Roon seems a bit of a pointless middleman these days with all the streaming services. I can load tidal onto my PC, or I can run up a roon server, run the client on the PC, connect roon to tidal, then play the music.. and pay an extra £9.99 a month for the privilege. I'm open to be persuaded but it just seems like a lot of pain and money to achieve something that I already have.
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Making the most of Tidal audio away from car
- Thread starter Tony Hoyle
- Start date
MrBadger
Badger out
The issue with several software 'audio players' is that they are often viewed as 'just' software so of no benefit for the financial outlay. Many do not object to paying several ££££ for a piece of audio hardware with an inferior user experience based on extremely expensive proprietary hardware that can be equalled or even bettered by third party hardware.
I paid ~$500 for a perpetual Roon licence (so no subscription), about £600 for the dedicated kit to run the core on and then add pretty much whatever audio endpoint I want (I have an eclectic mix of audio endpoints that Roon seamlessly plays to), which could be well under £££ or several ££££ or even £££££ - long gone are the latter days. For that (~£1k) outlay, plus my own choice of audio endpoint, I know that will get a much better user and audio experience than spending thousands on dedicated audio.
The amount of enjoyment I get from discovering music that I normally would never have listened to is priceless and offers far more than just an 'audio player' would give. Roon plus a high quality streaming service such as Tidal gives me that ability. Now, if anyone is happy to listen to their collection of albums or have a set of playlists they have curated, that is fine, I get it, I even get that people don't want to pay for audio. But Roon is far more than that and as well as facilitating the pinnacle of audio reproduction, offers seamless discovery of a world of music that is extraordinary and totally involving, but it does have a cost.
I paid ~$500 for a perpetual Roon licence (so no subscription), about £600 for the dedicated kit to run the core on and then add pretty much whatever audio endpoint I want (I have an eclectic mix of audio endpoints that Roon seamlessly plays to), which could be well under £££ or several ££££ or even £££££ - long gone are the latter days. For that (~£1k) outlay, plus my own choice of audio endpoint, I know that will get a much better user and audio experience than spending thousands on dedicated audio.
The amount of enjoyment I get from discovering music that I normally would never have listened to is priceless and offers far more than just an 'audio player' would give. Roon plus a high quality streaming service such as Tidal gives me that ability. Now, if anyone is happy to listen to their collection of albums or have a set of playlists they have curated, that is fine, I get it, I even get that people don't want to pay for audio. But Roon is far more than that and as well as facilitating the pinnacle of audio reproduction, offers seamless discovery of a world of music that is extraordinary and totally involving, but it does have a cost.
It's definitely very *niche* and not going to be for everyone... some folks are definitely *not* going to place much value on the features/capabilities that it has.
My favorite features include but wouldn't be limited to:
- The way it lets Tidal, Qobuz, and my library live side-by-side, within one integrated UI.
- How it handles/organizes/presents alternate versions (from all sources) of the same album(s) is better than anything else I've seen.
- The signal transparency of whatever is playing (streaming or local) is *so nice* (this really can't be understated IMO).
- The 5-point-parametric EQ is how all DSP should be done.
- The custom-EQ settings that the manufacturer of my best set of headphones provides to Roon, for use with their headphones, is a fantastic little bonus feature.
- The ability to set custom downsample rules on a device-by-device basis basically fixed my whole-home-audio woes (and is the primary reason I got a Roon sub in the first place)
- The *data* it gives for my local library is *so nice*... showing me the waveform, telling me things like Gain and Dynamic Range for both the track and the whole album...
- And for discovery, it's unprecedented. Everything is linked. Metadata on top of metadata on top of metadata. Highly-clickable. You can quickly start going down *any* rabbit hole you find interesting (hey, you know what, it seems like I tend to like stuff that this "Ted Jensen" charachter masters... wonder what else he's done...." yea, in Roon, that's clickable, and you can pull up everything he's ever mastered, and sort and search on it and within it).
It's not a necessity. It's a luxury. But it definitely does things that other software either doesn't do, or doesn't do as well as Roon does, IMO.
Here’s where I’m at Had car 3 weeks now but have a feeling I’m not hearing the potential of the sound system. I tried Spotify via Tesla but disappointed with sound Can play Apple Music via Bluetooth but again the sound is not great. I’d like to discover new music but not an algorithm that means I get more of the same and I‘d like it in the best audio quality possible. Happy to pay for something that is simple but high quality. I’ve got a vinyl based system and never got on with CD or streaming at home but I have got a Meridian DAC and a 128gb USB-C flash drive that I hope to load up with some high res tracks Would be grateful for any advice to get the best out of the Premium sound system that is simple and sounds awesome Thanks
Indeed.. it appears to be targeted at people other than me. I've narrowed my audio system down to a PC, DAC and headphones and for a fraction of the money I threw at audio in my 20s have something that sounds way better, and streaming gives me access to a bigger library. 20 years ago when I had 2k+ hand curated mp3s and no easy way to listen to them remotely I'd probably have jumped at the chance.
To get the most out of my Tidal+ subscription, I have recently bought a headphone amplifier from Chronos (Violectric) for my Android (Oneplus 7T Pro) and a new pair of wired in-ear headphones from Sennheiser, the IE300.
The seller of the headphone amplifier also gave me a golden tip.
If you want to benefit from MQA with this combination, it’s not going to happen in the Tidal App.
Use UAP Pro App instead and connect to your Tidal account from there.
play.google.com
I’m absolutely chuffed with this app. Always use "bit perfect" modus.
The seller of the headphone amplifier also gave me a golden tip.
If you want to benefit from MQA with this combination, it’s not going to happen in the Tidal App.
Use UAP Pro App instead and connect to your Tidal account from there.
USB Audio Player PRO - Apps on Google Play
High quality media player supporting USB audio DACs and HiRes audio chips
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