Roon Labs Software

Yes.

 

That's what I'm waiting for - and hoping they don't wait for iOS 9 to release it.

How's the artist selection on Tidal? This is the first time I'm contemplating replacing my CD purchases with something else.

 

The iOS app should be out early July. They are planning to be done it end of June and then there's the usual Apple ******** to get it to the store.

It's hard for me to comment on selection, my choice artists might not be yours. You should trial it as well.

 

Yeah, I wish they'd have a list available somewhere without having to trial it. Guess I'll just wait to do that until I trial the Roon software.

 

Any screen shots or video of how this implements with Tidal or can anybody give me their opinion on what's so special about it's integration?

I don't see integration that big of a deal ... the Tidal app is decent enough, plus you can send its output through JRiver for bit perfect playback to your DAC (JRiver needs to be open and running in the background when using it this way, but it plays back fine IME).

 

1) It's integration works very well with an existing catalog: Under the individual artists in your collection you see the albums you own, and further down all the albums for the artist on Tidal that you don't own, along with anything they have contributed on that exists on Tidal. You can then right click a Tidal based album and add it to your library so that shows directly with the albums you own.

2) You can find new artists similar to what you do with the Tidal app, and add their albums to your collection. From that point on the artist shows up in your collection just like you owned the album and had it stored with the rest of your digital files.

3) You can build playlists with a combination of owned music and music from tidal.



Scrolling down a bit shows top tracks and albums you imported into roon.




Scroll down a little further you see albums on Tidal.



Here's a sample with Tidal albums show up with my normal collection. You can see the "T" on the album art.

 

Here is an artist that I don't own the album but has been added to my library.



Here is the album I added to my collection along with a list of other album the artist has contributed to. I happen to own them and thus they don't have the "T" symbol in the art.

 

Now you could operate roon without having an existing collection by just adding Tidal albums to your library. Roon would automatically curate your artist list and similar artist pages to what you see above.

It really is pretty software and wealth of information it shows makes exploring your music collection fun and expensive if you buy lots of music.

 

@Dr Tone - thanks for that, it looks really impressive and I can see that the Tidal integration is very cool! Ugh, something more to seriously consider (as if I don't have enough expensses already ).

 

I can assure you the interface is absolutely amazing. I've never seen anything quite like it.

I haven't jumped on it at this point because my listening space isn't really set up for me to have a computer screen in there. When the iPad app ships I'll give this some serious consideration, though I still may not because the cost is fairly significant, and I'm pretty wedded to my physical media at this stage.

But make no mistake, the Roon+Tidal system is pretty amazing!

 

I only have one space for listening and movies so I have my 2 channel setup in my living room and use a 65" HDTV as my PC monitor as well as for Cable and Blue Rays. I only do 2.1 channel for both music and movies.

I can imagine how cool Roon would be blown up on my TV.

 

I just realized I didn't include an album screen shot.

 

Hmm, now how to get this to integrate with my squeezebox touch

 

My Touch has been sitting for years. Replaced it with a computer years back. Though I still sometimes run squeezelite on it.

Roon staff have done a little research into the squeeze eco system but the squeeze clients act different, they require a server so they can register themselves which is different than Roon Labs soon to be "Roon Speaker" API.

 

The interface is almost stunning and the metadata retrieval seems fantastic.

The one thing I can't wrap my brain around is adding to my library an album that I don't actually own.

I guess I prefer keeping my personal collection local and have no issue with opening a streaming app when I want to enter that world.

The look and info is presented in such a cool way that I may one day get over it, but, for now, I enjoy that separation...

 

It's easy to create a "Focus Bookmark" aka Filter that shows Tidal albums or not Tidal albums in your library. It's renting and you have to be willing to lose the album some day. I still buy music I really want to keep forever even though it's on Tidal, especially if it gets released in HD. I remove the Tidal version when I do.

 

Sorry, Doc..can you elaborate on this focus bookmark, please?

 

Roon plays the native sample rate. IF you apply volume normalization or crossfade, Roon jumps to 24bit for processing (if using a 16bit source).

 

Yes! Just hit bookmark and name it, then save it.

Also you can see your Tidal tracks under albums>FOCUS>inspector>storage locations. (Also you can export a excel spreadsheet too, should you want to make a gift list.)

 

Focus is an option that allows you to quickly narrow down your collection by pretty much any terms you want. For example, you can quickly focus in on Van Halen + David Lee Roth solo, and then save that "focus" as a bookmark. Or, you can focus on 24 bit, or albums that have 3 tracks, specific file locations, or pretty much anything else you can think of. You can save any focus terms you want as a bookmark to quickly access later, although the focus system is so easy you don't really need to save anything.

All tech specs aside, I've found Roon to be really fun to use and engaging. I still have my JRiver set up, and don't plan on abandoning it, but the more I play around with Roon, the more I like it.

 

In Roon, Bookmark = Playlist.

 

I love it. I've been using Roon + Tidal all week and I'm really impressed.

 

It's pretty incredible, isn't it!

 

I can say enough good things about Roon, I have evangelized all my (I don't give a **** about my player ) friends.

I'd say the drawbacks are that it's technical, but not as technical as JRiver Media Center. One can really geek out with playback statistics and customize the interface. Even iTunes has some power user features hidden w/ in the art and design of "Smart Playlists."

 

Can someone PLEASE explain how I can use Roon with a dedicated streamer like the Simaudio MiND, Bryston BDP-2, SOtM Mini Server, or Naim models.
According to the Roon site, Roon must be installed on the device to be controlled. I'm stumped.

I do not want to use my computer to feed a DAC, which seems to me, to be the only way to use Roon.