Roon Labs

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.

Autumnal Acoustics

Every year an interesting shift occurs in my listening preferences at about the middle of October when the evening air turns crisp and the autumn sun flames out in fallen-leaf orange behind the trees on the hill. The tones from my speakers reliably reflect this seasonal change, with pastoral hues of wet earth and black trees, as the hypnotic strains of British Folk drift through my space. I can’t quite explain why my mind equates colder weather with that genre; perhaps it’s an ancestral memory that has been stripped of all its features but sound. Whatever the cause, my default fall selections are always a familiar narrow rotation of Brit-Folk favs. Just as routinely, I have vowed that I’ll investigate the golden era of British and Irish Folk music more thoroughly. And, despite never having managed to keep that promise in the past, I’ve always meant to.

The problem has been that as much as I love this music, and recognize a smattering of artists and albums outside of my favorites, exploring the genre can feel at times like getting turned around in the forest. There’s so much stylistic similarity in the landscape, ensembles absorbed and discarded personnel frequently, and groups embraced new sounds so often that it’s quite difficult to find your footing on the path of discovery. But if one is fortunate enough to have Roon, and a synced streaming service as a guide, the same challenge suddenly becomes an inspired adventure of autumnal acoustics.

This time I tried something different by beginning with a favorite selection and then allowing Roon to influence my new route – the scenery promptly changed and offered a wealth of surprise and variety I’ve never encountered previously. A few hours later I’d been reacquainted with a few forgotten gems and had acquired a handful of new discoveries. Each one of them linked to my original selection by Roon’s unparalleled understanding of the web of sound. All the listener must do is simply follow the notes.

My first go-to of fall is always Traffic – John Barleycorn (Must Die). It’s something of a wonder that the record exists as a Traffic album at all. It was to be Steve Winwood’s first solo release, but it was having trouble getting started. Former bandmate Jim Capaldi was invited ‘round to collaborate, a second former partner, Chris Wood, showed up – and a trio incarnation of Traffic was accidentally formed. Winwood, at twenty two years old, reimagined an Elizabethan-era folk standard for the title track which recounts the story of John Barleycorn – a character who suffers a wrath of indignities that correspond with the phases of barley cultivation. It exhibits a staggeringly brilliant folk authenticity not found anywhere else on the album, and only rarely in Traffic’s discography. You’ll catch yourself checking the credits in Roon incredulously for confirmation that this was a trio when you hear how much music these guys put down. Winwood’s delicate acoustic guitar ties Celtic patterns through his accompanying piano chords as Chris Wood weaves flute airs around Jim Capaldi’s tasteful rustic percussion. Winwood and Capaldi’s vocals relay the story of Barleycorn’s saga with the skill of master storytellers. It might not even be British Folk by some definitions but it defies any effort to argue it otherwise.

TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/track/77629646

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/track/15197455

From Barleycorn, my go-to is always Fairport Convention but this time I vowed to do things differently. So instead of instinctively queueing up their What We Did On Our Holidays album I scrolled to similar artists instead, and chose Sandy Denny. Her discography revealed the long out-of-print compilation I’ve Always Kept a Unicorn: The Acoustic Sandy Denny, which served up Sandy Denny with Fairport Convention – She Moves Through the Fair. A favorite from the aforementioned Fairport album, but here rendered in a deft acoustic version, with guitars simultaneously articulate and percussive supporting Denny’s angelic voice to absolute perfection. Fairport Convention could strip the music down to nothing and still dig into the marrow of the listener. This track is a superlative example of that. As always, Roon makes unearthing these previously unknown alternate versions an unburdened joy. New favorites are always waiting at the end of a few mouse clicks.

TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/track/59412740

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/track/31434205

Nick Drake – Time Has Told Me is synonymous with fall to my ears. There isn’t a year that goes by where Nick Drake doesn’t become a regular on my turntable. I’ve heard that listening to his music is permitted at other times of the year as well but I’ve never risked testing the theory. This beautifully written and performed original is the auditory equivalent of a warm fire in the cold of the countryside. And it’s a natural follow up to the previous selection because two members of Fairport Convention contribute to it. If that’s not something you knew previously, it’s no problem. Roon hips you to that stuff in the track credits. All through the software it’s that simple. This track is one to follow the lyrics on, it’s another example of Nick Drake’s poetry outshining the transcendent music that carries it along.

TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/track/77611146

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/track/12738446

I typically follow Nick Drake with Bert Jansch or John Renbourn, but this time I let Roon point me toward Pentangle – Basket of Light where both were band members. I chose the album because I recognized it’s cover from a former roommate’s vinyl collection but had only a vague memory of the music on it. The record is a spellbinding chimera, an eclectic hybrid of Indian influenced modal sounds and progressive jazz-psyche infused with British Folk originals. It provided an intriguing inroad into a band I’ve been curious about for years. In Roon the transition from curiosity to discovery is as natural as the change in seasons.

TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/album/64013871

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/5414939525476

From Pentangle I was served up a selection in the Similar Albums section that yielded a thick vein of gold that cut straight through to the heart of the music. Various Artists – Anthems in Eden: An Anthology Of British & Irish Folk 1955-1978 is an eighty four track, multi-disc collection, that reveals the complete genetic encoding of the idiom. Finding recordings that thoroughly unlock the mysteries of a genre is commonplace in Roon because the design was built with this in mind. Try to imagine another place where that’s facilitated with such ease, effortless discovery of new favorites that are informed by an intimate understanding of the interconnected storylines of the music we already love. That’s what Roon does, and it’s the reason why I’m finally able to explore British Folk in the way I’ve always wanted.

TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/album/69046725

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/0602527958880

Tell us about your experiences! Does a certain genre, artist, band, piece of music, song, or album make you think of the arrival of Autumn? If so, we’d love to hear about them. Share them with us in our Autumnal Acoustics music thread on Community. And thank you all for your wonderful contributions in the Classical Community Conversations thread! We’re looking forward to sharing your recommendations in an upcoming playlist. Please stay tuned for that!

Take your Roon content to services around the world with Soundiiz

My name is Thomas and I’m the co-founder of Soundiiz, a French startup created in 2013 with my friend and co-founder Benoit.

You may be asking yourself, “what is Soundiiz?”.

It’s a handy tool to manage your music streaming services in one place, allowing you to connect and move your music collection between more than 40 services.

While we support a lot of music streaming services, many of our users have local media files and music collections that they have curated over the years. And, it’s in this context that Roon was introduced to us, thanks to our users, as powerful software to handle a local music collection.

I met the Roon team a while back and we decided to collaborate as we saw so many synergies between our respective communities. Many Roon listeners are streaming their music with the help of Roon’s support of Qobuz and TIDAL. For a Roon subscriber, the ability to export their music collection using Soundiiz, is a step forward in empowering the listener to feel like they “own” their collection.

We are proud to work with Roon, and to be a part of this new export feature that all Roon members can now enjoy.

Now, let’s see how easy and fast it is to export a personal playlist created in Roon to a music streaming service of your choice.

First, you need to open the playlist you want to export in Roon. Then, select the playlist option “Export” using “…”.

You will see the option to export a Soundiiz CSV file. Click on “Save to desktop”.

Next, go to the Soundiiz website and create an account* if you don’t have one. Once connected, select “Import playlist” in the top right of the interface.

*Use code “ROONVIP” at checkout to get 15% off the Soundiiz Premium subscription.

Choose “From File” and pick the CSV file you have previously saved to your desktop.

Confirm the tracklist and the playlist configuration (title and description).

Finally, select the music service where you want to import this playlist and… it’s as simple as that!

In a few minutes, your playlist will be available on your chosen streaming service and ready to be played! If some elements don’t match (they might not be available in your chosen streaming service, for example), you will be able to see and download a list with details of the elements found vs not found.

We hope you find Soundiiz useful for managing your playlists! Visit
soundiiz.com to find out more.

By: Thomas Magnano, Co-founder of Soundiiz
Guest contributor to Roon Blog.

Roon partners win big at the What Hi-Fi? Awards 2021

The 39th edition of the What Hi-Fi? Awards took place on November 4th which saw 21 Roon Ready and Roon Tested products win across 11 different categories.

There were multiple awards up for grabs at the prestigious event in London, which included product ‘Best Buys’ and ‘Product of the Year’ awards across 26 product categories, as well as five ‘Special Awards’ – all of which featured products from the Roon family.

You can read about them all below.

Product of the Year Awards

Five Roon partners were awarded the ‘Product of the Year’ accolade, celebrating the very best tech of the year.

Bluesound Node | Roon Ready
Best music streamer

“At this money, it represents one of the most entertaining and comprehensive ways of adding music streaming to your hi-fi system.”

Cambridge Audio CX81| Roon Tested
Best stereo amplifier

“If you’re looking for a well-equipped integrated at this level, this is a great place to start.”

Chord Qutest| Roon Ready
Best DAC

“Chord has managed to do it again. The Qutest sets a new benchmark at this price”

KEF LS50 Wireless II| Roon Ready
Best all-in-one system

“KEF’s revisions have paid off; these sequels are among the most thrilling speaker systems we’ve heard”

Naim Mu-so Qb 2 | Roon Ready
Best wireless speaker

“The Mu-so Qb retains an inherently likeable presentation, but has matured over the three years since its first generation.”

In addition, a month before revealing the overall ‘Product of the Year’ winners, What Hi-Fi? announced all of their ‘Best Buy’ products, featuring thirteen Roon partner devices.

Best Buy Awards

Arcam ST60 | Roon Ready
Best music streamer £1,000-£1,500

“If you’re happy with your hi-fi system but simply want to smarten it up by slotting a streamer next to your separates, the Arcam ST60 is a strong choice.”

Astell&Kern A&futura SE180 | Roon Ready
Best portable music player over £1,000

“Astell & Kern’s quirkiest player yet is also one of its best value”

AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt | Roon Tested
Best DAC £200-£300

“If you loved the DragonFly Red as much as we did, and you’re looking to make the next step up without compromising on size or form, the Cobalt represents something of a no-brainer.”

Cambridge Audio CXA61 I Roon Tested
Best stereo amplifier £600-800

“Class leaders are constantly being replaced in hi-fi, but rarely is it done so soundly as by Cambridge Audio’s CXA81 integrated amp”

Cambridge Audio CXN V2 | Roon Tested
Best music streamer £750-1000

“Making the best even better, the CXN (V2) is the best streamer out there at this price point”

Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M I Roon Tested
Best DAC £300-£500

“Cambridge’s top-of-the-line DAC is a well-armed, high-performing all-rounder”

Chord Hugo 2 | Roon Tested
Best DAC over £1,200

“There isn’t another DAC around at anywhere near this sort of price able to communicate so torrentially, so unambiguously or so effortlessly. We like it a lot.”

iFi Zen DAC V2 | Roon Tested
Best DAC under £200

“One of the very best ways to upgrade your desktop headphone system.”

JBL Synthesis SDR-35 | Roon Ready
Best home cinema amplifier over £3,000

“If you’re building a high-end home cinema, the SDR-35 should be the first AVR you audition”

KEF LSX | Roon Tested
Best all-in-one system under £1,000

“A neat, compact and entertaining all-in-one system of rare sonic quality”

Marantz PM7000N | Roon Tested
Best hi-fi system under £1,000

“A practical, well furnished just-add-speakers streaming system that impresses with its entertaining performance”

Naim Uniti Atom | Roon Ready
Best hi-fi system over £1,000

“Rarely does a product look and sound as good as the Uniti Atom, but here Naim has drawn big old capital S’s on Style and Substance”

Naim ND5 XS 2 | Roon Ready
Best music streamer over £1,500

“The Nait XS 3 is a gentle upgrade but remains one of the most musically enticing options at this price”

Our friends at TIDAL also picked-up ‘Best music streaming service’: “TIDAL’s expansive, accessible and hi-res-inclusive catalogue remains the best option for streaming-savvy audiophiles”.

Three of our audio partners also won in the ‘Special Award’ category which acknowledges their outstanding innovations and contributions to the audio industry.

Special Awards

Cambridge Audio Evo 75 | Roon Ready
Readers Award

“The Evo 75 is a shining example of just how appealing a just-add-speakers streaming system can be”

Linn Klimax DSM AV | Roon Tested
Temptation

“When it comes to insight, clarity and dynamic expression, Linn’s exceptional range-topping Klimax DSM is second to none”

Marantz PM6007| Roon Tested
Hall of Fame

“Clearer and punchier than its award-winning predecessor, Marantz’s latest entry-level amplifier never puts the formidable 6000 Series dynasty in doubt”

Congratulations to all of our award-winning partners this year! You can find out more about the What Hi-Fi Awards 2021 and see all 109 winners here.

A Conversation with AHI

We had the pleasure of speaking with Canadian songwriter AHI about his new album Prospect, out today. In Prospect, AHI reflects on his own identity and that of his community, fully embracing himself for the first time by putting his face on the album cover. AHI is known for his storytelling, with a unique voice full of influences from his travels, community and his West Indian upbringing.

[Editor] What can you tell us about your new album Prospect and the meaning and inspiration behind it?

Prospect is the title track of this album, and it’s also the opener. As the hook says, “I just want to live like someone before my time is counting on me…and walk beneath the wings like someone from another life is looking out for me.” For me, Prospect is a reflection on our shared humanity and what it means to be a link in a chain that stretches both forwards and backwards through time for eternity.

It’s a heavy concept, but I truly believe that our lives are part of something bigger and more meaningful than we understand. You and I are the prospect, and the gravity of our impact on one another is far greater than we can ever imagine.

Can you tell us about your songwriting process? Has anything in particular shaped or influenced it?

For me, songwriting is all about conveying a message that will reach people in a meaningful way. Sometimes it starts with a melody, and sometimes it’s a word that will spark inspiration, and other times songs will simply come to me in my dreams. But no matter how the inspiration may come, my first step is almost always to grab my guitar and record it while it’s fresh. From there, I usually let the feeling of the melody inform its lyrics.

My songwriting has definitely been influenced by the greats – Bob Marley, Tupac Shakur, Tracy Chapman, Michael Jackson, Lauryn Hill, Bill Withers – artists who found ways to express the most complex human emotions in the simplest of ways that we can all relate to. It might sound simple, but as a songwriter, that’s often the hardest thing to do.

You wrote Coldest Fire during the pandemic, can you tell us what it means to you and what you hoped it would bring to your audience?

I wrote this song at the height of the summer 2020 protests. While I’m often advised to stay safe and neutral with the hope of bringing people together, the world was more divided than I had seen in my lifetime and at times trying to find a balance felt like warfare inside. For me and countless other Black people, it can often feel like we are constantly living in a duality, where we have to silence a part of ourselves just to exist peacefully.

Coldest Fire represents the vulnerability that comes with that duality, but it also reminds us that we can find solace in our relationships with one another. I hope that anyone listening to that song can hear it with empathy and find comfort in knowing they’re not alone.

We understand that Danger came to you in a dream, can you tell us what story this song tells?

Music comes to me in my dreams all the time. Danger was one of those songs where I dreamt I was singing the chorus to a huge crowd as they sang along to every word, and I immediately woke up and recorded it with a sense of urgency. This particular dream song was about a young man who falls victim to a stray bullet and his mother Evelyn who immediately senses trouble.

Little did I know, my song told the story of a real mother whom I would later meet for the first time, a woman named Evelyn Fox from my hometown of Toronto, whose son had been lost to gun violence in a manner eerily similar to the lyrics of the song I had dreamt. As I later learned, Evelyn now works tirelessly as an activist for community safety alongside other mothers who have lost their children and loved ones to senseless gun violence.

We finally met face-to-face for the first time on the set of my music video for Danger, and hearing her story affirmed for me that the solution and healing we are looking for is rooted in the realization that every life is fragile and precious.

We understand you’ve done extensive travel through the Ethiopian Highlands and jungles of Trinidad. Can you tell us how your travels have influenced your music?

Throughout my travels, I often relied on the kindness of strangers who helped me on my journeys, let me into their homes, and just plain cared about me a lot. When we’re not thinking about it, at the core of humanity we all just want to see the best for each other and see the good in all people.

As corny as this might sound, traveling the world has shown me that we are really more alike than we are different. We’re all looking for purpose, connection, community and human connection, and I think these have become underlying themes in my music, which makes it almost universally relatable.

Roon is all about enjoying your music listening experience at home. Can you tell us whether you have a specific home set up for music playback, how do you listen to music as a fan?

My family and I love to blast anything out of our living room speakers, and as a father of four, one of the best feelings in the world is watching your children fall in love with great music from before their time.

The other day I awoke to hear my 11-year-old daughter playing Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life on the record player, completely of her own choosing, and it’s now one of her favourite albums. Some days it’s Mavis Staples or BB King, some days it’s Mos Def & Talib Kweli, and other days it’s Carole King & Fleetwood Mac. But whatever the mood, I think the best way to listen to music is always to enjoy it with the family.

AHI’s new album Prospect is now available on TIDAL and Qobuz.

Listen to our playlist AHI on TIDAL.

Roon Partner Update: October 2021

We kicked off this fall with an impressive array of 9 new Roon Ready and Roon Tested devices from audio pioneers NAD, Onkyo, Primare, Rotel, Silent Angel, and T+A Elektroakustik. 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.

NAD C700 and M10V2
Roon Ready

NAD added their 23rd and 24th devices to the Roon family with the NAD C 700 and M10 V2.

Both devices are powered by BluOS with the C 700 featuring a HybridDigital UcD amplifier within its aluminium housing and the M10 V2 combining a network streamer with a 100W per channel amplifier in one device.

Onkyo TX-NR5100
Roon Tested

The TX-NR5100 is a 7.2-channel 8K AV receiver designed to be the center piece in your home theater. It’s tailored to deliver the best possible in-class entertainment experience and is Onkyo’s eighth device to become Roon Tested.

Primare NP5 Prisma MK2
Roon Ready

Adding to our family of Roon Ready audio devices in October was the new version of the popular Primare NP5 Prima network player, the NP5 Prisma MK2.

The NP5 Prisma MK2 provides full network player technology to virtually any component with a digital input and is designed to slip inconspicuously into any system.

Rotel P5, X3, X5
Roon Tested

Rotel’s integrated amplifiers, the X3 and X5 and controlled amplifier, the P5 are now Roon Tested.

The Rotel X3 delivers 350W of Class AB amplification and the X5 ups the power to 600W.The P5 features specially selected power supply, circuit design and critical component selections to ensure the highest integrity of the audio signal eliminating unwanted noise and distortion

Silent Angel Munich M1T
Roon Ready

The Munich M1T is the 2nd Roon Ready device from Silent Angel. It is a digital transport designed to be used with an external DAC, and supports USB, S/PDIF and AES EBU conections

T+A Elektroakustik MP 200
Roon Ready

T+A Elektroakustik added their 15th device to the Roon family with the MP 200. The MP 200 is a multi source player, combining a compact design matched with the other Series 200 components with a flexible array of inputs including streaming and CD playback.

A Conversation with Stephan Moccio

We had the pleasure of speaking to Canadian Oscar-nominated and Grammy-nominated pianist, songwriter and producer Stephan Moccio about his new album Lionheart. Moccio has achieved nearly 400 million streams on his solo work, and co-written hit songs for Celine Dion, The Weeknd, and ‘Wrecking Ball’ for Miley Cyrus. Having been classically trained at the Royal Conservatory of Toronto, Moccio returns to his classical roots on the piano in Lionheart. Stephan’s classical influence can be seen in this performance of ‘Wrecking Ball’.

Stephan Moccio on composing Wrecking Ball (Miley Cyrus)

[Editor] You’ve written seven hits on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, earned three Grammy nominations and an Oscar nod for co-writing The Weeknd’s seven-times-platinum ‘Earned It’. Coming from a classically trained background, do you feel that your writing of pop songs has influenced your solo piano style?

100%. As a matter of fact, for my composition process for Lionheart, I relied on my aptitude as a pop songwriter and producer. Firstly, I am trained as a classical musical musician, however, for Lionheart I intentionally arranged my compositions as if they were pop songs, treating them in proper form (for the most part) with verses, pre choruses, choruses and a bridge. This helped me arrange the pieces effectively and succinctly. It is not to say that I didn’t have improvised moments, I still believe that contemporary piano must always be authentic, and not feel forced, however, I clearly pulled out my pop artistry.

Can you tell us about any inspiration or meaning behind Lionheart?

The title track/composition has a nobility to it. I felt it needed a strong title. Therefore I began searching for famous knights, and eventually came across Joan of Arc. In my research, the adjective ‘lionhearted’ popped up, which means bravery and determination. I felt it summed up my current psyche, and mantra on life. I no longer need approval from people, or care for vapid opinions about things.

You’ve co-written so many hit songs, the 2010 Vancouver Olympics theme, and music for TV/film, do you have any particular personal highlights from your songwriting career?

Hands down composing the theme for any Olympics, particularly your homeland, is one of the greatest honors bestowed upon a composer. My Olympics theme and song has become a national treasure which will outlive me.

What made you take a step back from the pop music world and return to the piano and the studio on Sounds of Solace in 2020, and again on Lionheart?

I love this question. Simple. Life (for me) was way too complicated, and the return from what I was putting into it when I was producing and creating pop music, wasn’t worth it anymore. I craved and continue to crave simplicity… I never pursued music to become a famous pop producer or songwriter, I pursued music to impact lives emotionally. And frankly, in this moment of my life, I am able to do so as a solo pianist.

You’ve referred to the making of Lionheart as a personal cathartic process of healing. Is it a more personal process to write these songs compared to songwriting for others?

It is an absolute pleasure to write for myself, as I am able to hold more accountability. One of the most painful lessons in life is disappointing oneself. It is therapeutic, and healing. Writing songs for others can be thankless, and oftentimes, your best work remains shelved, because it is out of your control. I have had incredible success as a writer for others (which I will continue) which I am grateful for, however, this lane as a pianist feels very right for me.

How do you divide your focus between songwriting for other artists and composing your solo piano music? Your solo piano work has been hugely successful, earning nearly 400 million streams. Will you continue to do both, or focus more on the piano now?

I will continue to do both. I can’t shut off the deep well of creativity, inspirations and ideas which just come at me at any time of the day. I have developed a sophisticated system to organize my musical brain over the last 20 years or so, to catch and organize how, and to whom, I want to give specific melodies.

Stephan Moccio on writing Earned It for The Weeknd

Roon is all about enjoying your music listening experience at home. Can you tell us whether you have a specific home set up for music playback, how do you listen to music as a fan?

I am blessed to have a set of vintage JBL speakers which I listen to my music on. I am old enough to remember what quality speakers sound and feel like. It is extraordinary how accessible music is for us today, however, the ability to listen to well recorded music on ‘proper’ speakers gives us the ability to appreciate the artistry, the love, the time and details which passionate and dedicated artists inject and emotionally invest into their work.

Thank you for your thoughtful questions and for your support of solo piano music, it is not lost on me.

Listen to Lionheart on TIDAL and Qobuz.

Listen to our playlists Stephan Moccio Songwriting (on TIDAL) and Stephan Moccio on Piano (on Qobuz).

Community Music Discovery: October 2021

Lately I’ve been reflecting on one of life’s greatest paradoxes: that classical music can be intimidating. It only takes a few moments of sitting with the thought for the absurdity of it to bleed through. It’s like saying ‘I saw the most terrifying field of sunflowers the other day’….someone might think you had suffered a head injury and call for help. Yet, some of us have experienced hesitancy when approaching classical music. Fortunately, Roon cures that reluctance and makes exploration a pleasure.

Roon subscribers are uncommonly knowledgeable across an incredible range of musical forms. They’re all on display in the What Are We Listening To thread of our Community forums. They know classical music particularly well, and they love to talk about it. Many of the descriptions that accompany their listening choices are simply radiant in their perception and appreciation. Their suggestions stimulate interest, and with a streaming service integrated in Roon, they’re all right there waiting at the end of a search. It’s really that easy! It’s still somewhat stupefyingly unimaginable, to those of us who were hanging around music stores 30 years ago, that music can be found and heard so effortlessly… it’s science fiction for music heads. The next thing you know you’ll have added 160 definitive classical compositions to your Roon library. And, without even a twinge of hesitation.

My Roon classical journey was jump-started with an RCA Red Seal discovery: Gregor Piatigorsky’s Dvorak; Walton: Cello Concertos. It’s a lively conversation between Piatigorsky and the Orchestra; the cello and the symphony exchange voices in vibrant repartee. A listener doesn’t have to be fluent in classical music to know there’s something special happening on this recording.

TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/album/4918900

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/0884977773224

From there, Roon recommended a handful of other RCA Living Stereo and Red Seal classics. I selected one that featured Jascha Heifetz performing Violin Concertos by Sibelius, Prokofiev, and Glazunov. It’s absolutely stunning to me that Roon made it so easy to find an album as remarkable as this one. I can’t imagine being able to accomplish this so seamlessly anywhere else but in Roon. This album is packed with imagination and drama, richly painted as sound. I’ve listened to it nearly everyday since I added it.

TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/album/62707810

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/0886445075557

My most recent find required no effort at all. It was shared by a community member, Sjaak D, in response to last month’s Roon Rediscoveries story. It’s a Philips collection by Mitsuko Uchida, Mozart: The Piano Sonatas. Sjaak recalled an evening years ago when he returned home to find his Hi-Fi and modest collection of discs stolen, including this one. And how, despite auditioning several collections of Mozart’s Piano Sonatas over a number of years, none exhibited the same zest or excitement demonstrated by the Uchida set. His longing went unsatiated until he was able to secure another copy of this specific collection. It only takes listening to a few pieces on this set to understand why.

Immediately thereafter another community member, Christian_S, affirmed the brilliance of Uchida’s performance. An instant bond was formed between two people who have never met, but are simpatico in their deep appreciation of music. This is how friendships are born. Any album that sparks a connection like that has a place in my library.

TIDAL: https://tidal.com/browse/album/4717063

Qobuz: https://open.qobuz.com/album/0002894683562

That’s Roon, everyday. I get to be part of that, and if you’re a Roon subscriber you know what I’m talking about. In Roon you’ll discover the Community vibe of a great record store and all the inventory you could ever want, right under your fingertips. Each great album and accompanying conversation leads the way to another. The music never stops.

So, while we have you, what Classical performances do we need to hear? This music is too good to go unheard. If you know it well and love it, help us to know it and appreciate it too. Tell us here, and we’ll share your recommendations in our upcoming listener-curated playlists.