Improving Artist Images in Roon with Art Director

The latest Roon 1.8 release talks about Art Director as a way of fixing up artist photos in Roon, and now that we have over 500,000 images already adjusted by our community, I’d like to expand on that.

Getting high-quality (and highly accurate) photographs of artists has been a challenge for every service that displays them. Even the major music services (with considerably more resources than Roon) struggle with this problem.

Over the years, we’ve continually improved the artist photos in Roon, both by licensing new data sources and by implementing image analysis. Facial recognition in particular made a major improvement in the way artists are presented, but it hasn’t been a comprehensive solution and in fact, we’ve found that it doesn’t help at all on a certain class of photos. For example, facial recognition algorithms are notoriously biased when it comes to skin color and gender, and are rarely effective when dealing with group photos.

As part of our Valence development, we’ve built a tool called Art Director that lets our team manually adjust photos, but we just can’t produce enough data fast enough. We’re a small team and there are many artists.

Rather than attempt the impossible, we settled on a different approach: we improved Art Director and made it suitable for use by a wider audience. Now, we’ve released it to the Roon community, so everyone can help make perfect artist images a reality. Not only will this effort improve artist images in Roon, but it will provide our machine learning algorithms with valuable training data for improving images automatically in the future.

Some Roon users have complained that circular photos are the problem, but that’s not quite right. It’s true that they’re not great when you have a row of performers lined up for a band photo, but square is equally bad in those cases. Going “square” creates additional problems in UI design, where artists and albums look too similar when presented together.

To solve the difficult circular cases, we’ve gone back to a concept that we’ve always wanted: the logo. Artist logos can be used as the “avatar” of the artist – the circular image. Circular avatars are now distinct from the large rectangular “banner” images shown at the top of artist pages. For example, the London Symphony Orchestra has a beautiful and unique logo; a wide-angle photo of the LSO on stage just looks like any other orchestra. The same goes for many bands; would you rather see the 4 to 6 members of The Rolling Stones in a small circle or their “Hot Lips” logo?

Now that we have started to get contributions at scale, another positive side effect of this project is that we will be able to show multiple great images of each artist in Roon in an future release of Roon.

You can find Art Director at https://valence.roonlabs.com, where we’ll introduce more of these types of tools in the future. You will need to log in with your licensed Roon account (not a trial) to contribute.


Roon Partner Update: January 2022

We kicked off the year in style with an impressive array of 15 new Roon Ready and Roon Tested devices from Cary Audio, Integra, Onkyo, Pioneer, Rotel, and Zidoo.

For a full list of our partner brands and every Roon Ready and Roon Tested device, visit our Partners page on the Roon website.

Cary Audio DMS-650 and DMS-800
Roon Ready

The Cary Audio DMS-650 and DMS-800 network audio players are both now Roon Ready. 

The redesigned DMS-650 is the entry-point into the DMS platform, and features the AK4497EQ VERITA DAC at its heart. This is Cary’s no compromise, introductory centerpiece full of rich streaming capabilities, and strong digital and analog output compatibility. 

The DMS-800 features a complete dual mono design, with two AK4499EQ current output switched resistor DACs, each paired to separate left and right channel digital and analog boards. Every aspect of the signal path of the DMS-800 is witness to its status as their flagship network audio player.  

Integra DRX 2.4, DRX 3.4 and DRX 5.4
Roon Tested

The Integra DRX 2.4, DRX 3.4 and DRX 5.4 channel network AV receivers are all now Roon Tested, taking Integra’s total number of Roon compatible devices to eight. All three devices feature Dolby Atmos and HDMI 2.1.

The DRX 3.4 and DRX 5.4 models implement Dirac Live room correction allowing for perfect sound regardless of your listening space. 

These AVRs are AV swiss army knives that can satisfy any household’s need for movies and music. 

Onkyo TX-NR6050, TX-NR6100, TX-NR7100 and TX-RZ50
Roon Tested

We welcomed four new Onkyo devices to the Roon partner family last month. The TX-NR6050, TX-NR6100, TX-NR7100 and TX-RZ50 AV receivers are now Roon Tested and deliver robust, high-current power for your home-theater systems. 

The full model line-up features a plethora of audio and video chops, HDMI 2.1, Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos just to name a few. The TX-NR7100 and the TX-RZ50 can bring even more audio heavy lifting to your system with Dirac Live or AccuEQ room correction.

Pioneer VSX-LX105, VSX-935, VSX-LX305 Elite, VSX-LX505 Elite
Roon Tested

The Pioneer VSX-LX105, VSX-935, VSX-LX305, VSX-LX505 are the latest AV receivers from Pioneer’s strong line-up of AVRs to become Roon Tested.

The VSX-LX305 Elite and VSX-LX505 Elite each feature DIRAC Live® Room Correction sent out to 9.2 or 11.2 channels respectively. The VSX-LX105 and VSX-935 are designed to make music streaming simple, and inherit many of the cutting edge connectivity of their bigger siblings, such as HDMI 2.1 and Dolby Atmos capability.  

Rotel A12MKII
Roon Tested

The A12MKII integrated amplifier is Rotel’s ninth Roon Tested device. Its sleek design features 60 watts of dynamic class AB amplification output into 8 ohms and a host of digital and analog (including phono) inputs.  

This amp routes digital audio through an audiophile grade, 32-bit, Texas Instruments DAC, and even features a Rotel designed toroidal power transformer inside of its thin and sleek packaging.

Zidoo UHD3000
Roon Ready

The Zidoo UHD3000 is the latest device join our Roon Ready family. The UHD3000 is a 4K Blu-Ray, music and video streaming media player that supports Dolby Vision and advanced 4K 12Bit HDR10+ playback.

When it comes to audio, the UHD is designed to impress with the latest ESS9068 Sabre DAC built-in and MQA + DSD playback. 

Get Back to The Beatles with Roon

The last few months have been an interesting time for 60s music fans. After all, how often do we see a decades-old sour story about a band or album evolve in such a way that history, and our beliefs, are permanently reconstructed? Rarely. All the more so when it involves a band like The Beatles and their final (released) studio album Let it Be. When it comes to Beatle lore, the icey saga of Let it Be was chiseled into stone as cold as the West London film studio where the band that created The 60s had allegedly unraveled. Those of us who saw the original film remember what it was like all too well. Dreadful stuff: frustrated and agitated Beatles bickering with each other. It was memorable for all the wrong reasons. I, like many Beatles fans, was certain that it would never see an expanded reissue, let alone a deluxe treatment. The album title itself seemed to confirm it! 

And yet, the word got out that they were doing just that. A multi-disc box set was released last October, and about a month later there they were, in restored color, for Get Back – a three-part documentary series. It’s been absolutely dizzying, mesmerizing, and revelatory to witness. Still a bit uncomfortable to watch, in places, but, on the whole, a complete regenesis with plenty of musical and brotherly love. It’s certainly the most revealing and most human vista we’ve ever gotten of them. Seeing the Rooftop Concert in its triumphant entirety had me immediately Focusing on the Fab corner of my Roon Library, and I wasn’t the only one.

TIDAL: Get Back (Rooftop Performance) https://tidal.com/browse/album/213891547

Qobuz: Get Back (Rooftop Performance) https://open.qobuz.com/album/x9pgg6gsai8vc

Roon, as a microcosm, reflected the impact those releases had on dedicated fans and curious onlookers alike. Within days, The Beatles were the most listened-to band in Roon. Admittedly, they’re never too far outside the top ten anyhow; but, as John Lennon once said, they were toppermost of the poppermost again. It was easy to understand why, the Let it Be Super Deluxe Set remastering is very tastefully done, and sonically rewarding – as expected. But it’s the twenty-seven previously unreleased studio jams, outtakes, and rehearsals that provide a fascinating wellspring of ‘what-ifs’. What if All Things Must Pass had been born with three Beatle voices instead of just George’s alone? What if John Lennon’s brooding broadside Gimme Some Truth had landed on Let it Be instead of kicking off side two of Imagine?! What if Glyn Johns’ raw mixes had emerged as the finished product instead of Phil Spector’s strings and high sheen approach? The head swims, and those are just a few of many questions the set spawns! And it would be rude not to take a moment to just say the words, “thank you Billy Preston”, and smile. His contribution was such a transformational force in the entire proceedings.

The Roon ripples reverberated from Let it Be into the other Super Deluxe sets in the band’s reissue roster. Abbey Road, The Beatles (aka The White Album), and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band were getting a lot of residual play time on customer systems. But, in true Roon fashion, it was the stuff that was percolating under those sets that was most fascinating. 

The Beatles were/are masters of marketing and product. Over the years there’s been a staggering parade of Beatles releases, some official, some not – all of it well documented, meticulously indexed, and obsessively collected. Those factors make for a catalog that is perfectly irresistible to Roon customers and naturally suited for Roon’s music library superpowers. Much of The Beatles’ massive discography isn’t available on streaming sites. But because of how easy it is to import a personal music library, it was on full display in Roon and getting loads of play time: The Beatles in Mono, The E.P. Collection, The US Albums Box Set, Beatles Ballads, Love Songs, Anthology 2, Twist and Shout, The Lost Album, Reel Music, Hey Jude, Beatles Bop – Hamburg Days, Introducing… The Beatles – just to name a crate full.

Most people with digital music files will tell you that the bugbear of owning large collections has always been figuring out how to organize and use them in an intuitive and enjoyable way. Our customers have discovered that Roon solves the problem. Let me explain, for the non-Rooner, how this is done with just a few mouse clicks.

Scene opens: you’ve launched your Roon trial, installed the Roon software, synced your streaming services, detected and enabled all the audio devices that are connected to your local internet network, you’ve queued up some music to play and everything sounds great! But there’s your external hard drive with several terabytes of music on it. ‘Ugh’, you think, ‘I’ll mess with that later’. But, with Roon, there’s no need for dread. Especially not in your scenario, you’re importing an extensive collection of Beatles files and albums. This is heavily documented and easily recognized music. Roon utilizes data from several metadata providers and adds some secret magic that makes this process painless. When you link your collection in Roon, the metadata engine goes into high gear comparing your files against our data and in less time than you can imagine your music is in Roon, identified and ready to enjoy. And none of that processing alters a single bit or byte on your hard drive; Roon metadata is simply a nice set of clothes for your music files.

Roon does the same thing with all the other music on your drive. If an obscure vinyl rip or import compilation isn’t recognized, simply tell Roon to use your embedded artwork and file tags instead. It’s that easy. Your streaming favorites, digital music library, and live radio station presets are all integrated and ready to explore & enjoy in bit-perfect, high-resolution, lossless audio. That’s Roon through the fish-eye lens of a Beatle collection, but it functions the same way no matter what you listen to. If this sounds like something that would help you bring order to your digital collection and facilitate filling your listening space with your favorite music then we invite you to take a look at Roon. If you’d like to know more, simply get in touch with us. We’d love to help you get set up.

Alternatively, you can try the free 14 day trial here.

Playlists in Roon

At Roon our team of self-proclaimed music fanatics have a broad range of musical interests and a shared goal of creating the best experiences for our community of music lovers. 

We started sharing playlists of our favorite music with our community in partnership with our streaming partners TIDAL and Qobuz. We collaborated with artists and our own music team to bring you editorial content and playlists over the past year. 

We’ve worked with artists including Patricia Barber, Daymé Arocena, AHI, and Stephen Moccio to bring you exclusive interviews and editorial, as well as producing weekly playlists with a particular genre or theme.

Up until now, our playlists have only been available on TIDAL and Qobuz, and haven’t been accessible in Roon. In our latest 1.8 Fall 2021 release, you can now access everything our music team has curated, directly from your Home Screen on both streaming platforms. 

This year our music team started curating more playlists available only in Roon, along with our playlists made in collaboration with Qobuz and TIDAL. We will also feature guest playlists, such as our recent playlists Jazz Waltz Decades by one of our founders Brian Luczkiewicz and Maestros of the Screen by composer Matt Wang.

Here are some of our recent playlists which you can find in the home screen of Roon.

Simphiwe Dana

Welcome to Joburg explores the sounds coming from Johannesburg’s progressive music scene. Enjoy the unique South African blend of electronic house, traditional African percussion, multilingual vocals, jazz, soul, reggae, R&B and rap.

HiFi JoyRide explores old and new music with a significant sound that shows how your hifi responds to different types of music. Some obvious, some out there. Take your system for a joyride and discover new favorites.

Phoebe Pearls explores Phoebe Bridgers steady climb from indie artist to icon. This playlist includes some of the pearls in the collection of well crafted songs that makes Phoebe Bridgers the tour guide of her generation.

Last Train to Lagos takes you on a musical journey to Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, for an introduction to Afropop, a style of music that is dominating in global influence.

Future Icons highlights new music from new artists poised to reach iconic status.

Jazz Waltz Decades ​​focuses on the art of the jazz waltz, with a playlist of recordings spanning the 1950s to the 2010s.

Jonas Nordberg

Melancholic Lute explores music for the lute family, from the Renaissance lute to the theorbo. We highlight works by Hurel, Dowland, Josquin Des Prez, Kapsberger, Piccinini and J.S. Bach.

Maestros of the Screen is a collection of brilliant film and tv scores from composers Hildur Guðnadóttir, Shirley Walker, Mandy Hoffman, Thomas Newman, and more.

Eclectic Spirit is a mix of spiritual and electronic tunes for chilling, relaxation, or reading. Overall an electronic chill mood with a few pop pick me ups!

Mountain Jazz highlights a selection of the finest tracks from the jazz traditions of the Nordics. Transparent, floating, dreamy and with a constant undercurrent of folk music and dramatic scenery. 

Lieder A selection of songs from the Romantic era. We highlight German composers Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Wagner, Schubert, Mahler, Swedish composers Peterson-Berger, Rangström and Alfvén, and Czech composer Korngold.

All of our playlists can be found in the Home Screen in Roon.

Roon Music Editorial

We had the pleasure of speaking with some fantastic artists and recording teams last year about their creative process. We spoke to cuban jazz artist Daymé Arocena, jazz pianist and singer Patricia Barber, the engineering team behind Patricia Barber’s grammy nominated album Clique, songwriter and pianist Stephan Moccio, and singer-songwriter AHI.

Daymé Arocena: Cuban Music Breakout. Part 1.

In celebration of International Jazz Day, we spoke to the Havana born and raised 28-year-old singer, choir conductor, and composer Daymé Arocena about her music journey and Cuba’s rich music history.

Daymé Arocena: Music Roots & Creative Process. Part 2.

We continued our conversation with Daymé, discussing her musical upbringing, creative process, and her song Homenaje from our Cuban Jazz playlist.

Recording Patricia Barber’s Clique

Husband-and-wife engineering team Jim Anderson and Ulrike Schwarz discussed the making of Patricia Barber’s latest album Clique which has since been nominated for a 2022 Grammy for Best Immersive Album. Between them, Jim and Ulrike enjoy decades of combined recording and technical experience, awards and Grammys. 

The Patricia Barber Interview

We then spoke to jazz pianist and singer Patricia Barber about her album Clique, her creative process, and her inspiration.

A Conversation with Stephan Moccio

Canadian Oscar-nominated and Grammy-nominated pianist, songwriter and producer Stephan Moccio spoke to us about his new album Lionheart. Stephan discussed the relationship between his pop songwriting and his solo classical piano work, the inspiration behind Lionheart, and his career highlight of composing the 2010 Vancouver Olympics theme.

A Conversation with AHI

Canadian songwriter AHI talked to us about his new album Prospect. We covered the influences behind the album and certain tracks, AHI’s songwriting process, and the ways in which AHI’s extensive travel have influenced his music.

We look forward to speaking with more artists and recording engineers this year. Keep an eye out on our blog and socials for more editorial content.

For each interview we created an accompanying playlist, these can all be found in the Roon Playlists section of the Home Screen in Roon.

Roon Partner Update: December 2021

We had a busy December with an impressive array of seven new Roon Ready and Roon Tested devices from audio heavyweights Astell&Kern, Cocktail Audio, Dutch & Dutch, Lumin, Mcintosh and MiniDSP. For a full list of our partner brands and every Roon Ready and Roon Tested device, visit our Partners page on the Roon website.

Astell&Kern SP2000T
Roon Ready

Astell&Kern released their eighth Roon Ready device with the SP2000T.  The SP2000T combines the OP AMP configuration of the SP2000 with a nostalgic vacuum tube amplifier adding a vintage feel to the portable player.

Cocktail Audio N25AMP
Roon Ready

Cocktail Audio added the N25AMP to the Roon partner family.

The N25AMP is an all-in-one network audio player featuring a built-in 125W amp, a Sabre32 Reference DAC chip and a high-performance Dual Core ARM Cortex A9 processor and is certified as Roon Ready.

Dutch & Dutch 8c
Roon Ready

We are delighted to announce that the Dutch & Dutch 8c is now Roon Ready.

With its origins in mixing and mastering studios around the world, the Dutch & Dutch 8c are taking the audiophile world by storm. They deliver the kind of sonic experience one would expect from a system of separates and matched speakers four times the price. With built-in boundary matching, listening position optimization, and room equalization, the 8c adapts itself to your listening environment in order to deliver the performance as the artist intended.

Lumin P1
Roon Ready

Lumin added their 11th device to the Roon partner family with the P1.

The Lumin P1 has an array of features, including analogue and digital inputs, and Roon Ready functionality. Designed to be the heart of your system, you can use the P1 as a streamer, DAC and preamplifier or all three.

McIntosh RS150 and RS250
Roon Ready

The RS150 and RS250 wireless speakers are the latest additions from McIntosh to join the Roon family and are McIntosh’s first to offer networked Roon Ready playback.

The RS150 and RS250 combine wireless music streaming with legendary McIntosh sound quality for easy modern listening. The RS150 delivers big sound in a small package while the RS250 is McIntosh’s most powerful and advanced home audio wireless speaker system.

MiniDSP
Roon Ready

We welcomed MiniDSP into the Roon Partner family this month with their first Roon Ready devices, the SHD, SHD Power and SHD Studio.

The SHD has extensive connectivity options with three digital inputs, two analog inputs and USB audio enables the SHD to fit right into any modern audio system.

The SHD Power includes a 120W per channel low-distortion power amplifier for powering your main speakers, and two additional analog outputs for connecting a subwoofer or subwoofers.

The SHD Studio includes a variety of our powerful but user-friendly DSP audio tuning software – ten-band parametric EQ per channel, crossovers up to 48 dB/octave, compressor/limiter, and a flexible 2×4 matrix mixer.

Holiday Playlists

We created a set of playlists for the winter holidays, covering a range of genres. We start with Fireside Jazz on TIDAL, a playlist of festive and winter-themed jazz, with a significant proportion from Norwegian artists. Acoustic jazz highlights include winter-themed tracks from Hoff Ensemble, Rob Luft, Stan Getz, Esbjörn Svensson Trio, Pat Metheny and Stephan Moccio.

For those who enjoy a more festive feel, we feature acoustic arrangements of Christmas carols from Bugge Wesseltoft, Vince Guaraldi, Jan Gunnar Hoff, Ola Gjeilo, Charles Lloyd & The Marvels and Cyrus Chestnut. Vocal highlights include Norah Jones, Katie Melua, Dianne Reeves, and Norwegian singers Ellen Andrea Wang, Helene Bøksle, and Solveig Slettahjell.

Solveig Slettahjell. Photo: Andreas Frøland

Our playlist Christmas Carols, for TIDAL, is a celebration of traditional choral Christmas music. This playlist contains carols ranging from Renaissance composers William Byrd and Tomás Luis de Victoria to contemporary composers such as John Rutter and Philip Stopford. The playlist begins with Voces8’s Praetorius: Est Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen, a composition dating back to 1609, and Cornelius: The Three Kings. English composer Benjamin Britten’s choral works have become a staple of many Christmas concerts. A Ceremony of Carols: Balulalow and A Hymn To The Virgin are performed here by The Sixteen.

Highlights from award-winning choir Tenebrae are Tchaikovsky: Legend (The Crown of Roses), Tavener: The Lamb and Rathbone: The Oxen. Siglo de Oro takes us to Renaissance Mexico with composer Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla’s Joseph Fili David from Christmas in Puebla. Other highlights include carols from Rodolfus Choir, Stile Antico, Oxford Camerata, Cambridge Singers and Trinity College Choir, Cambridge.

We end with carols from The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge and The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge with german composer Otto Goldschmidt’s A Tender Shoot and the traditional carol The Linden Tree arranged by Reginald Jacques.

Stile Antico. Photo: Marco Borggreve

Our playlist Winter Warmers for Qobuz is full of festive favorites, both old and new. Many of us tire of hearing the same Christmas pop classics played on repeat during the winter months. Here we highlight some less well known festive music along with classic Christmas crooners such as Nat King-Cole and Ella Fitzgerald.

We begin with new releases from Norwegian rising star Sigrid’s Home to You (This Christmas), Norah Jones’ Christmas Glow, and ABBA’s Little Things. We then feature the iconic Joni Mitchell’s River, followed by Brit-award Rising Star Celeste’s soulful A Little Love. The silky vocals of jazz-band Pink Martini’s A Snowglobe Christmas brings a peaceful cheer, along with female crooners Stacey Kent, Carole King, Holly Cole, Natalie Cole, Emmylou Harris, Aretha Franklin, Jane Monheit and Doris Day.

Kandace Springs brings a jazz-inspired rendition of (Everybody’s Waitin For) The Man With The Bag, followed by Amy Winehouse’ I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus from new release The Singles Collection.

We then turn to a blues and country Christmas with The Teskey Brothers’ Dreaming of a Christmas With You and Brandy Clark’s Merry Christmas Darling. We end with the festive nostalgia of Leonard Cohen, Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Simon & Garfunkel, Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Otis Redding.

Norah Jones: I Dream of Christmas

Our playlist Soulful Season is full of old-school Soul, R&B, Jazz, and Blues holiday classics and originals. Motown and Stax Records heavies Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, The Temptations, and The Staple Singers stir up sounds that warm the spirit. We include soul giants James Brown, William Bell, Solomon Burke, and Donny Hathaway.

Early R&B, Doo-Wop, and New Orleans sounds come courtesy of The Drifters, The Penguins, The Harmony Grits, The Moonglows, and Huey ‘Piano’ Smith, adding fun and rhythm to your holiday party. Kenny Burrell contributes jazz guitar groove that’s matched in kind by two kings of the blues, B.B. and Freddie King.

Chuck Berry brings his rocking homage to the most famous reindeer to lead Santa’s Sleigh. Perennial favorites from the classic 1963 Phil Spector LP A Christmas Gift for You From Philles Records are sprinkled in liberally, and plenty of other surprises await.

Donny Hathaway. Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Enjoy these and all of our playlists directly from your Home screen in Roon. Happy holidays from all at Roon, we hope you enjoy this music.

Roon 1.8 Fall 2021 release

With our Fall 2021 release, you’ll see some great improvements to Roon, but the big news is that we’re rolling out the first of a series of fun web-based tools to our community of music fanatics. The goal of these tools is to let you contribute your expertise to Valence, our cloud-based data system, making the Roon experience richer for the whole community!

Art Director

Everyone benefits from better-looking artist photos and band logos, so we’ve created Art Director, the first in a series of fun web-based tools that puts Roon users in control of how artist images are shown in Roon. Using Art Director, you can adjust the positioning of artist photos, upload your own band logos and images, and vote for your favorites. By doing so, you’ll be helping the whole Roon community and making perfect artist images a reality.

How does Art Director work?

When you visit our new Valence page and select “Contribute”, you sign in with your Roon account and select Art Director. You’ll be presented with images from the Valence database that need your artistic eye. If you want to adjust images for a specific artist, just type their name into the search box. From there, you’ll see all of the adjustments contributed by other users, as well as any images that still need your direction.

Art Director allows us to be far more dynamic with the images used in Roon, giving us the ability to adjust photos to fit into specific shapes. For example, you can adjust the main image that is displayed at the top of an artist page, as well as their circular ‘avatar’ that is shown on the Artists page and within search lists. This means no matter where an artist image is displayed in Roon, it will always look fantastic. If you have a band logo or a photo of an artist that you love, you can also upload it to Art Director to be featured in Roon. 

You and the rest of the Roon community can also vote for your favorite image on an artist’s page. Just click on the heart next to any adjusted image; this is how Valence decides which images are shown in Roon. As the Roon community begins to vote and adjust artist photos, you’ll always see the best possible images in Roon, and they’ll constantly improve based on the efforts of our community.

Local image edits are still possible, but if you have previously spent time improving artist images in your own library, you can now make these changes in Art Director to update your library while improving the Roon experience for everyone.

To start contributing, just sign into Valence using your Roon account details at valence.roonlabs.com

Playlists by Roon

Our team lives for music, and it’s our goal to create the best experiences for other music lovers. In addition to Roon itself, we do this by collaborating with artists, our community, and with our own music team to bring you editorial content and playlists that we think you’ll enjoy. Over the past year we’ve worked with artists including Patricia Barber, Daymé Arocena, AHI, and Stephen Moccio to bring you exclusive interviews and editorial, as well as producing weekly playlists with a particular genre or theme. 

Up until now, the playlists we have created have only been available on TIDAL and Qobuz, and haven’t been accessible in Roon. In our latest release, you can now access everything our music team has curated, directly from your Home screen on both streaming platforms.

Smarter search

Back in the summer, we released the first of many updates to improve how you search for music in Roon. In this update we’ve taken the next step and completely overhauled the search function to make it easier than ever to find the music you’re looking for.

Now, when you search for music in Roon you’ll see more accurate and concise results (with fewer inaccuracies!), especially when it comes to your library content. Roon will be able to detect when you’re searching for classical music, presenting composers and compositions first. We’ve also overhauled text filtering across the app, for more consistent handling of special characters and punctuation.

The updates we’ve made to search this year are just the beginning. Search has been a top priority for us this year, and led by our data team, it will continue to be a focus into 2022 and beyond.

Rock-solid streaming

We’ve completely overhauled Roon’s buffering and caching infrastructure for playing streaming content. The new implementation is designed to be less demanding when interacting with your network and internet connection, making streaming music both more stable and less intensive on your Roon Core. This should minimize playback interruptions from TIDAL and Qobuz, as well as making it possible for people with slower internet connections and networks to have a better and more reliable experience while using Roon. It will also ensure your Roon Core is more resilient to latency issues caused by Content Delivery Networks (CDN) and the geographic distance from your source.

Easier volume limits

We’ve redesigned the Zone Settings screen so it’s even easier to set volume limits that prevent your music from getting too loud. The new design also makes it easier to configure auto-sleep functionality and other settings for your audio devices.

Other new improvements in this release include: improved iOS lockscreen control implementation, new cover art on playlist screens on mobile devices and added the album type to artist’s “Recommended albums” for easier browsing of main albums, singles, and EPs. You can see a complete list of improvements over on our Community post.

We want to thank our subscribers for everything you have done to help us improve Roon and grow our amazing community this year – we couldn’t have done it without you!

We hope you enjoy the new update and if you have any questions or need some support , you can reach out to our dedicated Customer Success & Support team via our Help Center or head over to our Community and join in the discussions with thousands of other Roon subscribers.

Introducing the Roon store

The gear that music fans use when they listen is – as the number of posts on our community site suggests – one of the things they’re most passionate and opinionated about. For six years, we’ve been working with nearly every audio manufacturer to make sure their products work like magic with Roon. In that time, we’ve tested, certified, and (maybe most importantly) lived with hundreds and hundreds of audio devices. From inexpensive USB DACs to the most exotic audiophile equipment on the market, we’ve literally seen it all. No person or company has had the privilege of laying hands on as much gear as we have (you have to see our test lab to believe it).

Our whole team uses Roon Ready and Roon Tested gear in real life, and we constantly switch, compare, and contrast them. Along the way, we’ve learned a huge amount about how audio products are designed. We’ve become attuned to subtle details… the things that can make one piece of gear a joy to use every day while another one collects dust on the shelf.

Over time, we’ve received more and more questions from users about which products have this or that feature, which would be better for a bedroom vs a patio, or which offers the best value at a particular price point. All that interest has inspired us to think about how to provide a new service for Roon users. Shopping for audio gear online isn’t especially easy or fun, so we decided to do for the audio shopping experience what Roon itself did for music browsing and discovery.

We’re very excited to introduce the Roon store – the only e-commerce site designed with the music lover (and Roon user) in mind.

What’s different about the Roon store? Simple: it’s focused entirely on audio equipment that works incredibly well with Roon. Every product is hand-picked for qualities that make it stand out, so you won’t be faced with a hodgepodge of all the gear on the market. If you see something in the Roon store, you can be sure we’ve lived with it and can share genuine, first-hand experience about how it fits into your listening life.

We’re starting off with just a small, curated selection of products in a single category: the all-in-one Roon Ready speaker. These are all decidedly non-traditional audio products that can be daunting to shop for, and one of the things that makes them special is how perfectly they work with Roon. Just connect them to your network and voilà … instant system.

Every product on the site is there because we think it deserves to be showcased. To that end, we’ve created content for the site ourselves, from product photographs and instructional videos to insights about features and performance. Our goal is to show – from extensive experience – what makes each of these products unique, and exactly what you can expect from them.

The Roon store has taken inspiration from the most innovative e-commerce sites out there – a focused product offering, high-quality editorial, and all the shopping convenience you could ask for. It doesn’t yet feature anything like a full range of products, but many more are coming very soon. We hope you enjoy this first step on our journey to provide you the best audio shopping experience in the world.

Roon Partner Update: November 2021

We kicked off this fall with an impressive array of 7 new Roon Ready and Roon Tested devices from audio heavyweights Arcam, AVM, Audiolab, NAD, and TEAC. Read all about them in our latest partner update below. For a full list of our partner brands and every Roon Ready and Roon Tested device, visit our Partners page on the Roon website.

Arcam AVR5
Roon Ready

Arcam have added the AVR5 as their eighth certified Roon Ready device. The AVR5 is a high-performance A/V receiver that delivers stunning realism for the ultimate home cinema experience.

AVM SD 6.3, SD 8.3
Roon Ready

AVM joined the Roon family in June 2021 and now have six Roon Ready devices.

The SD 6.3 and 8.3 are the latest additions to the OVATION line. The SD 6.3 is built on AVM’s pure solid state technology while the SD 8.3 features a tube line stage for a warm and natural sound reproduction.

Audiolab Omnia
Roon Tested

We welcomed Audiolab into the Roon Partner family this month with their first Roon Tested device, the Omnia.

Omnia is a ‘just-add-speakers’ all-in-one system that caters for a music lover’s every need. It’s packed with features, including an integrated CD player, extensive inputs for external sources, and high-quality amplification to make the most of whichever speakers or headphones you choose to partner with it.

NAD C399
Roon Ready

The C399 is the latest NAD device to be added to the Roon family.

The C399 is an integrated amplifier with DAC utilizing NAD’s Hybrid Digital technology. It incorporates the latest generation of NAD’s Modular Design Construction for future extensibility and can accommodate all digital and analogue sources.

TEAC UD-701N, NT-505-X
Roon Ready

The TEAC UD-701N and the NT-505-X are the latest additions to join the Roon family.

The UD-701N is a new USB DAC/Network Player with a high-current headphone amplifier and full analog pre-amplifier functionality. It features their newly-developed TEAC ΔΣ (Delta Sigma) discrete FPGA DAC which implements state-of-the-art engineering and conversion algorithms.  It’s a versatile all-round unit that matches new listening styles for a new era.

The NT-505-X is a USB DAC and network player featuring dual ES9038 Q2M DACs in order to achieve the highest levels of signal-to-noise. Its headphone amplifier uses TEAC-HCLD 2 analog output circuits to ensure high current output capacity in all scenarios.