Replacing Roon - What Should I get?

More and more end users are reporting that, in terms of sound quality, QC > Native App >/» UPnP/DLNA > Roon. Volumio might be an exception so far.  So what should replace Roon - QC, or, if you are a Tidal user, TC?  Unless you have a large local library stored on an SSD/server, although native apps can handle that as well.

QC also has a pretty good search engine and autoplay feature, which has helped me discover many albums and titles worth exploring.

With all the issues highlighted above InnuOS Sense seems the only sensible (aheeem) option

@marcin_gps The difficulty I have with JPlay, and this problem has been discussed and confirmed on your JPlay Forums, is that with JPlay a stream from Tidal or Qobuz goes through your iPhone or iPad over WiFi to your local network and over the network to your streamer. This WiFi streaming causes dropouts. Local files from a NAS over hardwired Ethernet to the streamer is fine. But problems arise when streaming Tidal or Qobuz. That really sucks with JPlay!! Sorry, but that’s how it is with JPlay, and the reason I stopped using JPlay.

ROON is and always has been the worst example of customer support that exist for a product you pay for. THE WORST

Innuos Sense

@audphile1 – Thank you for the kind words about the UI and glad to hear the dropouts stopped after shutting down Roon core. That's actually a great example of why having only one control point active matters.

On your feature points:
1. Auto-play / radio-style continuation after an album ends –this is already available, but disabled by default as some users didn't like it. To enable open Now Playing screen and swipe left to the 3rd screen. The Radio option can be enabled there:
 
2. Multi-device sync – this is a UPnP limitation. There is no synchronisation between control points in UPnP, so one device cannot see what another is doing. It's by design to minimise network traffic, which directly benefits sound quality.
3. MQA – only pass-through is supported. JPLAY does not have a decoder built-in, but for DACs that have MQA decoders, it works. I'm using Esoteric K1X SE in combination with XACT S1 EVO music server and playing MQA either from local server or Tidal using JPLAY app works well in this setup. 
4. Sorting by popularity – noted as well.

You're right that there's always a balance between features and sound quality. Our priority has always been sound quality first, but we're actively developing the app and feature requests like yours help us prioritise what to work on next.

@shinemaster – Thank you for the suggestion about search placement. Noted! 

@dwmb – I need to correct a misconception here. JPLAY does NOT stream audio through your iPhone or iPad. The app acts purely as a remote control – it sends a command and the track URL to your streamer, and the streamer itself fetches the audio directly from Tidal/Qobuz servers. Your iPhone/iPad never touches the audio data. Unless Proxy feature is enabled in the app - in some setups this is required and then the app first downloads a track to iPhone/iPad and only then streams to an endpoint. But this option is disabled by default. 

If you experienced dropouts with streaming services, it was your streamer having trouble fetching content from the network – not JPLAY sending audio over Wi-Fi. The cause is typically network configuration, router settings, or the streamer's own UPnP renderer implementation. Many users stream Tidal and Qobuz flawlessly through JPLAY every day.

If you'd like to give it another try, I'm happy to help troubleshoot – feel free to reach out at [email protected]

Best regards,
Marcin