Coming from the iTunes world, I became accustomed to using playlists to organize my albums. In Roon, I have many tags, DSD Jazz, Miles Davis DSD, Miles Davis PCM, etc etc etc across many artists and genres. Many Grateful Dead tags regarding certain groups of shows. On and on.
In iTunes playlists, with one click, you can switch between “Artist”, “Album” and “Song” views. Roon doesn’t allow for that. A playlist is for songs only, not albums. I had never used tags before, thus didn’t explore the Roon tagging system for at least a year. Their Focus system doesn’t speak to me, seems like a fancy mess. I like to pick a particular folder for the mood I’m in, and scroll through until something leaps out at me.
With Roon tags, I’m able to essentially create folders for albums. Put a bunch of albums in a particular tag/folder, and then peruse that tag/folder. Roon doesn’t call them folders, but that’s how I utilize tags. Once an album becomes chosen, I then listen to the “favorite” tracks only. I rarely listen to complete albums unless I specifically like all the songs. “Favorites” is curation in my book, and those self created picks represent lots of time listening and evaluating. It’s my favorite Roon feature.
And it’s that combination of being able to organize albums into folders via tags, being able to play only the favorites on a particular album, having a rock solid application/ iOS remote that also puts a pretty face on HQPlayer - all of that is why I bought a lifetime license to Roon. The meta data is not that important to me as I don’t like to read while listening to music. I only need simple things from Roon, and it does those simple things extremely well. Far far better than any other Mac based music player/ library software.
I honestly wish Roon would just relax about making new versions. Just give us a few skin theme choices, and focus on small tweaks and continued reliability. No need to reinvent the wheel!
I lamented Roon for the first year. Complained far and wide that it was too expensive. That it had mediocre sound quality, etc etc. Then one day a lightbulb went off and I figured out the tagging system. And suddenly we were in love, the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and all was right. Bought the lifetime license, as lovers do.
