Let’s talk about Roon
Let’s talk about Roon starting first from the concept of digital audio. You can listen an audio file from many sources: maybe you have music stored on a NAS or USB hard drive or on one or more PCs. Maybe you use contents from streaming services.
Digital music is distributed in many formats. Some of them are compressed, others are not.
Some music streaming services compress audio files. This is something that many of us (simple music enthusiasts or specialists) do not like, as we would like to listen to music at the highest quality.
The audio files “stored” on a hard drive or those offered by services such as Tidal, Qobuz or Amazon Music, offer a high-resolution streaming system, without data loss.
Which value would we give to a musical platform that interconnects these two worlds by offering the highest quality sound?
Below we explore some of Roon’s functions from a “neutral” point of view, simply with the eyes of a user.
Roon
Imagine Roon as the brain of your music library, which tells your music what to do and where to do it.
Each Roon configuration requires a Roon Core and in most cases the simplest configuration is Roon on a computer (Mac or Windows). This is the real “brain” that allows Roon to manage your music from all digital sources. It scans all your audio streaming devices you have at home and all audio files contained in your hard disk or streaming account and makes them all play nice together…. what’s the consequence? With Roon there is almost no difference between streaming and local files. Moreover, the process is all without data loss, so the audio file is 1 to 1 (without compressions).
In any case, thanks to the Focus function, you can filter your files “by location”, disconnecting the two worlds “streaming” and “local ” when you desire it
Detecting all the devices from which you listen to your music, in addition to be a multi-device music platform, Roon also allows multi-room configuration for your whole home.
Roon Radio
This function needs to be authorized as it monitors what you are listening to … it is worth giving up a piece of your “privacy” because the result is that Roon Radio identifies your musical genres and suggests you new songs, artists or playlists that potentially match your tastes.
Extra information
Roon looks at your music and finds “extras” contents which include photos, biographies, reviews, lyrics and concert dates. Your knowledge becomes extremely larger than the one you would get in buying CDs.
Even more extra-ordinary information
If you click on “Signal path” (colored light aside the song title) Roon goes back to the path that the audio file is taking. It tells you the format, the sample rate of the file, the resolution, the decoding system, the studio quality (if present). It also tells you which is the device which is playing it.
Considerations
It is not easy to explain in a few words what Roon is and how it works. The choice must certainly be considered carefully. At Sonus faber we use Roon with satisfaction in all our audio rooms!
