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Roon 1.1 Computer Audio Playback Software

Roon 1.1 Computer Audio Playback Software

In the late 1990s three acquaintances—an A&R representative at a major record label, a record-label owner, and a software developer—found themselves with the identical problem of having no way to easily access their large music collections. The three envisioned a computer-based platform that would not only store and organize a music library, but also allow the user to explore that library in ways that made sense to a music lover. By 1999 they had conceptualized a music server that would be called Sooloos when it finally launched in 2008. The Sooloos interface was vastly better than that of any extant server, and for the first time revealed the power of computers for accessing music. Several years later, Meridian Audio bought the company, and two of its founders stayed on to continue with product development. But earlier this year, Meridan and the Sooloos founders mutually and amicably decided that software development should be spun off into a different company. The original Sooloos team started a new company, called Roon Labs, to bring to market software for managing and accessing a music library on any Mac or Windows PC. The software, called Roon, expands upon the Sooloos experience and makes it available to anyone with a computer.

The version reviewed here is 1.1, which adds several new features as well as RoonRemote, a remote app for tablets and other computers. Let’s get one important issue out of the way up front—Roon is relatively expensive: $119 per year for a single computer, or $499 for a lifetime subscription for a single computer. However, with your subscription you can use an unlimited number of copies of Roon. Android and iOS remote apps are available free, or if you have additional Windows or Macintosh computers, you can use Roon on all of them as remotes. You can even use a Windows copy of Roon on one of Microsoft’s Surface tablets as a remote; how many remote apps for Surface do you know of? Some people will see the price and send us hate mail about reviewing obscenely expensive items, but come on; that’s not much more than you’d pay for Microsoft’s Office 365 software, and I suspect Roon will give you much more enjoyment.

Roon Director of Strategy Rob Darling gave me this view into the future of the software: “To give a little background, Roon has a few basic components. The Core, which talks to our cloud infrastructure, knows where all the music files are (local or streaming), knows where all the Roon devices are, and brokers communications between them all to build the database that runs the system, generates the interface, and streams audio between points in the system. The Interface takes all the data we’ve added into your Library and generates the user experience. The Audio Endpoint receives streams, and plays them back. Right now, they are all in one package that lives on your computer, but now they will start to spread out across devices, in the way that Sooloos functions could either be on one device or spread among devices.

“With our next release, we will offer iPad control and a Headless Server. With the Headless Server, you will install one app that runs the Core in the background on a central device in the home—Mac, PC, or Linux (so you can install it on a powerful NAS, like a QNAP with and i5 or i7 processor). It will auto-launch when you turn on the machine and will auto-launch again if for some reason it is stopped. With the addition of iPad support, you will then control the system from any qualified Mac, PC, iPad, or Android tablet in your home. Now you can run the system from tablets and other computers all around your home.

“Later this fall, the last stage will be complete when we launch our third-party streaming protocol. This is like Airplay for Roon. Manufacturers will run a small piece of software on their DACs that will turn them into streaming Roon endpoints. In the same way an AppleTV just shows up in iTunes with no configuration and a ton of reliability, these partner DACs will just show up in Roon. But they won’t have the limitations of Airplay, which only handles 16-bit/44.1kHz audio. They will stream up to 384kHz audio at 32 bits, as well as DSD. And they will run under their own clocks, instead of the clock of the transmitting device. It is ideal for performance audio.

“The best part is that you can mix and match devices among different partners. So you can have a super high-end DAC in your performance audio room from one company, something else for background listening in your office from a different company, and another DAC for your headphones in the living room or out on the patio. And we talk to Airplay devices as well, so you can listen through the AppleTV in your bedroom. Oh, and it will do multi-room sync and multi-user audio, so you can listen all around the home.

“So, that will take us to where we wanted to be, giving all the modularity, flexibility, power, reliability, and simplicity that we created when we started Sooloos, but cross-platform and cross-manufacturer, on the hardware that you choose and can afford.”

Excuse the long quote, but it gives you an idea of what Roon will eventually be like. Roon 1.0 was a good start, but Roon 1.1 is a big step towards realizing that configuration.

You may wonder, as I did, where did they get a name like Roon? Answer: The name has no real meaning; one of the company principals just dreamed it up.

Roon updates its software when new features are available, notifying you of changes when you launch it to play music. Roon’s updates are fast and easy, and you have a choice whether to just accept an update or first read a change log that explains what it  does. I recommend reading the log, but some people won’t be interested in what might be regarded as technical gobbledy-gook and will just accept the change. I have found the change logs to be chatty and informative. In my experience, you won’t usually have to reboot your computer after a change—it just takes a bit longer for Roon to start up. However, perhaps as a result of rescanning the music file collection when it starts, Roon never fails to display files newly added to the library (the database of your collection of musical files), which is one of my pet peeves with some other playback programs I’ve tried that often don’t show some newly installed albums right away, and sometimes, never show them.

 

Roon is designed to appeal to the audiophile and to the music lover. It can play PCM and DSD files, and is the first program I’ve seen (other than Tidal) that has announced support for Meridian’s highly-touted MQA encoding. Also promised is DSP processing, although no details are given about that.

Classical music lovers will appreciate Roon’s ability to sort albums by composer in addition to album title and artist. When I searched for works by Beethoven, Roon even showed me a picture of Beethoven, along with a short biography. You can also sort by work, which produces an alphabetized list of all the tracks on your library. That can be helpful if, say, you want to find out how many recordings of “Autumn Leaves” you have. I’d like to be able to do a secondary sort by work after sorting by composer, so after I find the tracks I have by Beethoven, I could see all the performances of his piano sonatas.

Installing Roon
Roon can be downloaded from roonlabs.com. You’ll note the encrypted URL, which keeps all the information you provide private. Click on the button that says “Start Free Trial,” and you’ll be asked to choose whether you want an annual membership or a lifetime membership. You’ll also be asked whether you want to run Roon on a Macintosh or Windows computer.


Roon 1.1 Computer Audio Playback Software

When you prepare to install Roon, you’ll need to identify one computer that will be the main Roon computer. For me, this was a Hewlett-Packard Envy laptop located next to my equipment rack. The Envy, which currently runs Windows 7, is connected to the DAC in my main hi-fi system via a USB cable, and to my home network via an Ethernet cable. The version of Roon known as RoonServer gets installed on the main computer. You can install other versions, including Windows and Macintosh versions on computers on your network, which will become RoonRemotes and be able to control the RoonServer over the network. The iPad version of the RoonRemote runs only on 64-bit iPads, which left out my older iPad3. I wondered why RoonRemote for iPad wouldn’t work on my 3-year old iPad, but then Darling explained why: “It’s not really a choice for us. Older iPads don’t have as much memory and don’t support OpenGL 3.0, so they just can’t run the Roon interface without a ton of custom development that would still end in a lot of compromises and an experience that is far inferior to all the other platforms.”

So in lieu of an iPad RoonRemote, I used a Toshiba Windows laptop computer as my remote, which connected to the network via WiFi.

Roon will do most of the setup automatically when it installs, but there are a few adjustments that you’ll need to make manually. The Setup menu is accessed by clicking the icon in the upper left-hand corner of the screen.

Unfortunately, there is no instruction sheet for setting up Roon on a computer. An online forum where you can ask questions and get answers from the Roon staff is available when you click the Community menu item, but it’s nowhere near as useful as a no-fooling instruction sheet would have been. Roon is hardly the only program not to provide an instruction sheet, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. Fortunately, the setup is pretty intuitive, but newcomers to playback software might still find it puzzling. In my view any instructions that don’t end at a point where music plays from your speakers are inadequate, but I must be weird; lots of playback software and hardware doesn’t take you that far. Come on guys, this stuff isn’t intuitive. End of rant. [That may be the end of Vade’s rant but it’s just the beginning of mine. The computer-audio manufacturers seem to think that because their technology is second-nature to them, consumers should understand how to use it without an owner’s manual. When I reviewed the original Sooloos system in 2007, the product arrived in a box with zero documentation. I was told that no owner’s manual was available or needed. I know that engineers and software designers detest creating documentation, but it’s an essential part of the product. And have it written by a professional writer, not the designer.—RH]

Roon 1.1 Computer Audio Playback Software

The Audio sub-menu on the Settings Menu is needed for audio playback, so let’s look at it.

Roon 1.1 Computer Audio Playback Software

After clicking on the Audio selection on the Settings menu, find your DAC on the list of installed DACs. In my example, the installed DAC when I was writing this review was Chord’s 2Qute DAC. You’ll need to name the DAC by typing its name into the Zone Name field. Then you’ll need to specify how the DAC operates by clicking the gears icon after the Zone Name field. You should then be taken to the Output Settings screen.


Roon 1.1 Computer Audio Playback Software

At the top, click the box labeled Use Exclusive Mode. The rest of the menu should drop down. If, and only if, your DAC will play DSD files in native format without converting them to PCM, in the DSD Playback Strategy field, click the dropdown arrow at the end of the field, and select DSD over PCM v1.0 (DoP). That should do it for the audio setup. Click somewhere outside the menus and they should disappear, saving the settings you’ve made. A message at the bottom of the screen will ask you to select the audio zone you want to play. Click on the message icon and pick the name of your DAC you just entered in the Audio Settings Menu to select where Roon sends its output signal. An icon should appear on the lower right corner of the screen displaying the name of your DAC. Now you’re ready to play some music. Apologies for the lengthy instructions, but they may help some folks get set up to play music with Roon.

Since RoonRemote for iPad wouldn’t work on my 3-year-old iPad, I downloaded a copy of Roon for Windows, installed it onto a laptop computer running Windows 10, and during setup, specified that it would run as a remote. I had to indicate what output zone I wanted to use (my system DAC) and bingo! Roon on the laptop ran just like it did on the RoonServer computer. In some ways, that’s actually better than it probably would run on a tablet, since I see exactly the same screen and use the same controls. And instead of a 10″ tablet screen, the laptop has a 15.6″ screen and a real keyboard. I use a mouse with my laptop computers, because it gives me far more precise control than my fingertip does on a tablet. The downside is that a laptop’s battery life is much shorter than a tablet’s.

I installed a third copy of Roon on the desktop computer on which I’m typing this. I can use it to control the RoonServer computer, but since I often like to listen to music through headphones, I can pick the local computer as the output device, and voila!, the music plays through the headphones. So I’m getting two different copies of Roon to play through two different systems for the price of a single subscription.

Under the Storage setting, I told Roon to watch the NAS drive on my home network as the location of my music files. There are over 1600 albums on the drive, so Roon took several minutes to scan them, and then presented a view with very few generic cover art pictures.

 

Using Roon
Keep in mind that I’m using Roon installed on a Windows computer, so it may look a bit different on a Macintosh or a tablet. Roon starts up pretty fast, comparable to most computer programs. And it’s as easy to use as it was to set up—maybe easier!

Roon plays the following audio formats: WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, and OGG. It also plays DSF but not DFF files, either by using the DSD over PCM process, or by converting them to PCM. So if your DAC won’t play DSD, Roon can still play DSD files by converting them to PCM on the fly. According to the Roon Forum, it will also play MP3 and AAC files (Roon requires that the supported operating systems provide the codecs).

The first screen you’ll see is the Overview screen, which shows some information about your library and albums that you’ve recently installed in the library. The specific album art is from my Roon Server; unless we have the exact same albums in our libraries, the albums Roon displays on your computer will be different.


Roon 1.1 Computer Audio Playback Software

If you’ve just loaded some new albums onto your storage medium, that’s probably just what you’d want to play as soon as you start Roon, so that’s what the program shows you first. After the greeting at the top of the Overview Screen, there appears a line of information about your library: 1) number of albums in the library, 2) number of tracks in the library, 3) number of individual artists in the library, 4) number of songs in the library for which lyrics are available, 5) number of albums in the library for which there are reviews or biographies of the artists, and 6) number of albums with either cover art images or for which there are pictures of the artists.

Under the library summary row, you’ll see a row of the most recently installed albums. There’s a lot of information displayed here: 1) the cover art (if there is no cover art, a thumbnail of a microphone or a violin is displayed), 2) the name of the album, and 3) the artist on the album. For a classical performance, you’ll see the conductor and the orchestra, or the soloist if there is one. There is also a note telling you how long ago the album was added to the library. To view your entire library, just click the text View All at the end of the line of cover art, and Roon will display all the albums in your library, sorted by date added. In other words, the latest album you added will appear on the top row on the left end. Finally, there’s a line of five stars, which represent album ratings. You have to insert a rating, unless there is a rating in a professional magazine. Half-star ratings can also be assigned.

If you don’t want to listen to a newly installed album, click the View All button to display all your albums. When you do that, additional albums will be displayed. Again, these are the albums in my library—yours will look different.


Roon 1.1 Computer Audio Playback Software

OK, for purposes of illustration, let’s say I want to play the album Girl Talk by the Holly Cole Trio. I first click on the album cover on the View All screen.


Roon 1.1 Computer Audio Playback Software

When I click on the Girl Talk cover art, Roon takes me to the playback screen for that album.

You’ll notice that Roon presents you with an abbreviated version of the album’s liner notes to the right of its cover art. Underneath the cover art is a line telling you the digital format (AIFF), the sampling rate and bit depth of the recording (88.2 kHz/24 bits), and whether the recording is two-channel or multichannel. Then, at the lower right corner of the cover art, you’ll see the total length of the recording (45 minutes).


Roon 1.1 Computer Audio Playback Software

Beneath all that, you see a track list, which includes the track name and the composer for each song. On the right, you see other albums by the artist that are in your library. To my eye, all this information looks far more like the liner notes for an album than any other playback program I’ve seen. That makes it much easier to read.

To play the album, click the button that says “Play Album” and then the button that pops up and says “Play Now.” A symbol that looks a bit like a spectrum analyzer appears next to the first song, and that song begins to play. Each song plays in order. If you want to stop playback, click the “Pause” button at the bottom of the screen and the song stops. Click the button again to start playing exactly where you left off. Easy, huh? If you want to play a single song, click the name of the song on the list, then click the “Play Now” button. You can use the buttons beside the “Play Now” button to compile a playlist. Using Roon is simple and intuitive.

Although my DAC doesn’t play DSD256, I carelessly selected a DSD256 album, If You Love for Beauty Vol. II, music of Chausson performed by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, with Yehuda Gilad leading The Colburn Orchestra (DSD256, Yarlung Records/NativeDSD Music), and much to my surprise, music issued from my speakers. A glance at the DAC’s front panel showed that Roon was converting the files to 352.8/24 PCM on the fly.

 

Editing Metadata
A distraction in playing back computer audio files occurs when there is no metadata (cover art, artist name, track names, or other information about the performance) shown for an album in your library. Roon 1.1 provides improved tools for adding metadata into the library display. The metadata editing tools are accessed by clicking the metadata editing icon on the right side of the screen. An album in my library is titled The Best of Opera Volume 1. It’s a collection of famous opera arias ripped from the CD Naxos 8.553166. Although the track names were listed correctly, there was no cover art shown. I looked up the album online, found the cover art, did a screen copy of the cover art, saved it as a file on my hard drive, and then dragged the cover art file into the Add Image field on the editing screen, clicked Save, and the cover art was then shown for the album. That’s pretty convenient, although it would be even easier if I could have cut and pasted the cover art image without having to first save it as a file, or scanned the image from the CD booklet cover. These are things that can come in future upgrades to Roon; current editing tools are quite flexible and complete. I could go on at length with other examples, but this one illustrates the ease of using Roon’s metadata editing tools.

One of the metadata fields I hadn’t seen before was a yes/no indicator of whether an album contained explicit lyrics. If you have children, that could be really handy.

Sound
OK, I’ve spent a lot of words describing the experience of using Roon; now on to the really important questions: How does it sound? Do bits really equal bits? Or does it have distinctive sonic characteristics?

I began my assessment of Roon’s sound by listening to an ultra-familiar track, “Folia Rodrigo Martinez” from La Folia 1490-1701 by Jordi Savall and his band, ripped from Alia Vox AFA 9805. The sound picture seemed unusually widespread, glowing with detail not usually heard. If you’ll pardon an optical analogy, it was like someone had opened several curtains, bathing the surroundings in lots more light. This was not due to additional peakiness, just additional detail that was spread from speaker to speaker. Percussion instruments, normally in the background, seemed more present, more “there.” The bass drum had lots of power and punch, but sounded different than it usually does; its timbre in the low bass was reproduced with power and impact, but the midbass seemed somewhat less prominent.

Another fave review cut is “Miserere” from The Tallis Scholars’ Allegri’s Miserere & Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli (96kHz/24-bit FLAC, Gimell). The a cappella vocal forces were spread more palpably than usual between the speakers, and the solo group, which is located some distance behind the main choral group, was reproduced with more of the subtle cues that tell you how far back the group is positioned. I also fancied I could better distinguish how the tenor soloist vocalized each syllable.

Shelby Lynne’s Just a Little Lovin’ (DSD64/DSF, Acoustic Sounds) is a lovely, natural recording. Here again, the midbass seemed less emphasized, although the deepest bass had plenty of power and impact. Lynne’s voice was quite expressive.

Comparison
Perhaps the most common playback software for Windows is JRiver Media Center, now in version 21. Running on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux computers, JRiver now plays PCM files up to 768kHz sampling rate and DSD files up to DSD256 via DSD over PCM. I’ve never seen any of the former files, but the latter are beginning to become available, though are still rare. In addition to a Forum, JRiver offers a Wiki, which is an online set of instructions. I wouldn’t describe it as a real manual, but it’s way better than nothing. JRiver Media Center sells for $49.98, and updates to new versions sell for as low as $18.98. Minor updates, which don’t change the version number, are free.

In addition to a metadata editor (not as capable as Roon’s), JRiver also provides a ripping capability that lets your computer rip a CD to its library. And if you insert a CD in your computer’s optical drive, JRiver will play it. Roon’s staff told me the latter service is not planned for Roon, but I’ll bet your computer already has software that will play CDs.

On “Folia Rodrigo Martinez,” I could hear a bit more of the midbass with lots of power. The soundfield seemed slightly murkier, with the percussion instruments recessed a tad more deeply in the background. “Miserere” lacked a smidgen in horizontal spread, and although the impression of soundstage depth was there, some of the barely perceptible reverberant echoes, which cue you about back-to-front depth, were slightly less evident than with Roon.

Shelby Lynne’s simpler arrangement sounded quite similar. I could hear more midbass detail, however.

JRiver has a couple of remote apps you can use to control it, including Jremote for iOS machines (even my old iPad), and Gizmo for Android tablets. I’ve used Jremote, but find it easier to use JRiver directly on the playback computer. That’s a personal preference.

Bottom Line
Since this has been a review of a computer program instead of equipment, I’ve tried to give you a glimpse into the experience of actually using Roon. I hope I’ve shown that it offers a rich interface with far more information about the music in your collection than any other program I’ve seen. Its flexible, easy-to-use metadata-editing tools make fixing the inevitable errors that creep into Roon’s (and any other playback program’s) graphic display of your albums simple. Space precluded discussion of Roon’s integration with the Tidal streaming service, but it’s done so cannily that music via Tidal shows up just like music in your personal library. I found playing music on Tidal easier through Roon than Tidal’s own playback program. Most importantly, Roon just sounds good—a little different from, and in some ways better, than JRiver. It’s relatively expensive, but in my view, you get a lot for the money. (But if Roon is beyond your financial comfort zone, JRiver is still a formidably capable program that’s cheaper and has additional features. And there’s a version of JRiver for Linux computers.)

If you would like to get into computer audio music playback but have found the software unappealing or challenging, give Roon a try. You may find Roon’s simple, massively informative interface just what you need to get started. And don’t forget—there’s a two-week free-trial period. What have you got to lose?

SPECS & PRICING

Audio formats played: WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, OGG PCM files up to 384/24; DSD files (DSF only), either by using the DSD over PCM (DoP), or by converting them to PCM; DSD-Direct (DSD-Native) using ASIO drivers on Windows (up to DSD256 files are supported; MP3 and AAC files if your operating system provides the appropriate codec)
Recommended hardware: Intel Core i5, Ivy Bridge+, 4GB RAM, SSD boot drive, 1440 x 900 resolution display
Supported platforms: Windows 7+, OS X 10.8+ (10.10 recommended)
Supported tablets: Android 4.4+ (5.0 recommended), Apple 64-bit iPad running iOS 8.0+
Price: $119 per year, $499 one-time lifetime subscription

ROON LABS LLC
roonlabs.com
contact@roonlabs.com

Vade Forrester

By Vade Forrester

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