To ROON or not to ROON ?

+2, Conductor App from Aurender

To Roon or not, it squarely depends on your choice of hardware. Majority of the hardware providers has taken an easy way out of not developing their own app interface and chose to adapt Roon.

For that matter, I admire Aurender for not giving into Roon and developed their on very robust and straightforward app that’s easy to follow. Yes, Roon has an advanced but complexed interface but when I am listening to music, I don’t care for none of that! I just wanna queue up music and listen. For simplicity and layout, I prefer the Aurender Conductor app over Roon by a mile. I don’t use any of the DSP features in Roon either. IME, Aurender’s Conductor app is very faithful to original source and doesn’t manipulate digital bits like Roon.

When Innuos users reported that Innuos Sense app sounds better than Roon, I wasn’t surprised at all. So my suggestion would be to choose wisely as app software is just as important as choosing the right hardware (streamer or server).

What I like about roon is the new music it leads me to (with a subscription to Qobuz or Tidal).  When you play an album it will offer suggestions of other albums you may like.  It can also learn your tastes by you liking or disliking songs on roon radio (plays tracks after your album is over, if you want it to).  There are other ways to explore music also.  With a million or so albums to choose from, you can find a lot of good music and you don't have to buy anything to try it.

If you know what you want to listen to many other apps will do the job.  If you like to find new music, roon is worth a try. 

@oddiofyl 

@lalitk 

My story is just about the same as you guys. I went with Bluesound first and upgraded to Aurrender. No regrets. Have found no need to use Roon. 

I’m sure all the streamer mentioned are excellent.   The U2 mini has the best selection of output types no doubt but I think I’ll be fine with either USB or SPDIF output on the Aurender 

I don’t see buying anything like an Esoteric or dcs where there are i2s and multiple ins and outs including clocks.   All I care about is some flexibility and whether the streamer or the DAC controls the clock depending on which DAC I use.  

For me when I upgraded from a Macbook Pro with Amarra (great sounding software with an iffy interface) to a Bricasti M5 I had to move on to either Roon MConnect or Audirvana.  Did trials on all three and MConnect was off the table immediately.  I really liked Roon and with all the updates to Audirvana’s interface it is really good as well.  I chose Audirvana since i like their interface format and it’s half the monthly subscription price.  Time will tell if I decide to switch to Roon at some point.   I would recommend doing the trials and have fun with it.