Roon subscription coming to an end.

[Zappydev]

I must be the only 'Roon Lifer' that does not actually like Roon that much!  This may seam odd, but I am much happier using JRiver or iTunes than I am using Roon.  

That is only part of the story though, I am now a huge fan of HQPlayer, or at least the sound quality potential of HQPlayer.  So in terms of the sound quality, I want, HQPlayer delivers.  In terms of functionality and usability, HQPlayer is hopeless.  So the key reason I like Roon is because it can act as a 'front end' to drive files into HQPlayer.  It may seam complicated using a PC running Roon to feed HQPlayer, then Ethernet to a microRendu, but for me it works flawlessly, totally stable, no dropouts, clicks or anything else.  It works superbly and sounds great.

As for me not liking Roon itself, this is a personal thing, mainly due to the fact that I am addicted to track ratings, and Roon does not do individual track ratings.  The good news is that Roon can read iTunes playlists, and track ratings can be turned into 'tags' inside Roon.  This is not quite the same thing as having my precious track ratings, but given the perfect stability and superb sound quality of Roon / HQPlayer I am a very happy customer.  Plus, Roon is still being developed and is getting better all the time.  I much prefer the functionality of Roon as it is at the start of 2018 versus Roon one year ago, maybe one day I will grow to love it.

An interesting take on things. So are you firmly of the opinion that HQP plus microRendu offers a better SQ than anything provided by AIR in its various guises?  I would love to try HQP but I don’t want another network interface, and Roon AIR has been rock solid so far (no CI yet). For me, the transparency with which Roon combines library, Tidal and internet radio sources makes it a winner, especially given the way it handles both my Devialet and also my Sonos components.