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Streamer apps critical

I don't understand why high end manufacturers release streamers with terrible apps. One of the strongest advantages of the Nodes is the BluOS app. It's simple and effective,  though not full-featured. I understand the Innuos app is great. Not all of us like much less want to pay the cost of ROON and the online apps, like USB audio Player are clunky. I would love to see a paid-for version of BluOS or other manufacturers license a common but customized app, much as early versions of Windows were available from Dell, Gateway, Compaq and so many others. 

pprocter
mahler123
3,369 posts
 

Absolutely.  The app frequently defines the experience.  I used to have a Bryston BDP-3 but ditched it due to the terrible software web based program it relied upon

oddiofyl's avatar
oddiofyl
3,915 posts
 

You're right , Bluesound is a great platform .  Cyrus is using it in their XR and 40 series streamers.    

carlsbad2's avatar
carlsbad2
1,654 posts
 

Roon

ghdprentice
7,093 posts
 

It's true. I own Aurender, and they have a great app. But a number of my friends have bought other streamers, some over $10K and they have very poor apps. 

 

Having been in software development for much of my life I can attest to the fact that programmers do not naturally gravitate towards user friendly applications and interface software development is not usually a core strength of a company that produces hardware. 

So, all in all, not surprising. 

Even Aurender, who I really like and are very customer friendly struggled for many months during the most recent upgrade. Fortunately the end product is good now and getting better. 

v-fi
103 posts
 

For me, Roon was an easy choice to bring my current streamer and all future streamers into the same excellent user interface. I know the price seems high at first, but if you think about it, a lot of people spend the amount of the lifetime Roon license cost on stuff like cables or tweaks. This is what you actually interface with while browsing your music, that's a critical thing to get right!

Prior to Roon I owned multiple streaming players or music servers with what I'd call half-baked UI designs. I don't care how great the sound is, if interacting with it feels like a chore, that's a no from me. Might as well go back to vinyl at that point.

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