What is Roon? Roon is a music management and listening solution that takes a very different approach to interacting with your music. Instead of seeing a spreadsheet-like view of your music (as with iTunes and almost all other media systems), Roon provides a very rich non-list based experience, using credits, artist relationships, genres, lyrics, concert/tour dates, artwork, and more to allow for an informative navigation and exploration of your library. Roon manages digital music files collected on hard drives and networked storage. It can also watch your iTunes library, and optionally integrate with the music streaming service TIDAL. Roon cleans up your music library, upgrades the metadata associated with your music, and provides a user interface that is far richer than anything else out there. Roon makes music exploration and discovery both informative and fun. Roon provides no-compromise audio perfection. Bit perfect playback of lossy and lossless file formats, including high resolution audio content (PCM and DSD). Additional conveniences such as crossfading and volume normalization make it suitable for both concentrated listening sessions as well as social events. Roon manages your audio renderers (the things that make sound). Whether they be built-in sound devices, like your laptop's audio output, a USB connected DAC, or even networked audio devices. Roon is an application suite that must be installed. It is not a website. It runs on Macs, Windows PCs and Tablets, Linux PCs, Android Tablets, Apple iPads and iPhones. Support is provided on the Community Site, and membership details and configuration are provided on the Roon website. Roon uses your music files, Internet Radio streams, and content from the TIDAL streaming music service, but doesn't come with any music. The Roon software is constantly being improved and updates are always free of charge to licensed users. How Roon works Roon is architected differently than most audio systems out there. Roon consists of a single core and as many controls and outputs as you need. This means you get the same Roon experience whether you're running on a single PC or on devices around your home. The Core A Roon system starts with a core – it’s the traffic cop, the housekeeper, and the brains behind the operation. The core is responsible for: Managing your digital music library - Discovering your music files - Noticing when music files are added, deleted, or modified in real-time - Extracting Metadata Tags from your music files - Background analysis of your audio content - Identifying your music files so we can improve your library with artwork, credits, reviews, and other enhanced metadata. - Keeping metadata up to date as new information becomes available and features are added. Managing playback to audio outputs (see below) - Managing a play queue and a set of controls for each Zone. - Managing output to multiple Zones, including synchronized playback - Retrieving audio from files or internet services and decoding it to PCM or DSD - Streaming PCM or DSD audio to outputs Driving one or more controls (see below) - Serving data to controls, whether they are local or networked - Responding to requests from controls - Providing a synchronized experience across multiple controls Other stuff - Handling software updates The core manages your music collection from many sources, and builds an interconnected digital library using enhanced information from Roon. The core can be your Mac or Windows PC, or a server from one of their hardware partners. Control Roon's rich user interface runs on Windows, OS X or macOS, Android, and Apple iOS. Roon develops the control software for all platforms out of a single code-base. This is deeply important to our ability to deliver an extremely rich experience across many hardware and software platforms. If we built the app the traditional way--by developing a separate app for each platform, they would soon diverge in behavior, and some would inevitably lag behind. Instead, we chose to invest in infrastructure up front, and do things differently. This choice enables us deliver richer functionality in less time, while providing a more consistent experience across the multiple platforms that Roon supports. The network protocol that the core and control use to communicate is also intensively engineered. Our control infrastructure is designed carefully to work identically whether you are sitting in front of a computer running a Roon core, or whether you are using another device on your network. It works just as well if you have one control or a dozen. Data on different controls stays synchronized in real-time. There's no lag, and we never let you see stale data. These details may seem abstract from where you're sitting, but these ground-up architecture choices act together to product an unparalleled multi-device experience. Audio outputs Roon streams to all the audio gear you have, and makes it all play nice together. Any Mac or Windows PC can be an output, as can Airplay, Squeezebox, and Meridian network players. For the ultimate in performance audio, use network players from their Roon Ready partners. Roon Ready network players Roon Ready network players from our partners have Roon’s high-resolution streaming technology built right in. Roon will discover them on your network, deliver the highest possible quality audio, and even allow volume control right from the Roon user interface!