Hello @adeep42,
Agreeing with most here that Roon is great. I too bought lifetime years ago, and through optimizing my digital front end it sounds amazing. Play your music and when it ends, Roon is very slick at playing similar music; this is how I find many new things. And it learns. Skip a track it selected and it wants to know why.
You do not need to download Roon to two places. ROON CORE needs to live and exist on one network connected SERVER. Listed in terms of sound quality, it can be a Laptop, MacMini, Roon Brand Server, or one of many audiophile Roon Servers. My Roon Core resides on my Grimm MU1, which hosts Roon Core and is an excellent streamer. Where you play music is called Roon Endpoints. These communicate with your Roon core via Ethernet. Communication can be wired or wireless depending upon equipment. Your Nodes are Roon endpoints.
The key words here, and often confused by many, are:
SERVER, STREAMER AND ENDPOINT.
Then there are Roon Remotes. Any network attached (usually wifi here iphone or ipad or computer) can function as a Roon remote, meaning it can control playback anywhere. Different Endpoints can be 'grouped' so playback is synced between endpoints.
As to some services not being on Roon, this is inevitable. My example is that I play spotify over carplay in my autos. If I hear a song that I like, I take a quick pic with my phone. Later I go through my photos and play these songs on Roon, often adding them to my playlists or library. Best of both worlds.
Finally, many say Roon is bad because their native app (on Aurender or Innuos for example) sound better. I will not dispute this. But I will say that Roon will sound great, besting Bluesound. If and when you get that critical, choose a streamer that does both Roon and its native app so you can switch if you want for very critical listening.
Hope This helps! Ken
