New Roon Radio

Roon released version 1.6 today and I'm super impressed. The radio feature now includes Tidal tracks mixed in with your library files and is doing a damn fine job of selecting tracks. I've been wishing for this since I got Roon. I can finally have a Pandora like discovery feature built right into my primary listening environment. It's encouraging to see them taking to heart the requests of forum users, especially since I paid for a lifetime subscription. My only complaint is that the thumbs up/down still effects the upcoming tracks, not the one currently playing. I guess this is to curate a real time playlist, but it's not helpful if you don't know the music already. However, if you skip a song in radio play, it asks if you don't like the track, if you just don't want to hear it right now, or if it doesn't fit, so I guess it's taking a full listen as a thumbs up at this point.

I can't wait to see where this software goes as it matures.

 

I was already a satisfied lifetime subscriber. The new radio feature makes it even better. Roon is the best audio investment I’ve ever made.

 

Awesome! Can you please link where I go to download it for the Raspberry Pi? I couldn’t figure it out earlier today! Haha. Sorry for my lack of skills. LoL

 

Hopefully you're just looking for the Roon Bridge. You can't get the server for the pi. It needs to be on a PC or MAC. Easiest way is to use Diet Pi as your OS and install the bridge through that. It's in the dietpi list of compatible software. If you have a Hifiberry, they have their own pre-set up distro. There's lots of ways to go about it.

 

I must admit that this new radio feature has me intrigued.

 

The previous implementation was already one of my favorite features. An album would finish and it would just continue on picking relevant tracks from an already massive library. The only thing missing was the introduction of artists I didn't know already. This update just took it to a higher level.

 

If you open the now playing screen you can thumbs up or down the current track.

 

With that Feature it almost sounds like a Tidal subscription would become mandatory.

 

Oh gosh. I was totally mistaken. I have Rune! Oops. I misread. Now I’ll have to checkout Roon. Thanks for the input!!!

 

Really? In now playing I see the thumbs up or down, but it's in regards to upcoming tracks, not the one currently playing. It queues up the ones you thumb up and gets rid of the ones you thumb down. Is there another set of thumbs I'm missing?

 

Right!? I had actually let my subscription lapse because I hadn't been using Tidal at all. Promptly signed back up when I got the email about the update. Tidal now feels worth it again.

 

click on the title of your playing track and that should take you to the screen with artist bio, lyrics etc....this is where the relevant thumbs are

 

I have a question for you: Does this radio feature in roon support multiple different users on your home network? By this I'm asking if my wife or one of my kids listens to roon on using one of my roon end-points inside of my house, and they starts thumbs-downing music that I like and thumbs-upping music that I dislike, will this only apply to those users, or will they have totally screwed-up my roon account because the account settings are global to all users?

If roon can't support multiple sub-accounts with different settings on the same network, then this would be a deal killer for me.

 

I got on my tablet, and now I see them. Seems you have to be on a larger screen in landscape mode to use this feature, as it's not present on my S8+. That's a huge oversight in my opinion. I shall complain on their forums, lol.

While I can't be certain of all this, you can create additional accounts, so I would assume this to be true. You can always do the free trial. I think it's 30 days.

 

One of these days, when I have some free time, and I am further along in my CD ripping process, I plan to do the trial. But I don't think that I am ready for this yet. It would really suck to sign-up for the trial and then become so buried by work that I can't actually determine whether it is for me or not during the trial period.

 

Understood. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I was skeptical because I had been using Plex for all media types for many years. It's a similar concept, but was a one stop shop for my TV, movies, DVR and music, plus it has access outside my local network (something Roon can't do). Within a week of having Roon, I was absolutely hooked. I didn't think I'd care as much as I do about seemingly small things like artist bios and album reviews, but it really enriched my listening experience. There are just tons of little things that Roon gets right that I never realized I was missing. It's not perfect yet, but this software is obviously still in its infancy, which means lots of goodies to look forward to and they have a responsive team, so I expect frequently requested features will continue to roll out. I got in on the ground floor of Plex, buying a lifetime pass, because they had similar qualities. I haven't been disappointed, but I no longer use it for music. I expect to get a decade or more of enjoyment out of my lifetime Roon pass.

Sorry for gushing over software, lol.

 

No problem with gushing. I had heard that Room was the solution to poor meta-data, but I had assumed that this just meant that the meta-data was more accurate, not that it is so much richer as you are describing.

My only real issue is that there is no really-clean way to integrate it with my all of my Heos links that I have around the house.