Yes, export m3u from JRiver, import to Roon and save as Roon playlist. One can edit or hide tracks from playlist.
I believe Roon will allow all you asked it to do. That said, Roon playlists are still lacking compared to even iTunes smart lists.
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Can you point us (me) to where Paul compared the two?
Early on, I recall Paul singing the praises of a mac mini approach for its general functionality and overall sound quality, but I don’t remember him ever comparing the two.
FWIW, I think Roon sounds pretty darn good (I have never listened to a mac mini steaming anything) but I am among those that believe other music management programs (JRMC in my case) sound better than Roon over all.
I won’t speak for Paul, but I would hazard a guess that he has not ranked them. Rather, as is wont, he believes he/PSA can do better than Roon as far as sound quality goes and his comments about Roon are relative to his current endeavors. (Its all relative, after all. 
)
Don’t mean to come off too abrasive but your post rubbed me the wrong way, for some reason…
If I have it all wrong, I stand corrected and apologize.
PS
I hope no one nominates me for the role as the new “Apologist-In-Chief” (Shout out to @badbeef!)
I found JRiver and Audirvana a total mess to use and buggy. Over the last 10 or 11 years I’ve used Linn Kinsky (very good), Auralic Lightning (excellent), Bubble uPnP (very very good) and Roon (the dog’s b*****ks). Paid my $699, more concerned they may raise the annual subscription. I would not have paid if Roon 1.7 hadn’t fixed the classical metadata to it’s now excellent standard.
I, too, have never used a consumer computer running Windows or OSX in my audio system, only optimised servers. No problems with Roon sound quality. I don’t use any of the DSP. I can also play some of my vinyl through Roon and read the liner notes.
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Indeed. I think Bit Perfect and Audirvana (on the Mac) sound better than Roon on the same machine.
Do remember, Kyle, that Roon has to be on a computer (Mac or windows or Linux).
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Roon users will have seen and read about Valence, here:
A very silly name for a system that is proving spectacularly good already at learning from their alleged 100,000 users. It needs critical mass to learn!
For those who aren’t using Roon and want to practise their French and have a good laugh, go and see La Belle Epoque. Fabulous film. Also proof that you don’t need to get your teeth fixed and injected with stuff to look good at any age. I’m reassured that actors I’ve watched for 30 years get old at the same speed as I do.
I think we’ve been here before. Roon has developed Roon OS and Rock, which is a custom Linux OS pared down to the minimum functionality for system control and to run Roon. There is no support for any peripherals, wifi or bluetooth. The only communication is via ethernet. It can run on very low power chips, Innuos use Intel quad core N4200 and uses a small fraction of the power of a consumer computer. The software is free and they tell you how to do it because their only interest is in licensing software. They just don’t want hardware to be a cost issue for using their software platform.
https://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_Optimized_Core_Kit
I have a couple of the new 2019 Mac mini’s, they seem much more power efficient than the old ones, but nowhere close to the various bespoke units available.
I get it. I have my Roon core connected via WiFi, and stream through my Auralic Aries G2, that is also connected via WiFi. From the Aries G2 to DSD via WW platinum USB. Implementations definitely play a role in all of this. To me, Roon sounds as good as my DMP.
I switched between my Pi setup to a Chromecast Audio input, and despite the supposedly better USB input on the Bifrost, I think the Chromecast through optical sounded better.
All that overhead on the Pi USB port must be a player. I guess I need to either try a Pi 4 which is supposed to resolve some of that or get a hat if I want to use USB on the Bifrost. The dedicated audio circuitry in the Chromecast must help.
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No apology necessary. It’s easy enough to forget that all these programs have to run somewhere, and Roon’s no different. I just use the Mini as a platform. On that platform and with the cabling and setup I have into DirectStream, Audirvana easily trounces Roon in terms of sound quality.
All this to point out yet another reason why we’re so focused on going the free software paid hardware course. It’s hardware AND software that eventually have to be listened to. And, there’s no free lunch. There’s no way possible for Roon to guarantee sound quality or even control it, because they only handle half the equation. Now, that’s not entirely bad since that’s been going on for as long as computers have been around. If you put a software program on a slow computer you can’t blame the software for frustrating results.
Hardware and software are companions in the process of delivering music. No software can be written that will perform the same on all hardware. Thus, if you’re interested in audio quality, you need to be the master of both.
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Roon is only software and they focus on that. How you optimise its performance in terms of hardware is a matter of choice.
- My first implementation was to put it on my business QNAP and host the Core on a spare usb drive. So the hardware cost was $0.
- Roon provide links to NUC solutions so you can get up and running with hardware for $300. Their OS is provided for free, you get a trial and then pay a software license fee.
- How far you go to optimise hardware performance is a matter of choice thereafter. I went for a Roon server/Core that cost £1,900 including 4tb storage, but the next one up in the range is £4,000 and there is one for £10,000 that seems to have become a reference product in many show systems.
So I agree 100% there is no free lunch, but there is almost unlimited hardware choice, hence the apparent large number of users, resulting is a successful and viable product.
Processor speed is not the issue. Even the £10,000 Innuos Statement uses the Intel N4200 chip, which is slower than an i3 chip, but better in other ways. Roon can run 8 systems at once with DSP, but you will need an i7 chip to do that. Innuos told me directly that if I planned on running 3 or 4 systems at once, not to buy their machine. As the vast majority of people run only 1 or 2 systems at once, very few people need more than an N4200 or i3 processor.
“Hardware and software are companions in the process of delivering music. No software can be written that will perform the same on all hardware. Thus, if you’re interested in audio quality, you need to be the master of both.”
Paul, with respect, we use processors and software from all sorts of suppliers in thousands of applications and most software has not been hardware dependent for decades. Roon did not work properly (streaming 24/192) on my very old Celeron/SATA QNAP, but it will work exactly the same on anything from a $300 NUC to a $10,000 Innuos or Aurender server. The sound may be better from a server with better electrical and mechanical design, but that is down to the hardware, not the software.
The same applies to any third party software, such as uPnP apps like Bubble.
There is nothing wrong with closed systems, I used Linn’s closed system for several years, and they have done things their own way for 12 years quite happily, for example never implementing usb in their high-end products.
There is no right or wrong, there are just different solutions, but there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Roon because it is just a software solution without a hardware platform, and there is no need to use it. I’ve been streaming mostly for 10+ years and only first used Roon in February this year.
p.s. Roon 1.7 had a track skipping issue. It’s been fixed in a few days. Auto-updated without me noticing.
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Your points are spot on. Saying one has to be a master of SW and HW for great sound isn’t true IMO. I have heard incredible music on an Aurender (Closed System) and MSB, dCS, T+A, PSA (all with Roon). I understand PSA desire to sell an all in one unit and that is OK.
Based on what I have heard to date, if I was buying a new setup today it would not be a closed system. But everyone is different.
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@kylemillsap - My N+ w/ Roon (ROCK) streaming Qobuz sounds better than my DMP for sure. Just restarted 1.7 w/ build 505 (track skipping fix) updated.
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I just first time really compared Roon (gave 1.7 another try) to Jriver sound quality, both running in the same PC separated from the audio power circuit and galvanically isolated into Bridge II.
OMG, I didn’t expect that. Roon has clearly less ambiance, less air between instruments, it even seems there’s less reverb in the room. Bass also doesn’t go as deep as with Jriver. I can imagine this is possibly not so obvious for some depending on the revealingness of the setup and positioning of speakers in the room.
But for me the grade is not that much less than the difference between Snowmass and Windom in this regard in my setup.
So many influences in a digital setup…not really as easy as it seems.
No way I’d pass on that SQ difference!
But my main problem with Roon is that for me it’s not efficient and flexible, neither in function nor in GUI. I could live with it with 100 albums when I remember each album anyway, but not with many thousands.
Get rid of the crap Bridge II card and try it again. I have tried Roon, JRiver, and Audirvana through an ultraRendu and hear virtually no difference between them assuming I am not using filters (sending bit perfect to the DirectStream). I suspect the differences I do hear are expectation bias. Roon and HQPlayer with no filters or noise shapers sound the same as well.
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I second that emotion
There’s a slight doubt that I should hear less SW difference when using a HW component that’s supposed to sound better than the one I heard the differences with, but I will definitely try to hear one of the good streaming devices in comparison. My guess is, Bridge II on the other hand also doesn’t sound as bad in every configuration compared to the alternatives, as it does in some…but I will see.
The trial with the G2 didn’t work with my DS with Bridge card built in…however the same unit played with a DS without Bridge card, so there’s maybe an incompatibility.
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Roon 1.7, running on an out of the room Sonictransport i7 with HQPlayer embedded, to opticalmodule and opticalrendu, is the best digital sound I have found (So far). Either straight USB to DSD or into a modded SU-1 DDC and then i2s into DSD.
I have tried Jriver, Audirvana, Amarra, etc. I also have an Aurender N-100h which gives similar sound quality. I think I may be selling the Aurender soon. Never felt this way before, but Roon is the better UI, and now has the SQ to match. YMMV
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My Euphony server can be reconfigured in seconds so I created a playlist of three songs. I listened via JRiver, via the “Stylus” interface which is about as pure as pure gets, and then with Roon. I can’t hear a difference from one to the other. In each case the source changes, and the output is to a Matrix then I2S to DSD. No bridge involved but the bridge sounds swell too,
Makes sense to me. Can you give us a little glimpse into the future as to how this may be implemented? I’ve heard mention of a Bridge III, an Octave server and also a rumored successor to the DMP that may have Octave capability. I’d love to hear what PSA has been working on if you are at liberty to give us a little peek.