roon 1.8

Five emails from Roon Labs announcing their latest version, 1.8. Take a look below, that’s the home screen. Seriously. A big “one step back.” No additional features, a horrible UI and UX that’s shaky. Is Roon becoming nothing but a frontend for streaming services? Well, like any other old component in the rack, it’s time to look for the next one and upgrade.

lumin d2

Now that I’m all-in on a digital music and streaming with Roon, it was about time that I upgraded from my “science projects” and bought a “real” DAC/Streamer for my main system. First up was deciding a price-point. Most of my equipment falls in the “couple thousand” dollar range, so it only makes sense that the $100 dollar streamer wasn’t quite up to the rest of my system. Thus, I set a budget of $2000 for the purchase.
As for features, I use ethernet to connect to my home network and Roon core (no real need for wifi), and want to use the balanced outputs to my pre-amp. Displays are pretty cool, but honestly, they’re not that easy to see from a distance. Cambridge had a nice model, CXN, but unfortunately it does not carry Roon Ready credentials. So after posting to the Roon Community website, I landed on the Lumin D2. The company makes much higher end devices (and is known for set-top video boxes in Asia), but all are highly rated, and after scoring a deal at Axpona 2019, I made the purchase. Immediately I heard an upgrade through my system, and I also get the benefit of upsampling to DSD quality.

On the web:
Lumin D2

roonlabs: the good, the bad

When thinking about the best way to write a review of Roonlabs music server software, the best way to do it is with is a list. So here we go:
Pros:

• Roon works. Everything works as intended, the very first time. Sometimes my phone takes a few seconds to connect to my Roon core server, but everything worked “out of the box” including Core software, Windows app and phone app. No Contact Us, no Help Tickets, etc. That’s great!
• Roon sounds great – Yes, my digital library sounds fantastic. Whether this is because of their software or not is debatable, but my system sounds fantastic.
• Heterogeneous hardware playback. Roon works with my computer’s outputs, Hifiberry, Squeeze devices, Chromecast devices, phone, PC, etc, etc. That’s great, not being tied to any particular hardware. It works over a VPN connection with my phone, but it’s spotty to say the least.
• DSP. The ability to apply DSP to each signal is a big deal. Unfortnately for me, I’m not ready to dive in.

Cons:

• Roon’s metadata has holes. I’ll post some screenshots, but Roon certainly isn’t a fan of progressive rock. While it tagged the vast majority of my albums correctly, it has precious few pictures of the artists in my library, and when it’s wrong, it’s wrong. I get that I have some obscure music in my collection, but still. Roon’s handling of metadata is a bit like the Wizard of Oz. Something’s happening behind the curtain, but who knows what!
• Roon’s artist biographies and album reviews. Nothing – and I mean nothing – would make me happier than being able to add my own album reviews to my music in Roon. But there’s no way to that, no way to edit an artists biography, or even add weblink. The kicker? Most every other field for an album is user-editable. That’s really the most disappointing thing about Roon.
• Roon only works on a local network. No out-of-the-box VPN or greater internet integration. Don’t know if this is because of RAAT, but I imagine they’ll get there. So I need to keep Bubblesoft for now. Also, the Android app is okay, but has bugs. I imagine the iOS app is better!
• Roon has excuses. Reading through Roon’s Community board, one thing is clear: Ask for something – Discogs link? Soundcloud integration? Custom artist text? Custom album reviews? – and you get another community member responding as an “authority”. Meh.

All that said, I can sum up two things about Roon. The architecture works perfectly and it sounds wonderful, which is saying a lot; however, Roon does not want metadata that isn’t already embedded in my FLAC files or what they provide, which frankly, sucks.
But I’m sticking with Roon, because I’m financially committed, and I see the promise. The question is when will I disable Logitech Media Server and Bubblesoft UPnP/DLNA?

[As a side note, RoonCore doesn’t seem to broadcast the host machine IP. In typical fashion, Roonlabs marked my support request as “Tinkering” and said it wasn’t supported. Seriously!]