Roon Issues - Not able to play certain tracks

You know, Roon reminds me of Tesla. Over the years 2018-2022 Tesla bogged down the car with all these useless features, easter eggs, games that 80% of the owners didn’t use or care about, and all of a sudden the computer wouldn’t do the basic functions without issues. The car would crash constantly. The built in browser would not even load. And there was no choice; many wanted to go back to the basic software without any of the bells and whistles, but no go. The released patch after patch only to create 3 more issues with every supposed fix. After a while the majority would not allow the car to update because it would be more broken than before, but then the company would not take even longer to realize what the patch had broken. The audio system always seemed to take a back seat to games by the way, even basic album art doesn’t show to this day. And then the solution was a new "optional" computer upgrade, only because the threat of class action lawsuits because the "upgraded" car was becoming unusable. There was also a flash drive that was failing, that was repaired by a recall as it was a safety item. For those who didn’t want to buy a new computer the old software was re-coded by John Carmack so the car would work without crashing constantly: 

https://electrek.co/2021/08/24/older-tesla-vehicles-ui-performance-boost-famed-video-game-engineer-carmack/

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/pahc39/john_carmack_working_to_improve_older_model_s_ui/#:~:text=Yeah%2C%20after%20following%20him%20intently%20over%20his,is%20such%20a%20typical%20Carmack%20thing%20I

Roon should do what Tesla didn’t, offer a "lite" version without all the dsp, ARC, and convolution crap and focus on sound quality as the primary objective. And charge less money for it. If someone wants more features and bells and whistles, pretty graphics for their streamer screens and to be able to play it in their car they can pay more for it. 

@mclinnguy 

Speaking of JPLAY, check out the impressive list of manufacturers now JPLAY-certified, it’s honestly tempting me to pick up one of those streamers and ditch ROON altogether. What streamer are you using to stream music? 

Agree with you on lite version of ROON, Let’s see how ROON shows up on April 20th…

This thread has been helpful to me as I’ve been experiencing Qobuz issues in both of my systems and was wondering if T+A (DAC/streaming client hardware) had done a software update that didn’t go well. 

Like many of you, I can be playing an album and it will just stop - and for good measure there’s some hassle in getting it going again.

My hardware unfortunately doesn’t support JPLAY (I tried and communicated at length with Marcin at JPLAY). I’d need to send in my units to T+A for an upgrade to their G3 streaming client architecture. Sigh. For those curious, most users report that JPLAY sounds significantly better than Roon - there’s a fair amount of discussion on this at audiophilestyle. 

Regarding specific tracks being affected - it seems likely that there are a multitude of servers involved and that we’d be accessing different ones depending on our location and time. That we’d have different experiences on a specific track isn’t surprising given how much traffic they must handle globally. 

In any case - a cluster that will hopefully be resolved soon. I’m not ready to go back to Tidal for a variety of reasons.

@lalitk 

Speaking of JPLAY, check out the impressive list of manufacturers now JPLAY-certified, it’s honestly tempting me to pick up one of those streamers and ditch ROON altogether. What streamer are you using to stream music? 

My Weiss 501 is Jplay certified, and has quite a decent built-in streamer, but I have yet to try Jplay direct into it. In the main system I use my Antipodes K50 and use AES into the 501. Antipodes have set it up so all I have to do is 1 click in the dashboard to enable the host Minimserver / MPD, and download Jplay on the iphone remote, login to Tidal/Qobuz and it syncs, and in less than 60 I am streaming with great sound. It was one of those "why didn’t I do this last year?" moments. Sometimes technology is wonderful (when it works :) New DAC on the way though, not telling yet but a hint: it is grey. 

Jplay is also working wonderfully in the office setup through an Emerson Digital streamer. 

This just released, check out the new Oladra: 

https://oladra.com/presence

@mgrif104 Same positive reports from Antipodes forum, Jplay is middle ground between Roon and Squeeze; not quite the sound quality of Squeeze, but close enough, and not quite the UI of Roon, but plenty better than Squeeze. I think if many were to choose just one it would be Jplay. 

And yes I hated Tidal for a while for their rap and MQA priority. When Qobuz was finally offered in Canada I RAN to it. But I find it quite a coincidence they pushed me to sign up for a 3 year subscription to "lock in current prices" (I declined), and then 2 months later they do a big server swap without beta testing anything and 10% of the songs don’t play. The website says nothing regarding the issue, no apologies or thanking users for their patience. Frustrating. 

Of course going forward Marcin Ostapowitz cares about sound quality most of all, so Jplay will never be compromised by marketing it toward the masses. The perfect app for audiophiles? 

I still have hopes for Roon with what looks like a major overhaul scheduled to go live 4/20. If they’re unable to address performance issues and improve sound quality, I’m killing my subscription and sticking with jplay