) is not available in my country, with some Japanese characters (I think) that I cannot read. If I try doing a search it crashes with an error and I have to force quit the app to start again (rinse and repeat).
Iâm sticking with Roon for now. It all works perfectly and the user experience is 100x better.
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Which coutry are you in? No problem here in San Francisco with my MacBook, Ipad and iPhone.
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How many Charles Lloyd titles does it show for you, because on my Mac app itâs missing a lot of them. It only displays 21 albums, and has none of the quartet albums on Atlantic from the 60s. The same artists discography in Roon shows 46 albums, including those famous 60s quartet albums.
The Qobuz app needs a lot of work before itâs usable.
Itâs just become a mostly moot point for me though. I just replaced my NDX2 with a Roon-ready network DAC and no streamer, so I wonât be able to use Qobuz Connect for the main system now anyway.
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Maybe due to Roon showing releases in different quality which is not the case in Qobuz app? I have 22 albums under Charles lloyd and another 6 under quartet. Which albums do you see in Roon that is not existing in Qobuz app?
But remember streamed media is LUFS processed to the particular streaming service provider specs if the original media doesnât match, where as with CD this clearly isnât the case.
Additionally streaming service providers like Tidal will resample what is sent to them in certain cases.
I know from first hand experience.
Additionally streamed media is encrypted, and so the streamer has to work harder to unravel it as a FLAC or what ever encoded media type, albeit using an intermediary bridge or proxy would mitigate this aspect.
So I would expect and indeed hear streamed media sounds different (albeit slightly and not always negatively) from local streamed content.
HNY
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I donât know. I just counted 46 in Roon. Iâm not going to sit here and manually try to compare them album for album to figure that out. Whatâs the point that makes it worthwhile?
Thatâs another problem with Qobuz. I have to search for Charles Llloyd for one set of albums and Charles Lloyd Quartet for another set, and Charhes Lloyd & The Marvels for yet another set. And yet, these are all Charles Lloydâs albums as a leader. They are all part of his discography. Period. Usability fail, IMO. In Roon I just click on the Discography link for Charles Lloyd and get everything.
Thatâs probably why the other albums are missing from Qobuz app. You need to figure out the exact name, like âCharles Lloyd and the Marvels.â And it looks like those are missing. Tone Poem for example.
This is what I mean. The metadata is a mess in the Qobuz app. I shouldnât have to jump through all these hoops to get the list of Charles Lloydâs 46 albums, just because sometimes he has âTrio,â âQuartet,â âNew Quartetâ, â& The Marvelsâ or something else I donât know of for a band name behind his name.
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If you tick the âmain artistâ when having searched for Lloyd you will get a list of +70 albums with him on. But you seem to have decided itâs crap so 
Maybe Charles team needs to shape up on how to make meta tags.
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Roon sometimes tries very hard to reformat or simplify Qobuz metadata to match its own system, but it also has a busload of complaints for its own user community (see Roon forum).
When I said I get 46 albums of Charles Lloyd as a dicography, thatâs just the ones for Charles as a leader. There are other categories for Charleâ appearances on other leadersâ albums, without additional searching or clicking on anything.
Charlesâ team doesnât need to fix anything. It all works just fine in Roon. Qobuz is the one with metadata problems.
When Qobuz Connect got support in Naim streamers I switched from Roon to Qobuz Connect, and anticipated canceling Roon for renewal. But after about a month trying I grew so frustrated with all the jazz and classical music metadata problems in the Qobuz apps I gave up.
Yes, it is crap. Iâm glad it works for you. Itâs just a frustrating and poor user experience for me. Iâve heard the same from other users elsewhere. Maybe it all works fine for whatever it is you listen to.
In the end it doesnât matter for me now. I wonât have a streamer for Qobuz Connect, just for Roon.
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No, Roon isnât perfect, but as regards metadata is still works much better for me, my taste in music and how I want to discover and find it.
I gave the Qobuz apps an honest try and my wife and I both found it cumbersome and frustrating to get around in when we tried to locate things. Iâll still be able to use Qobuz Connect with my Atom and two Mu-so boxes, so Iâll give it another chance with those sometime next year. Probably when it gets warm again and I take the Mu-so 2 outside.
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I missed your post and didnât answer. Iâm in St. Louis County. The macOS app works. The iOS app doesnât. I havenât checked on the iPadOS version lately.
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Thatâs odd. My Qobuz iOS app works fine FWIW. Actually Charles Lloyd can be sorted by Date which I canât seem to find in the Mac version.
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Maybe your Qobuz app on the MacOS is outdated? Unlike the MacOS Spotify app, there is no notification and you would need to update it manually from time to time.
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I just checked. Apparently I have the latest version for Apple Silicon
Yes, I have the latest (MacBook M2, Mac Mini M4 Pro). In fact, it prompted me to update by restarting the app when I launched it today.
Oh, and hereâs more iOS fun. And yes, everything is up to date.
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Oh, I just rememebred another reason we returned to Roon after trying Qobuz Connect. Everytime we brought up the Qobuz app to play something it automatically defaulted to the device the app was running on (i.e. phone or Mac). When my wife did it Iâd have to show her where the tiny little icon is on her iPhone app to change to the Mu-so 2 as the endpoint. It either played on her phone or her Mac first. My wife was fit to be tied by that. Roon always remembers the last device youâve used as an endpoint, always! Itâs never an issue.
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