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Roon….The Gordon Knot of concierge musical services?

Not sure what my options are going forward.  Had my Roon server on a windows desktop and bridged to both my I pad and my I phone. Everything worked OK for the most part but had to uninstall and reinstall every once in a while . I updated my desktop to a new unit with Windows 11 and after some wrangling got both my I phone and my I pad to work.  Then, first the iPad lost the core and then the I phone lost it.  I have read and tried everything I can find about permissions, firewalls, bridges etc.

So here are a number of questions:

Throw good money after bad and buy a NUCLEUS?   I currently am using a LUMIN D_2 which I have been happy with.   I was smart enough not to buy a lifetime membership to Roon so is there another music concierge service that links up to Apple products more reliably?  Would the nucleus fix these problems or just create more “R.R.A.”? (Roon Related Animosity!)

OR…….Should I chuck the I pad and switch to Microsoft Surface tablet?  That still wouldn’t fix my lack of connectivity to my I phone.

I have been running Tidal directly to my LUMIN which works but I really miss the concierge look and apps of Roon.  Just have had it with them technically because they are doing more to ruin my musical experience rather then enhance it.

Lastly, would love to connect with any true budding Audiophiles in S.W. Michigan!
Particularly tech savvy ones.

 

Thanks in advance for any help or guidance here.

 

 

katieb
rbstehno
1,401 posts
 

Chuck windows! I’ve had roon on Linux and osx for years and never 1 problem. I never use windows, I prefer the better operating systems. I used the lumin software to control my auralic Aries years ago with good luck. Lightning DS from auralic ended up being better than lumin and roon is better that lightning ds. The only other software that is comparable/maybe better than roon is the newer releases of audirvana. I have ran audirvana off and on for years on both osx and Linux, but now the interface has drastically improved to compete with roon. SQ wise, you can determine for yourself which 1 is better

zgas-music
78 posts
 

Roon has changed how I listen to music - in a good way. When it’s working, which is most of the time, I wouldn’t want to live without it. I’m running the core on a Windows machine, using iTunes as a local repository and Tidal for everything else. Listening over wifi using older Airplay receivers; MacBook Air, iPad Pro, iPhone clients. As minimal a rig as you can get, getting Red Book quality playback.  
 

As a former software developer and software quality guy, it’s clear they do NOT test their releases well. I used to make the mistake of blindly taking upgrades when they came out.  Wrong move. I’ve had my installation go down for up to a week with no apparent sense of urgency from them. I found their crowd sourced support unhelpful and God help you if you try to get to Roon staff for help. I’ve had to uninstall and install from scratch a couple of times. 
 

And having said all that, Roon is still great. Wouldn’t recommend it for anyone that doesn’t have some system/network administrator chops. 

blackbag20
402 posts
 

@rbstehno for sure!  Windows blows ...

flyfish77
39 posts
 

I have been running Roon Core on a Windows 10 laptop for quite a while.  The laptop is used only for the Roon Core. I had connectivity issues similar to what you have described with Roon and my iPhone and iPad until I upgraded my WIFI network. Once I upgraded my WIFI network, Roon has worked well with minimal issues

Roon depends upon a solid, stable WIFI network to work with WIFI control devices like iPhones and iPads.  If your WIFI network is not working well, Roon will give you fits.  A Nucleus server might not solve anything for you.  I would suggest getting some help in determining if you have any issues with your WiFI network before doing anything else.

 

 

erik_squires
15,663 posts
 

Good point about the wifi. There are free iPhone and Android compatible and Mac and Windows Wifi analyzers. They are very useful not just to check the strength of your signal but also whether or not your Wifi band is congested.

If you have lots of close neighbors you may all be attempting to use the same or nearby channels and simply turning off your router’s auto channel selection and picking an unused channel may be all you need.

Since 100% of all streams go through the core I prefer to leave mine wired in, to minimize the Wifi traffic taken by it, but my end-points can be either.

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