The reimagined Roon 1.8 for Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS or Android promises to be the breakthrough to finally establish the company's proposition among the most demanding music enthusiasts all over the world. Taking music listening to a different level, Roon 1.8 aims to become the best music aggregator software available - with a refined interface that promises to do more and better what its already did - leveraging its built-in "intelligence" under the hood.
Roon was always about bringing all the music together, so users don’t have to worry about where it’s stored, what format it’s in, or where it's streamed from: the local iTunes library, Internet radio, or streamed content from TIDAL and Qobuz. Roon builds a seamless interconnected digital library with enhanced, up-to-date metadata, which is then displayed in an amazing interface enriched with content - including photos, bios, reviews, credits, lyrics, tour dates, etc.
Of course Roon was always about the Core "invisible" platform that manages music files, streaming services, and audio devices, allowing to manage multiroom and whole home music systems. And that is why Roon has been focused on expanding its Roon Ready and Roon Tested certification and interoperability program, in order to make sure that Roon Core streams to all audio devices, whether they’re on a network, wirelessly connected via AirPlay, or connected via USB or HDMI.
As Enno Vandermeer, founder/CEO at Roon Labs describes, the project always aimed "to build the best platform for listening to and exploring the music you love," and "to help you share your excitement and experiences with others." But to fulfill that promise they needed to take their strategic partnerships away from the earlier stages of working with little else than Meridian Audio devices (from where the founding team originated) plus systems connected via USB or AirPlay. Gradually, Roon Labs did exactly that and currently the expanding platform is able to offer a plug-and-play experience with devices from more than 80 brands, all sharing the same high-resolution streaming protocol (RAAT - Roon Advanced Audio Transport), and with an SDK available for more hardware manufacturers to integrate into their devices.
"Together, the Roon Ready and Roon Tested programs have changed the audio industry. By collaborating with manufacturers, we’ve created a new kind of experience, in which hardware from one company and software from another genuinely work together flawlessly. Roon subscribers can readily get support from a team that has access to the products they’re using, so both our subscribers and our partners are happy," says Vandermeer.
With that part of the challenge now well underway, Roon Labs is now focusing on the software interface and is teasing its community with a new immersive music experience. "A new look, new intelligence, and new features, designed for the community of experts that call Roon home."
The new fresh visual design is more airy and neutral. Roon says the designers looked at the examples of a museum environment and the experience of browsing through classic music magazines, "using bold typography and innovative layout to bring music to life." The result, they promise, is full of innovations in the way the software presents data and "is now a joy to use."
Not that Roon was ever difficult to use when compared with any of the streaming software players, and particularly in contrast with other aggregator alternatives. Roon was always by far the most elegant. The problem is, that Spotify, TIDAL and Qobuz, they all improved their interfaces and are now much better at presenting other types of content and displaying metadata - but above all at suggesting more content based on user preferences.
That is precisely where Roon Labs focused for Roon 1.8. The new software update promises to go far beyond the “algorithmic recommendations” found in mass-market streaming products: "Using its deep metadata and an understanding of over 100,000 expert listeners from Valence, Roon now surfaces and suggests music with uncanny sensitivity and insight."
Valence is the AI engine that Roon Labs developed for version 1.7, connecting a massive cloud database powered by machine learning algorithms, totally focused on music. Since 2019, Valence has been learning from the musical tastes of over 100,000 expert listeners who use Roon and that "intelligence" will now be used to enhance the new features offered in Roon 1.8.
Among the new features is an improved Roon Focus mode that now goes beyond the user's library, giving a 360º-view of artists, genre, performers, and composers. The mode also offers filters by performer, producer, composer, label, and a wide variety of other parameters. All this is particularly important with classical music and Roon 1.8 will offer even more dedicated tools for that genre.
For classical music, Roon 1.8 will present a completely new visual style and information layout "designed to make it easy to find the classical recordings you’re looking for. Valence identifies relationships between composers, conductors, and performers – and helps weed out the no-name releases – so you can find well-regarded performances of any composition," the company explains.
Finally Valence now makes suggestions based not only on context (what the user is looking at and what he is listening to) but also on taste and trends of the overall Roon community. Right on Roon’s brand new Home page, there is a dashboard which lets users explore each user's listening history – both the fine-grained history of the last few weeks, and the statistical view of listening over time.
Roon 1.8 is scheduled to arrive February 2021.
www.roonlabs.com
