Oh, Boy, does Roon suck big time! The high-end audio world needs a better solution!

[godofwealth]

I’ve been a loyal Roon user ever since they got off the ground, and have a lifetime subscription. I have used it for countless hours, and generally love the product, except they have never never even been reliable. Every time I make the mistake of clicking the blue “Update me now!” link, invariably disaster follows. This need not be the case. On my iPhone 15 Pro and iPad M1 Pro, apps update all the time. They do so reliably. Unlike Roon. Which in my long experience, never updates reliably. It’s always a pain to get Roon to work again. These guys obviously have not learned how to update their app reliably, like the rest of the iOS world. What’s with them? How long can it take a company to learn the basics of how to update an app so it continues to work?

The high end audio world desperately needs a better solution to streaming than Roon. I view these guys at this point as a hopeless case, since they clearly do not understand how to write reliable software. It’s sad, because so much of what Roon represents is great. But, unless they learn to make reliable updates, they will always leave the door open for someone else to eat their lunch. I fervently hope someone else does.

 

[Chrisl]

I'd love to see/hear new improved audio engines that can compete with better software; Strange, I never have any problems updating Roon. Though I know you're not alone

 

[Tuckers]

I've never had a problem with their updates.

 

[Another Johnson]

It may be related to how the RAATs in gow’s devices interact with the update. I notice that sometimes a hard reset of my “Roon Ready” streamers will often solve problems after an update. My Nucleus may need one too … Saturday I had some problems that were unusual, but Sunday, a reboot of both the Rossini Apex and the Nucleus brought them back together.

While Roon was down, I just switched to Mosaic to control the Rossini … and I was reminded just how much better control by Mosaic sounds. I think it bypasses the RAAT onboard. I’d been using Roon a lot lately because of its great organizational power … but what good is great organization if it comes at the price of lower SQ?

 

[Republicoftexas69]

Innuos products and the Sense application is top shelf, gets better all the time.

 

[audioresurgence]

I used Roon for a spell and had similar issues. Mosaic app works great, though they send through far fewer updates and it isn’t nearly as versatile.

 

[vermaxis]

+1 for Innuos. Sense is so intuitive and easy to use and Innuos updates and improves it regularly.

And based on my listening comparisons, I prefer Sense to Roon. I’ve tried it several times over the course of a year-plus timeframe and every time I could identify the Roon ‘sound’ that I didn’t enjoy as much.

 

[GroovySauce]

I'm a lifetime subscriber, 3ish years so I became frustrated with Roon. Seemed every new release was a decrease in fidelity. I was also having connection issues where some days it wouldn't connect to the Rendu.

I went with the Innuos ZENith MK3 and have been very happy.

 

[ADGold]

I was very much enjoying Roon for 4 years. In my new room, the core/server would not connect to my network player or my streaming services. I subsequently cancelled and now just stream Quboz from the Lumin app. There was too much connectivity complexity.

 

[Chrisl]

I'm a lifetime subscriber, 3ish years so I became frustrated with Roon. Seemed every new release was a decrease in fidelity. I was also having connection issues where some days it wouldn't connect to the Rendu.

I went with the Innuos ZENith MK3 and have been very happy.

There‘s the problem, the Rendu always had connectivity issues for me Chronically.

 

[NekoAudio]

I've also never had any problems with the Roon update procedure. I believe there may be a scenario where you can get stuck if you somehow updated your client app and then don't have a way to trigger the Core update, but I'm not sure what order of operations would be necessary to end up in that state.

Still, it is a bit unfair to compare iOS app updates with Windows/Linux/Mac updates. The hardware and software diversity of the latter ecosystems is significantly higher than iOS.

 

[godofwealth]

I finally managed to resolve my issues with Roon with a hard reboot. I have it working again, until the next update cycle at least! Roon’s biggest problem is its growing complexity. Supporting so many devices snd configurations is not easy. One reason that Windows has been glitchy and error prone over the 30+ years I’ve used it is the sheer number of devices it supports. Apple, in contrast, is vastly more reliable because they exercise a significant amount of control on the product hardware and software. I do feel the high-end community would benefit from a high end streaming platform. Roon is not it.

 

[PYP]

I have had no update problems since using the Grimm MU1 (and the sound is consistently very good), but of course the software should work on all supported/certified equipment.

Now that Roon is part of Harman International, they have formally requested and received much needed feedback from their users. 15,000 responded to the survey asking for what is good and bad. They have tried to be everything to everyone. Hopefully, the recent feedback and perhaps some discussions with more experienced folks at Harman will yield a more stable platform.

In my own feedback, I suggested they accept the fact that Roon can sound better and work on that. I'm very happy with what I'm hearing every day, but many people say the quality changes with updates and that needs to be researched and the causes understood so that a fix can be implemented.

I think they are just getting started. The basic platform is very useful and when Qobuz is integrated, Roon becomes a wonderful music discovery tool.

 

[Davidny]

I’ve been a longtime Roon user first on a MacBook Pro, and then switched to a Nucleus+ in 2018. Updates have never been a problem. And the Nucleus is very stable. I occasionally reboot it, along with all of my other digital devices.
However Roon I think has prioritized features and platform compatibility over maximizing sound quality.
Recently I noticed this list of suggestions to optimize Roon’s sound quality. I’ve been using most of these suggestions but some were new to me. I found the cumulative result of these suggestions to be quite pleasing.

Roon Optimization Guide For Increased Sound Quality

This guide assumes you have already downloaded and installed Roon Core/Server 2.0 on your source and Roon Endpoint version 2.0 on a Mac or PC. Access the settings menu by clicking on the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) on the top left of the Roon app. Configure the following: Disable...

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