

Roon also encourages interactivity by offering a trove of information relevant to what you’re playing. You can then explore and enjoy more of Pete’s work by selecting any of those titles. Then simply tap on Pete’s name and Roon will display every album he’s played on, and let you know which are already within your library. The list includes saxophonist Pete Christlieb. But in Roon, you just tap Credits to see all the musicians you’re hearing. With standard music playback software, you’re at a dead end. All this is pretty standard things get more interesting when you start using Roon interactively.įor example, say you’re listening to Steely Dan’s “Deacon Blues” and find yourself taken by its great sax solo. Of course, you can search for a title, artist, or musician. For instance, Roon lets you opt to see only hi-res, DSD, or MQA titles. Most users will choose a view that sorts by albums, artists, composers, or genre (Figure 1). As with most music playback software, you can specify how you’d like Roon to organize and present your library. Armed with this wealth of information, Roon can display or search through your music collection in remarkably useful ways.

Because this information is often meager or incomplete, Roon supplements it with metadata from its own detailed database. As a first step, Roon imports from your media any existing metadata about each title. When you first set up Roon, it builds a database of metadata (descriptive information) about your music library, including any iTunes or Tidal playlists. I’ll also describe why and in what ways Roon affects a system’s sound. This primer will cover some of the more salient features of Roon’s UI, as well as how to implement Roon in your system. There are many such products on the market, including iTunes and JRiver’s Media Center, but what makes Roon special is the unmatched comprehensiveness of its user interface and, believe it or not, its sound. Roon is a music playback and management software suite for digital audio components.
