Name: Roon Remote
Rating: 3.65403 (422 reviews)

User Reviews for Roon Remote

3.65 out of 5

422 Ratings

5 years ago, Midwest Music Master

Amazing Most of the Time

What Roon delivers on in terms of a listening experience is beyond amazing. I can stream music to all the systems in my house. In my theater room, I stream it to an Oppo UDP-205. I stream to my kitchen and patio on a NAD C 388. In my bedroom on an Onkyo receiver connected to a Chromecast Audio. Because the core is a Synology Diskstation, the Roon Remote acts just like a remote. You don’t have to stay in range of the device like you would with Bluetooth. You can transfer audio from one room to another without a hitch. You can join zones of Roon Ready devices so you have the same audio playing throughout the house which is great for parties. It all plays in the highest possible quality available, including MQA. It integrates files you have on your hard drive seamlessly with streaming services such as TIDAL and qobuz. It has transformed my listening experience in profound ways. Why four stars? There are times the service glitches. Not enough to be too annoying but it happens. And the user interface is not the best UX. With any other product, these hiccups would be enough for me to give it three or two stars, but WOW! What Roon does best is really good quality listening all over my house. In that one area, the one that counts the most, Roon hits a grand slam.

4 years ago, Doug Brehm

Amazing App

This Roon system is really an amazing service. I installed the core on my Windows 10 HTPC since it has an SSD for the index and metadata. They don’t suggest installing on a NAS which was my first thought since I have a Synology unit because the interface will be sluggish on a regular spinning disk. It found my NAS which is where I have my music files saved after I typed in the path and credentials. It indexed my entire music library in a few minutes and pulled metadata from the file names and stored image artwork. Really amazing. It found and properly configured my USB DAC to 24 bit 192 kHz. It offers wasapi output for bit perfect playback. It will also decode tidal MQA which means I don’t need a MQA capable DAC saving me hundreds. The user interface is easy to understand and pulls details for more well known artists sometimes for each album like a couple of paragraphs describing the album. As a bonus I can also stream my local radio stations and one of my favorite EDM stations SomaFM. This is really an amazing technology and I can now sit on my balcony and control my music without having to be in front of the HTPC with my keyboard and mouse. Now I can just use my iPad to control playback from anyplace. Only integration I would like to see added is Sirius XM as I listen to a lot of their Symphony Hall channel. Would highly suggest Roon if you’re into HiFi or currently use Foobar.

6 years ago, ipodilicious

Best way to navigate one’s music collection

Since the first time Roon was available, I fell in love with it’s interface. I like the way it reports on the DACs, streamers status. Now with the interface updates with a better playback experience, use of more Roon ready devices, addition of iPhones and iPads interfaces plus to crown their updates; Chromecast and MQA compatibility. It’s been a truck load of enjoyable added features. The software has been extensively enhanced and it just gets better with age. Just a warning if your Core is at the latest, make sure you load the latest release to your other devices. The Audio settings will crash your app otherwise. To be honest, with all of the plethora of software programs available out there, specially the ones related to Audio, this one is worth every penny, you won’t be disappointed. I would suggest you build your Core on Intel NUC using fast memory, PCIe M.2 drive for holding Roon Core and attached USB 3 drives for music storage, with simple Windows desktop operating system (Win 10 home or Professional) and you’ll be running trouble free with future proofing your storage. For me it has made Roon rock solid. If you’re like me with a sizable music library, this is one of the best ways to tame it.

4 years ago, HS2012

Ultimate digital music experience (almost)

Roon is almost an ultimate music experience one can imagine but the reason I am putting ultimate for couple reasons. 1. Catalogue info still limited I know I am not a traditional user. My music library consists foreign (in my case Japanese) musics. So many information about artists, songs are missing. But Japan has huge database site so I hope Roon simply connects to it or at least give an option to do so. 2. Music on the go Yes. Roon is for the purest/quality base music app/service/platform but I say take it next level and call it ultimate music platform. Music lovers listen music on the go. Currently no way to really have roon music sync with iOS. Ideally, roon app perhaps separate app should allow easy local download of music files to iOS along with its playlist. Music file should be at the max quality the device supports (better yet its selectable).

8 months ago, ianmbelinos

Barely usable

I returned to using Roon after an absence of more than a year and was disappointed to find that the Roon Remote app is still practically unusable for those of us whom are visually impaired and rely on the accessibility ZOom feature on the iPad . To put it bluntly this app is impossible to use as it does not behave consistently with ZOom. The three and two finger gestures are almost without fail misinterpreted or not responded to at all. I use my iPad with Zoom around six to 8 hours a day without experiencing these issues other than with this app. The developers have known about these issues for well over a year, but have, it appears, made no effort to address them. It can;t be difficult to address them, as every other app seems to work just fine with Apples Zoom - it’s a function provided by the Apple SDK that is easily incorporated into an app. It’s somewhat shameful that Roon makes no effort to incorporate this simple accommodation into its app for those of us who need a little help with our vision issues.

3 years ago, 7vegano7

Unusable since update 831

This review is for the iOS Roon Remote app. The Roon service itself is great, if you can use it. Unfortunately, the last update to this app, which was released about a month and a half ago, makes it unusable for many users. The app now syncs the volume setting of the iOS device it’s running on to the volume setting of the streaming device that it’s controlling, and leaves it that way, even after exiting the app. This can have different results. The volume of my streamer is set more than 4 times higher than the volume of my iPhone. Thus, if I open Roon Remote, from that point on, all sounds coming from my phone will blast me at more than 4 times the expected volume. For people whose streamers are set to fixed volume, this app mutes their phone. No ringtones, alerts, or sound from any app. This problem was reported by multiple users immediately. To date, Roon has issued no confirmation that they intend to fix it. If you are considering Roon, and want to control it with an iOS device, I suggest waiting until they fix this.

4 years ago, Andrewmg

The Best Music Software on the Market

Roon is for music lovers, those who have taken the time and effort to assemble a stereo or headphone system for listening. If that’s you, then Roon is the perfect complement. It’s bit-perfect, loaded with DSP features to adjust the sound in a high-quality fashion, and provides a gorgeous and functional user interface to navigate your collection and discover new music. A single Roon server can be used to stream music to endpoints all around the house, and basically any recent computer or device works as a full-featured remote. Nothing beats Roon Remote on an iPad, which puts your complete music library literally at your fingertips. Finally, the developer takes user feedback seriously but also, and more important, has a clear vision for development of the platform. The result is an elegant and useful system that bests anything on the market at any price.

3 years ago, sklemow

Latest release crashes

Build 923 of the remote app keeps crashing over and over. Still having issues with spinning wheel of death when adding new albums to favorites, occurs with Tidal or Qobuz. Has been an issue for months. Opened a ticket to no avail. Roon is a fantastic music ecosystem with innumerable features that are worthwhile to the audiophile, and I have held on to it over Audirvana due to its faster, more ergonomic design—but instability issues are starting to be a major liability. If you have a mesh network, expect there to be problems (and make sure you enable multicast on your router if available—if not, don’t try Roon at all). Roon, you’ve got a terrific user feedback forum. Please start paying closer attention to problems that are mentioned by multiple users instead of asking us to go through endless back-and-forth troubleshooting steps. If several users complain of the same issues, the problem is with your software, not our setups.

2 years ago, mdconnelly

World class music streaming

I’ve been using Roon since 2015 and without doubt, it is by far the best music streaming solution available. It has fundamentally changed how I listen to music. But, it does place a requirement on you and your home. You need a solid internet connection, a strong wifi in your home, a relatively modern computer to run the Roon Core on, and a wired network connection between the Core and your router. A modicum of understanding about computer networking helps. With all that said, Roon’s online Knowledge Base goes a long way in helping with that and Roon greatly rewards those that make the effort.

3 years ago, Tech.13

Pretty and Buggy

Roon is incredible, linking each of your devices in your home to a super smart music wizard which understands what you like. It’s new interface finally brings it to looking modern and fresh. I could spend hours just reading and browsing - feels sort of like a record store of old. Unfortunately…scrolling is buggy, with frequent frame drops, which really takes away from the experience I am paying [a lot!] for. Also, for some reason it drops out of RAM quickly and each time I open it, even if it’s only been 15 seconds, it has to reload which is jarring and frustrating when I want to make a quick change. All of this on a freshly reset iPad Pro 2018.

6 years ago, FransT62

Mostly annoying Remote App for an expensive music player

Already when connected the Remote App is below expectations for a remote of a music player that is this expensive. It feels as if Roon has tried to port every single option from the Core software to this remote and has made the final product counter intuitive and an outright pain to use. The worst part however is connecting. The connecting when everything is ok is about as slow as the Apple Remote App but when either the Core or the Remote App is connected to a wifi extender the connecting process is extremely frustrating, involving multiple manual retries to forced shutdowns of the App to get it to connect. At this price point (of the Core) this should be better.

2 years ago, GuyADye

Unbelievable…When It’s Not Crashing

The Roon service is nothing short of spectacular. But I’m an iOS user. Which has meant pulling my hair out. The iOS version of Roon Remote is virtually unusable. I start the app…play a track…and it crashes. I open the app again…it stays open for a few seconds…then crashes. There are multiple reports of the same behavior so it’s not me…it’s not my network…I’m challenge any claim that the issue lies anywhere but within the app itself. I’m gonna have to cancel my sub as iOS is how I listen…and it’s heartbreaking. It’s like owning a beautiful, expensive sports car…that won’t start. :/

2 years ago, biberfan

The only app that requires you to reboot your phone each time it updates

Roon would be the perfect system for my home set up. I use both a NAS and Qobuz and the software combines both together in a very organized way. I think the sound quality through the equipment that I have is great. However, the iOS app has been problematic on my phone for several years. Many times after an update, the app will die after 20 to 30 seconds of using it. The only way to get out of this loop is to restart the phone. I don’t think this company has a lot of skill when it comes to writing iOS apps. If it was more reliable it’d be great.

9 months ago, Ben (north of Boston)

Very bad support and crippling product updates

I was an extremely happy Roon customer for more than two years. Since they have updated the core software a month and a half ago, the system is unusable. The system hangs between tracks. The system hangs when you try to pull up an album. It is not just me. Many people report the same issues. There is no way to get support. There has been radio silence from Roon. They have not acknowledged that the software no longer works. This company is made up of very bad software engineers who have lost their focus. All I want is to listen to my music. You have taken that away. Do not enable these crooks by giving them money.

5 years ago, LeeHammond

Awesome music manager!

Room allows you to control your music in ways iTunes can only dream about. You have one music library for all your devices, with no worries about syncing and copying, duplicates etc. You can make your own playlists and Roon will find album titles and artwork. Yes, it costs some money but you’ll save hours of your life by not f’ing around with your music locations and metadata. If your music library is big, you’ll need to check the hardware prerequisites for the database but it will connect to some models of NAS.

6 years ago, MacFanatik

Please add Apple Watch support!!!

App works great but needs improvement in some areas. I notice that the app “reboots” if I switch to another app then back to Roon. I don’t see an option in system preferences to enable background refresh so maybe this can be added? Also, other platforms like BluOS offer Apple Watch support - ideally this would include track info, play control and volume, but I’d initially settle for just the ability to skip tracks...

4 years ago, vanillaSanchez

I love Roon but this app is making it difficult

I’m new to the service, and so far, I love it. It’s really beautiful and makes discovering your library (and new music with Qobuz/Tidal) really fun. However, it crashes CONSTANTLY on my iPhone. It works fine on my PC and my iPad, but if I try to do anything on my phone, it crashes about every 15 seconds. It’s unusable. The service is great and if you don’t plan on using your iPhone as the main remote then this won’t be a problem for you, but I really hope they can fix the problems with the iPhone app soon. The service is a 5/5 for sure but that’s not what I’m reviewing here

7 years ago, Aby Normal

Beware - Dangerous and amateurish support

In my personal opinion: Non intuitive interface supported by documentation written to contain as few words as possible. Roon loaded Tidal My Collections with thousands of suggestions that aren’t remotely close to what I listen to and then tells me I have to delete them one at a time to avoid deleting my music that i purchased that is located on my hard drive. They even go as far as to prevent you from recovering your own music that you might delete trying to get rid of the junk they loaded into your Tidal, or Roon account. How do they prevent this? Be bypassing your deleted items folder. Genius! How did they come up with that idea? Google it.

6 years ago, slippytoad

Functionality is good, usability is not

As others have said Roon is a nice way to manage your local music collection in the same place as the streaming services you connect to. Lots of nice meta data is pulled in so everything feels rich and complete. The spoiler for me though is the performance of the app. For some reason it has to refresh and reconnect every time it starts or comes into the foreground. Why they didn’t implement local caching to improve the UX is beyond me. A usability turn-off which is why I dropped two stars.

2 years ago, alsdkfjas

Absolutely worth every penny

Roon does so much I can’t imagine living without it. Lets me mingle my personal collection with streaming from Tidal and Qobuz, let’s me transcode and EQ / room correct if I want, all with a slick interface that feels a million years ahead of everything else. Also massive thank you to whoever at Roon finally fixed the trackpad scrolling issue on iPad.

3 years ago, Umapet

Growing Pains, but still a great service

Compared to other similar services, this is a great app. Excellent support, knowledgeable user base to ease through the growing pains of the “new” Roon. I myself, haven’t experienced the crashing, and some of the other negative responses. There are small bugs, but nothing serious enough to rate negatively. Well worth the money.

3 years ago, umami

Crashes way too often for the quality being offered

When launching the app doesn’t crash the desktop player, half of the remaining times it crashes the app itself. The player stops randomly. The app can’t connect to the core. Scrolling on the iPad version with a trackpad is unbelievably bad. Roon offers incredible quality audio and the best library of artist info anywhere. It’s a pity their software can barely handle the job. Not once has anyone from Roon responded to these repeated requests.

8 months ago, nymarty

Roon iOS Crashes a Lot

For some reason the iOS app has been hanging often. Roon is playing but I lose control and have to quit and restart the iOSapp constantly. Gets annoying after a while — especially when Roon doesn’t acknowledge it’s happening to a lot of people. Complaints are all over the Roon community but the standard response is that it’s the user’s network — which is not tye case here. Just fix the app already!

3 years ago, Some bloke

Great!

My setup is really simple. I have loaded Roon into my Mac Mini that then sends the music to my stereo system. It wrks great. Sounds really good - much better than Apple Music (iTunes), and plays all audio formats I’ve thrown at it. The interface is really addictive and is only getting better with each upgrade. I’m really happy I went this direction.

4 years ago, Pasha Antipov

Crashes with no fix in sight

This app has only partial functionality of the iPad remote version. No editing metadata, no focus features, etc. that I believe should be included. But most importantly, this app crashes frequently. It is the only app that I have had on my iPhone in the past nine years that requires a complete phone shut down/restart to cure the crash bug temporarily. I have had the Roon team link the app on my phone so that all crash reports are sent to them, I have participated on their forums, and they have been aware of the issue for at least a year. Their online forum is littered with new and older users having this problem. I own a Nucleus+ and a lifetime subscription, but I am not a fan boy. This is a VERY disappointing app in the Roon ecosystem. It just isn’t ready for prime time.

3 years ago, Wrxified

Pretty dang awful

Not sure if this is the right spot for this feedback. Just wanted to share my observations. Last day of my trial and I’m honestly struggling to decide if this is worth it. First off, Roon does something’s really well. Artist, Genre, management of the library, etc., spot on. It’s superb. But beyond that it leaves a lot to be desired. I’m sitting hear listening to a playlist. As I’m looking through the Queue I on my iPhone using the Roon remote, I decide I want to hop to another track. I click on the track and all of a sudden I’m in the album for that track and scratching my head as to why. My queue is now gone. How can this be this hard. On the desktop server I can simply click on play from here. On the phone there is nothing. Without a similar experience it’s of no use to me. Am I supposed to get up and use the computer every time?

3 years ago, Freedom Family

Was once great No longer

First thing you should know is this is an expensive app that requires you to invest time. It’s also pervasive I. The sense that once you go with Roon, you are likely going to be stuck with it sense it’s so universal to the handling of your music assets. That used to be OK because the app was incredibly stable and the UI was quite Intuitive. Then Roon decided to change everything and the result has been a disastrous and confusing UI for the silliest Play abs Queueing tasks. Even worse the app has become so unstable that it’s basically unusable on an iPhone. iOS 14: forget it. It won’t even stay open for long enough to accomplish anything. For a serious audio app, right now this would be a terrible choice if you want ease of use and stability Avoid until there are major fixes.

4 years ago, Technology Poet

New Roon app is amazing

The UI upgrade is a breath of fresh air and makes it easy to get around a large library. I love the way the update brings my music to the forefront and encourages me to listen more. Awesome update! (Note for developers - please copy the circle volume from Linn, it’s so much easier to fine tune volume with that type of control on a phone)

2 years ago, BigTex1022

Two big fixes needed

When the app works, it’s pretty good, but there are two major issues 1) the app frequently crashes on my iPhone (interestingly enough, not on my iPad though) and 2) the app requires a complete restart every time you leave it and come back, which can be annoying. Fix those two items and you’ll have a winner.

10 months ago, Zerp, III

Say goodbye to your battery charge

Functionally a great app, but please make it more efficient. If I forget to close (not just background) it my battery is empty in a day or two. There is no reason it uses 20x more power in background than other iOS apps.

4 years ago, LaverUK

Decent when it works, horrible crash.

When it works it’s good, let’s you get to most roon features. Seems to be second priority over the desktop experience. Last several versions have a severe crashing bug that can ONLY be resolved by deleting the app, restarting the phone, and re-installing the app. Which is really inconvenient. Seems to happen every few weeks.

2 years ago, Kyle Falconer

Unreliable

This app crashes so often on both my phone and my wife’s phone (iPhone 13 pro and non-pro) that it’s basically unusable. I’m order to stop the music or change songs I have to open the app on my computer. I’ve tried resetting the app, uninstalling, restarting the phone and Roon server, also uploaded crash logs to Roon, and still no response and no app update. This is extremely disappointing. Further, I’d like a way to listen remotely such as in my car.

7 years ago, Dieselgeek123

Just what I’ve been looking for to manage my music

I’ve been using Roon since they first released it and have been very satisfied with it. Right now I use a retired quad core MacBook as my core , and I have 3 end points in the House. Oppo 203, Apple Air Play and my MacBook Pro. I love the UI and the DSP, and of course how well it works with tidal.

2 years ago, Mobisucker

Bugs, bugs, bugs

The app was working for a while, but then the bugs re-emerged. It can control audio output from the core system. It cannot detect audio output from iOS devices. It cannot get sound out of my Cambridge streamer. The Roon library system is excellent. The Roon audio quality is excellent. The Roon app’s inability to control remote devices is just plain annoying. I can easily control my core audio system through my Mac mini. So the app is just another tiresome remote control unit. This is supposed to be a music-streaming app, but it cannot produce sound from most devices. A silent streamer? Come on people - fix this!

3 years ago, sf-pete-nyc

Crashes a lot (but good when it’s actually working)

App crashes pretty consistently on my iPhone and Tidal seems to stream slowly enough through my Roon server that songs abruptly stop and move to the next track. When it works, it’s good. However, the app basically has served as a way for me to start an album remotely and not as a reliable tool to browse and interact with my library.

6 years ago, phototristan

Good app but missing direct Tidal playback

This is a very good app however it syncs to the Roon core either on your computer or server. There are some other apps that let you stream/ play Tidal including Tidal masters directly on the iOS device. I wish Roon would build that feature!

4 years ago, Nike Mutante

Bug Report

Roon is the best, great app. Got iOS 14 something, the current version on an iPhone 12 mini. When I go to Zones I can pick a player but can’t get out of the dialog... no button on this phone and no gesture lets me escape, I’d think it should back out when I swipe

11 months ago, DonkeyHodie

Roon radio is boring and repetitive

This has been reported for more than TWO YEARS. Roon radio repeats the same tracks over and over and over. Roon acknowledges that it does it but no fix despite repeated complaints. I have a lifetime license. Wish I hadn’t wasted my money. Total crap and to be avoided. Yet another one of those apps that introduces a feature, throws it over the wall without testing and then moves on to introduce other new, untested features.

3 years ago, Gpsarros

Fix this crap already!

Jesus Christ fix this junk already!!! You put you stupid circles and this “classic” look and ruined a good product. This crap crashes on my iPhone over and over and over. It didn’t do that before the 1.8 update. It’s been two days and I still cannot find my audio outputs. Can’t find my B&W Duos. Can’t find my B&W Wedge. Can’t find my Auralic. Can’t find my Apple TV’s. Thanks for solving for a problem that didn’t exist!!!

6 years ago, ams318

UI big step back

Your iPad now mimics a desktop PC, cluttered with information and strangely hard to navigate, too busy for an activity like listening to music. More information presented to you does not make an interface better, usually the opposite which is sadly the case with this release. Hoping they back off this direction and revert back to something the resembles the old app.

3 years ago, Azwipe

Great when it works, but plagued with bugs

Roon is great. Worth the price. But this app freezes up regularly, almost every time I use it. It also occasionally will randomly skip to the next track in the middle of a song. The devs need to put in a lot more work, considering the cost.

4 years ago, yopyopyop

Remote for beat home audiophile setup

This is a iPhone remote app for Roon, which is a paid software service that ties in streaming and your own high res files. Audiophile. Awesome. It could use some more iOS features like swipe.

2 years ago, Dwrldzmine

Normally a great app

After the recent update the app crashes repeatedly even after a fresh install. What’s odd is it opens back up to where you left off so if you’re patient you can eventually play your music where you want too. Hopefully this is resolved soon.

6 months ago, musikmusikmusik

Roon Broken After Latest Update

Unfortunately the most recent update broke Roon for me. No matter what I do, force closing the app or restarting my phone or connecting different DACs, Roon always says “No audio devices found”, not even the phone speakers. And when you go to the audio page where you would usually enable / disable devices, it’s just blank. So Roon is just completely unusable now.

4 years ago, Calloyaddy

Great when it works

Love this and need it on my phone, but is consistently crashes on my iPhone 11 Pro. I continue to delete and reinstall the app only to be confronted by the same issue after varying periods of time—never any longer than 5-7 days. So frustrating.

5 years ago, SirCheech

Best multi zone audio management platform

If you are serious about the fidelity of your music and want to tie your home and your music library into a singular platform, this is it. This is the best in the market, hands down.

1 year ago, Dhjdhj

Useful but blocking VPN access is insulting

Nice to be able to control my DAC and have all the “liner notes” etc. But I want to be able to access my server remotely and the developer is deliberately blocking my ability to do that, even on a private peer to peer network. Otherwise I would give this app 5 stars

2 years ago, LlJoCa

Roon is great but…

I think the app needs an update. It crashes all the time now. Minus that issue though, the whole Roon eco-system is amazing. Keep up the good work!

2 years ago, who*knows

The best

I have tried them all. Roon is very stable running on an old apple laptop supplying music to all my devices. Lifetime subscription recommended !!

3 years ago, JMCzech

App constantly crashes

I mean, constantly. PC version is fine, but the iPhone version is virtually unusable, and apparently it’s been this way for other users for at least a year. Seriously, I’ve never seen an app that crashes like this, so often. I love Roon for many reasons, but it’s like buying a TV in 2021 with no remote control capabilities.

Description

*** Roon Remote requires a valid Roon subscription *** Roon Remote lets you browse and play your music library on over 1,000 compatible audio devices by providing a seamless in-home connection with your Roon Core. You can install the free Roon Remote app on as many devices as you want. What is Roon? The very best way to experience your music: Roon reshapes the way you browse and explore music. Powered by rich metadata, Roon’s interface invites you on a new journey of musical discovery every time you log in. Your music library becomes the starting point on a vast map of performers, composers, influences, and genres. Follow the path emanating from the music you love to discover exciting new sounds and reconnect with long-forgotten favorites. You can delve even deeper through lyrics, artist photos, bios, reviews, and tour dates - then continue the journey with recommendations specifically tailored to your tastes and listening habits. Listen anywhere, on all your gear: Roon lets you play from your collection of music files and TIDAL, Qobuz, and KKBOX libraries on thousands of Roon Ready, Airplay, Chromecast, and USB devices from one app inside your home. Meanwhile, Roon ARC provides access, playback, and precision audio control for your entire Roon music library directly from your phone, wherever you are in the world. Flawless playback. Everywhere, every time: Roon is built to ensure your music sounds perfect every time you hit play, no matter where you are. Roon guarantees the best possible sound quality from every piece of audio gear - our MUSE sound engine delivers bit-perfect playback, exhaustive format support, and precision audio control for a fully customizable and flawless listening experience. From headphones to your home hi-fi, and everything in between.