In a word, Roon.
Playing file-based music used to suck. And it sucked bad. File tree navigation, crap meta data, spotty support for resolutions above CD-quality, gapless playback, and file formats (remember trying to play DSD in 2011?), and a set of networking protocols that were anything but Universal or Plug and Play (UPnP) made playing music less fun than bagging leaves.
As time went on, things got better but for me they only got good, real good, with the arrival of Roon back in 2015. I’ve already covered the 10 Reasons Why I (Still) Use Roon that hits the high notes but the main reasons I love using Roon as my music interface is ease of use, pleasure in use, and music discovery. And I do mean I find Roon a pleasure to use on a daily basis and the Roon Radio feature typically introduces me to new music I enjoy, also on a near-daily basis.
Which gets us back to Why I Chose Tidal & Qobuz as my dynamic duo for streaming—Roon supports them. And in the land of Roon, this means content from both services is seamlessly incorporated into my daily music listening experience as if it was part of my music library, which it more or less is when using Roon. Seamless.
Of course I’ve heard some people claim that Roon doesn’t sound as good as other software but in my experience determining the cause of sound quality issues in networked audio is harder than trying to remember the names of the five kids of your wife’s cousin’s friends you only see around the Holidays. I’d wager that 11 times out of 10, moving loudspeakers a few inches will make a greater impact on sound quality than any perceived difference between playback software. Summing up Roon and sound quality, it works for me. Perfectly.
What about hi-res? Don’t you care about sound quality?
Here’s my best guess as to why hi-res matters more to some people than others—listening habits. I mostly listen to music that’s new to me and most of that is new music. I rarely listen to music I enjoyed as a kid or in college or even after college. Sure, I’ll occasionally get the hankering for some Hendrix, Bruce, Frank, or PJ but when I do, I’ll spin the LP. Ideally the original release because I’m also not a fan of reissues especially when they include Bonus Tracks. Truth be told, I mostly dislike Bonus Tracks and prefer listening to albums as they were originally released. Of course there are exceptions but they are few and far between.
I’ve been posting an ‘Album of the Week’ for more than 10 years along with my Albums of the Year for years, I always mention a number of specific albums in my equipment reviews and include embedded links from Tidal so you can play them while reading, and for the better part of this year I also have been posting a track a day to Instagram [footnote 1]. So anyone interested in finding out what kind of music I enjoy has a very easy time of it.
One type of music you’ll rarely see mentioned by me is a reissue of some old classic dusted off and reimagined in a format different from its original release. It’s simply rarely of interest. To me. And while I do listen to classical music, it is not my main area of interest so I am not the kind of listener who owns several versions of the same piece by different performers. Once again there are exceptions but they are few and far between.
If you add my music listening habits up, you’ll find little room for hi-res. The majority of the new music I enjoy is released in CD-quality, some in 16-bit/48kHz, some in 24-bit/48kHz and very few above that. The same holds for the downloads I buy. I can say that I’ve bought exactly 0 DSD releases in the past 3 years and it’s not because I have something against DSD, it’s just that the music I enjoy is never released in that format.
The thing about music listening habits is they are not universal so thinking that *you know what streaming service is best for everyone makes about as much sense as thinking you know what shoe size is best for everyone. Saavy? A lover of classical music may very well gravitate to Qobuz or Apple Music Classical for the selection and they may also have lots of hi-res and DSD purchases because you can find lots of classical releases in hi-res and DSD. The re-buyer, someone who enjoys collecting different versions of the same records and every new one that comes down the pike—how many versions of Kind of Blue are there?—will also be more interested in hi-res than I am because a good chunk of re-releases are released in the latest greatest format.
Both of these kinds of listeners may also be on the lookout for the best sounding version of a beloved classic whereas there’s just one version of most of the music I enjoy so I take it in whatever form I can get it (ideally on LP and lossless download from Bandcamp). Makes sense, no?
It should go without saying that all listening habits are created equal, even though it’s so tempting and so easy to belittle the ones that are not yours. Here’s a tip—if it’s really easy to belittle something, the belittling has little to no value. Unless of course other people are out there just dying to learn about all of the things *you don’t like. Count me out of that downward spiral.
I chose Tidal HiFi and Qobuz because they best suit my music listening habits and a big chunk of that habit is fed by Roon.
- I collect these Daily Tracks and post them, grouped by week, as Tidal and Qobuz playlists for Patrons