To Roon or not to Roon?


I recently have tried the 14 day trial of Roon and I could not get Roon to sync with my Auralic Aries G2.1 LD Lightning app and after a couple of days of trying everything my LD Lightning app itself went wonky and started to skip tracks and not play. I had to reinstall the Lighting app and restart my Aries. I read online where some people just preferred the sound of the Lightning app as opposed to the Roon app. Is Roon worth the trouble and expense over the Auralic Aries app which is pretty good on it’s own. I spent a lot of time with Roon and it just messed up my streaming setup. Any advice would be appreciated.
128x128mitchb

My trial ended today. The experience to control Tidal was neat. But I am glad the non-Roon music session has much less distraction. Tidal daily discovery is super helpful for discovering new music. Honestly, playing Tidal through mConnect HD app sounds even better. The only difference being this connection is using UPnP and not the laptop USB. 

I use Linn Akurate level kit as my streamer/DAC. I tried Roon, running the Core on a MacBook Pro. The Roon app is fun with a cool magazine like browser. The radio function where you get an auto feed of songs similar to the last album played is nice.

But for me Roon never really added anything I needed. I also have two homes and always having to set up the MacBook was annoying. I also found the sound quality I got from my native Linn app was better so I cancelled Roon and have not missed it.

Another plus for Roon, integration with Tidal, Qobuz, embedded HQPlayer if so inclined, great graphics, information about artists, playlists, saved personal playlists, Roon radio, excellent sound quality, I could go on and on.

 

Vast majority of issues I see are network related. Use wired network with server capable of decent processing capability one should have no problem.

 

The proprietary nature of the Lightning app and connectors is the reason I left Auralic.

I'm considering using Roon for my music, and possibly Qobuz.

Are there any advantages to having an Intel Nuc as the core vs a MacBook Pro?

I switched to Roon about a month ago and have been totally delighted.  I went with a Roon Nucleus paired with an IFi Zen Streamer as the Roon endpoint... all for less than $2K.