44 Days in ’91

Music flashpoints are an exceedingly rare phenomenon. Even when considering a mainstream genre like Rock you can count these transformational convulsions on a single hand. Some of the reason for their scarcity comes from the difficulty involved in packing all the necessary ingredients into a single coalescent moment. The required elements are a creative environment that has gone stale, the sudden emergence of a new sound, a large audience, and a means for reaching them.

Historically, television has exploited those moments more effectively than any competing medium. A few examples spring instantly to mind: Elvis‘ first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, The Beatles‘ first Sullivan performance… and the day in 1991 that Nirvana‘s Smells Like Teen Spirit broke on MTV. 

Those who experienced that debut in real-time remember it vividly. ‘Everything will be different now…’, the screen seemed to convey with mysterious certainty. A new era had sprung to life before our eyes.

I was at the top of the rock world… then next thing I know it’s ‘Hey Joe’s Crab Shack, it’s great to be here!!’ Really, it was that fast, man. Nirvana murdered my career, and everyone else’s. Everything that came before was over.

Sebastian Bach, Lead Singer of Skid Row

The Long Winter of Hair Metal

If you weren’t of a certain age in the early 1990s, it may be difficult to understand the dominance that MTV enjoyed when it came to defining music trends. It was the most powerful visual platform music had ever seen. The problem was that it had become a wasteland of cheesy sound-alike hair bands. The programing had slowly devolved into a relentless parade of awful music and vapid videos filled with men in makeup, hairspray drenched teased hair, scantily clad women, spandex, studded leather, pointy guitars, and musical cliché. It had been that way for what felt like a lifetime, with no end in sight.

Then suddenly, in the waning days of the summer of 1991, seven landmark albums were released within 44 days of each other; with startling immediacy Rock was reborn!

  • Metallica – Metallica (The Black Album), August 12, 1991
  • Pearl Jam – Ten, August 27, 1991
  • Guns N’ Roses – Use Your Illusion I & II, September 17, 1991
  • Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik, September 24, 1991
  • Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger, September 24, 1991
  • Nirvana – Nevermind, September 24, 1991

An interview scene from the recent SXSW premiere of the Ronnie James Dio documentary Dio: Dreamers Never Die captured the moment perfectly. Veteran Rock-radio DJ, and former host of VH1’s Metal Mania, Eddie Trunk, recounted how the program director of WDHA, ‘The Rock of New Jersey’, walked into the booth minutes before the start of his show. Trunk was told to put all the Metal discs on the console in a cardboard box. After doing so, he was handed Nirvana’s Nevermind.; “This is what we play now,” the program director said as he walked away. Trunk recalled that he had never seen a moment like that in Rock music before or since. 

Sebastian Bach of Skid Row displayed self-effacing humor after the film screening as he shared a memory of that period. “We had just released an album and were huge! I was at the top of the rock world… then next thing I know it’s ‘Hey Joe’s Crab Shack, it’s great to be here!!’ Really, it was that fast, man. Nirvana murdered my career, and everyone else’s. Everything that came before was over.” 

But Nirvana didn’t do all of this single-handedly; it was a unique joint effort from a truly unlikely confederacy of albums.

Seven Albums

Metallica‘s eponymous album was first, accompanied by a series of darkly themed videos beginning with the nightmare hell-ride, Enter Sandman. The band had previously enjoyed a committed cult following, but all that changed after The Black Album. They made the hair metal bands that preceded them look ridiculous. Their breed of metal was pulverizing, ominous, and entirely unlike the sound that had saturated the airwaves for years on end. And it was suddenly mainstream; one had the feeling that something was stirring. 

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/ysw33p1clm4kb
TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/album/197137267

Pearl Jam‘s Ten was branded “grunge” but there’s a substantial classic-rock aesthetic to their sound. The spirit of Hendrix, Page, and other late ’60s / early ’70’s guitar heroes can clearly be felt. Eddie Vedder’s words resonated with a whole new generation of listeners looking for deeper subject matter to identify with. Their video for Even Flow captured the raw energy of the new sound and scene.

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/0884977724745
TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/album/195069318

Guns N’ Roses rewarded fans who had patiently waited for a follow-up to their debut Appetite for Destruction with two full-length releases, Use You Illusion I & II. G&R wasn’t new to the scene. They were frequent fixtures on MTV and rock radio who withstood the sea change thanks to their skill at cranking out pure unadulterated Rock. Use Your Illusion I & II debuted at the Number 1 and 2 slots of Billboard’s Album Chart. Several songs from the record morphed into some of the most cinematic, and expensive, rock videos to ever appear on MTV. 

Use Your Illusion I
Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/0072064244152
TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/album/629051

Use Your Illusion II
Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/b5huv2vxfiqcc
TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/album/89413071

September 24, 1991, delivered a devastating triumvirate of albums whose combined impact, and individual merits, are unlikely to be repeated. 

The Red Hot Chili Peppers Blood, Sugar, Sex, Majik sees the funk-rock tribe expand their sonic horizons thanks to production from Rick Rubin. The video releases for Breaking the Girl, Give It Away, and Under the Bridge are surreal scenes plucked straight from an Orange Sunshine fueled reverie. They played music with a warrior’s intensity, the RHCP were the only band who sounded like that.    

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/0093624932147
TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/album/288404

Soundgarden was always too singular sonically to fit comfortably under the “grunge” banner. On Badmotorfinger, their eclectic influences and musicianship are on full display. Full of inventive arrangements, unusual time signatures, and sludgy guitar heaviness – the album cuts its own trail across the musical landscape of that summer. The crazed neon desert visuals of Jesus Christ Pose proved too controversial for MTV, earning a ban from the network. MTV hasn’t played the video in its entirety to this day.

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/0060255722974
TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/album/67019132

Nirvana‘s Nevermind struck the final deadly blow. I don’t know if I’ll ever see another album redirect the arc of rock music the way that one did. No doubt, the six albums that preceded it had done their work in weakening the target; but Nirvana’s heavy sonic attack and subject matter recalled punk’s go-to-hell abandon with delirious ferocity. But it was the imagery of their videos that proved lethal. 

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/0060253749865
TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/album/77610756

The final nail: Smells Like Teen Spirit

On September 10th, 1991, Nevermind‘s first video Smells Like Teen Spirit exploded before an unprepared audience. Everything in that 4 minutes and 39 seconds was the mirror opposite of the soul-sucking drek we had endured in the long winter of Hair-Metal. The only makeup and spandex seen were buried in the greenish mire that obscured the Anarchy Cheerleaders thrashing in the foreground. Nirvana wore striped shirts, torn jeans, doc martens, and converse, with guitars slung low and set to destroy. Kobain with hair in his face tearing away at the guitar, Novoselic head down, driving the bass, Grohl a hurricane of blurred arms and bass drumming. The kids rocking out in the video were representative of the musical liberation we all felt. Everything that had previously assailed us musically was swept away in its aftermath.

In celebration of these records, we’ve built 44 Days in ’91; a playlist featuring the heaviest tracks from these albums. Together again, just as they were on MTV and the airwaves in the days that followed. You can find it on your Home Page in Roon.

If you were a member of Hair Nation who was sad to see those earlier Metal bands go, we want to hear your side of the story. Head over to Roon Community and submit your favorite metal songs of the mid-’80s to early ’90s to our thread entitled Glam-Metal: Roon Listeners’ Playlist. We’ll compile the best and share a playlist of your favorites. 

Improving how you search for music in Roon

I’d like to fill you all in on what’s been happening with search in Roon, what we have done in our latest release to make things better, and a little bit of what we have planned for the future.

Before I get started, one piece of background: we feel strongly that it’s best for the product to present a single, clear answer to a search query that blends both library and streaming content without putting them into separate “silos” as some other products do. This allows Roon to give a single set of answers to a query without forcing the user to pick apart, disambiguate, or dig deeper based on where the results are coming from. You’re not searching your library OR searching TIDAL, you’re just searching and getting results. It’s a simpler and better experience.

Thus, Roon has to independently search your library, held within the Roon Core, and streaming content, held within cloud services, and then merge the results together. This merging problem is a tricky one. You don’t often see interleaved results from multiple search engines, and there’s a good reason for that; the fact that we hadn’t completely cracked it had left Roon’s search experience in an unacceptable state.

A bit over a year ago, we decided that not only did this have to be fixed, but that search was a “forever problem” – not something that we could fix once and forget about. It requires continual care and feeding and dedicated staff who think about search and only search, so we hired a search specialist and about a year ago and we got to work tackling search with fresh eyes.

We released the auto-complete feature earlier this year, and in building that, gained a detailed understanding of exactly how and why our existing search engine was getting things wrong. That allowed us to kick off the “big project”: an overhaul of Roon’s search infrastructure end to end.

We began by analyzing hundreds of complaints and reports from the Roon community to understand what the problems were. We used your feedback to build test cases and validate our work. Separately, we analyzed anonymized data from our servers to understand what real-world search queries looked like.

As we dug deeper, we figured out that one of the major problems is that the search engine used for the Roon library just worked too differently from the search engine used for streaming content. The two search engines computed and scored results according to different principles, each established during different eras of Roon’s product development.

The library algorithm generally returned results that were too noisy and numerous, and in a significant number of cases, noise from the library drowned out more accurate streaming results. This was especially painful for people with large libraries.

Another problem that we found is that queries for classical music just look different from queries for other content, and Roon’s search engine was behaving particularly badly with some of these queries.

We decided that in general, our approach to cloud-based search was sane (if in need of some tweaks), and the approach to library search was, quite simply, wrong.

Thus, the library search engine required a complete, ground-up rewrite. Since the most mature search technology is cloud-based and Roon’s library is not, we ended up building an embedded search engine that implements the same ideas as cloud-based engines like ElasticSearch, but in a way that lets it run inside of the Roon Core.

We also built a model that can distinguish classical and non-classical search queries prior to performing a search, so that we can tweak various parts of the search process to produce more appropriate results for classical or non-classical queries. Alongside this, we updated the user interface to give more priority to composers and compositions when a classical search is detected, which should save classical users a bit of scrolling.

Then, we had to come up with a new approach to merging library and cloud results. This required a fair amount of consideration, but we ended up landing on a really neat (and as far as we know, novel) approach for making consistent scores for search results that came from different search engines, and we’ve implemented it in Roon.

Finally, we spent months testing this stuff amongst ourselves, then with increasingly larger groups of users, until it was clear that people were feeling improvement. During this process, we iterated on all parts of the system.

I’m confident that the major and structural issues with Roon’s search engine have been addressed. I’m also sure that for the foreseeable future, people will sometimes run into searches that they don’t feel are working right. Search is a “forever problem”, right?

Now that the bulky work is done, we will be able to iterate with the Roon community more rapidly as feedback comes in, and we intend to continue improving search indefinitely. 


Roon Partner Update: February 2022

Throughout February, we released four Roon Ready devices from audio heavy weights Sonus Faber, Thrax Audio and Waversa.

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

Sonus Faber Omnia 
Roon Ready

We welcomed our first ever Sonus Faber device to the Roon family last month. 

The Omnia is a certified Roon Ready all-in-one wireless speaker; boasting Sonus Faber’s prestigious heritage in music reproduction, brought into a beautiful frame that can adapt to any environment. 

In addition to its elegant design, the Omnia features the tactile SENSO touch panel on its top for precise control of your music as it plays. The SENSO panel is complimented by a remote as well as Sonus Faber’s own app, making access to the Omnia’s many music playback inputs a breeze. The CRESCENDO technology allows Omnia to produce an immersive three-dimensional soundscape, no matter where it’s placed in a room. 

Omnia features streaming integration for a host of services via Ethernet and WiFi, an HDMI port, and an analog port with MM phono support.

Thrax Audio Maximinus and Enyo 
Roon Ready

Thrax Audio has released their first devices to the Roon Ready family with the Maximinus and Enyo. 

Enyo heralds as a Roon Ready integrated amplifier, featuring a Thrax designed and built tube amplifier stage with built in auto biasing, guaranteeing both quality performance and ease of use. 

The Enyo is capable of putting out 50W of analog power to any system, with the utmost care and effort poured into each aspect of how the amplifier has been engineered and constructed.

Streaming capabilities are handled via LAN connection (featuring Roon Ready streaming) or Bluetooth, and other inputs include USB, balanced XLR or unbalanced RCA analogue connections, along with an MM and MC phono stage. 

Maximinus features a high-end, in-house designed and custom built R2R ladder DAC with DSD capabilities, bringing the whole package for your digital-to-analog audio conversion needs. 

Thrax has put special effort into designing the output and clock stages of the Maximinus, bringing a fantastic signal-to-noise ratio, low noise floor, and accurate musical timing directly to your ears no matter the source.

Speaking of sources, Maximinus features 6 inputs, including balanced XLR and unbalanced analogue connections, LAN network connectivity for Roon Ready streaming, as well as coaxial, USB, optical and AES/EBU digital inputs.

Waversa WSlim Pro
Roon Ready

The WSlim Pro is Waversa’s 16th device to be added to the Roon family and it is Roon Ready. 

The WSlim Pro is an all-in-one amplifier, designed to be the direct successor to the well received and much loved WSlim Lite. The WSlim’s thin, precision machined case guarantees a very adaptable package that can fit into any set up, large or small.

Engineered for low-latency music playback while simultaneously giving fantastic measured performance, the WSlim Pro offers a breathtakingly low noise floor and stellar signal processing no matter the music source. 

Don’t worry about your ultra Hi-Res music library, the WSlim Pro can handle 32/384kHz and DSD256 files with ease. Input options on offer are Ethernet and USB, with Roon Ready streaming, UPnP and DLNA support built in. 



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.