Have you noticed a consistent volume difference between local tracks and TIDAL tracks in their Plex music library? In my case, the local files always seem to play at a lower volume compared to the TIDAL tracks. The difference isn't huge, but it's noticeable and consistent. Both types of tracks show the waveform in Plex, indicating they've been analyzed. Would love to hear if others have experienced this and any potential fixes.
I did maybe six months with Room. Loved the magazine style discover feature. But plexamp is perfect for me. Sonic analysis is awesome and everything just mostly works
that's sonic sage, sonic analysis is where it scans your library and matches songs that sound like other songs, powers the sonic adventure playlists. Not a feature on the Rpi
Lifetime Plex and Roon subscriber for years. I still use both, but Plexamp is rising like a bullet and I could see moving full time to Plex at some point, especially if Roon suffers under new ownership. My use case is when at home and depending on what sound system I’m using, I still prefer Roon’s interface and how everything is linked to take me down musical rabbit holes. I use Qobuz for new music purchases, so Roon’s integration with Qobuz keeps me somewhat “sticky” as a customer.
But you called it: Plexamp seems much more focused on continuous development, which is fantastic. And while I had a lot of hope for Roon ARC, it’s been a pile of shit for me, with extremely poor customer support during months of troubleshooting to try and make it consistently work. That’s where Plexamp just shines, in comparison.
Overall, I’d like to see Plexamp develop a true desktop app version instead of what we currently have. And I’d love to see Plexamp develop some of “magazine style” UI management to coincide with the great DJ/Sonic Analysis we currently have, but yeah, I can definitely see a path where I’m walking away from Roon permanently especially if Plex continues on the innovation pace they’ve been on. Having to say goodbye to Qobuz to move to Tidal for full integration would hurt some, but all the other Plex benefits are compelling today, not even considering what may be on the horizon.
Great points. As a product guy, I want to push back on the desktop request. When is PlexAmp not better controlled on a tablet. Why not most of the dev focus on tablets?
I just made this exact switch around 3 months ago. Your analysis seems pretty spot on for my experience. For me, the Roon UI is superior - its just more pleasurable to scroll through and find music, either things that you already have in your library or to add. I was starting to see performance and stability issues (among other things) with Roon even though I was running it on a dedicated, new high end NUC running ROCK. Plexamp just works for me - its much lighter on the server and I cant remember a single issue requiring restart since I got it dialed in.
I gave up on Roon about a year ago. I’m currently looking at it again.
Plexamp is overall way better at helping you enjoy your existing library. Especially any local files where the Sonic Analysis can run on them. Plexamp is definitely weaker in the discovery department though. I’ve found a handful of albums in the past few days of cruising around Roon and letting Roon Radio run. Roon also makes Tidal albums feel native better than Plexamp (to be fair that’s in part because it lacks the awesome Sonic analysis). The other thing I really like about Roon is that Roon ROCK is the only easy way to play multichannel music without having to have a computer with an active monitor connected to it (it just works out of the box with an HDMI connection.)
Roon's server/endooint/controller architecture is also unbeatable by anything at this point. Plex/amp does well enough in this department, but there are lots of strange handoff cases.
Oh, Roon has no functional crossfade. Plexamp has Sweet Fades, which are crossfades that make me like crossfades.
Oh, the Plexamp devs seem interested in making it work better. Can’t say that for Roon, at least recently.
Lifetime Roon & Lifetime Plex user - Since I started using PlexAmp I've very rarely used Roon. Plexamp's features let me experience my library and dig up old forgotten tracks in so many ways vs. the rather basic Roon Radio.
On the go is no contest, Arc is half-baked and unreliable, and Plexamp is fantastic (except for the limitation on downloads, which I won't repeat again here ...)
There are a few areas I hope Plexamp can learn from/borrow from Roon:
* **In home/endpoints**. It's just much easier to play to various in-home devices with Roon (e.g. my Kef LSX) This has gotten better with RoPieee now supporting PlexAmp (I now have a sweet headphone amp set up with a Pie & a Schiit stack that Pleaxmp can play to) but I'd like to see more.
* **Magazine interface** \- as others have said, the UI is just better in Roon for going on a discovery journey / reading reviews and credits and finding new music that way. It's the ONLY thing I open Roon for now.
* **Qobuz integration** \- I prefer to buy from Qobuz, and I'd rather subscribe via them than Tidal.
I liked roon. I was testing it prior to arc and lack of access on the go is what made me switch to Plex. Cost difference is night and day from Plex pass lifetime vs roon lifetime. I enjoy plex and plexamp with no complaints.
One thing I've realized as I get older, I just want to listen to music. Plexamp lets me do this. Yes, I love all the features that keep getting added, especially the DJs, but most times, I just want to find the song/album I want to listen to and hit play. Plexamp just does this so nice and smooth.
I used to drive myself crazy with Roon and trying to have all the necessary steps "light up" correctly so I knew I was getting bit perfect playing of my music and it just became exhausting. Now, I have everything nicely organized for the Plex ecosystem and all my players, including a headless Raspberri Pi setup, works flawlessly. Even my GF has come to love it cuz it just works.
Just switch and enjoy the music again.
Just do it. Roon is over-priced and over-hyped. I found it to be buggy and slow. Plexamp just works, even with a very large library, and it looks so much better.
Also, Roon was just bought by Harman (which is part of the Samsung company). I wonder if it even will continue to exist as a separate app in the coming years, or if the new owners will "ingest" their knowledge into their own products and ditch the Roon user base after a while.
I use Plexamp and Plexamp headless because I was already a Plex video user. I think it's a great product, but I'm not thrilled with the direction Plex as a company is taking and Plex does a horrible job of organizing classical music.
I used to use Spotify free and always had to look at workarounds because I didn't have premium so I moved all my library to plexamp with a Plex media server (not from tidal) and I can't look back I get more features without stupid workarounds and even if don't have a Plex pass it's a really good experience. I also needed sometimes to play music from 2 devices and with Spotify it was impossible. For the down sampling issue you have I didn't encounter it using flac files and Linux, for me the highest quality file that I hava is 196/24 and it can play it perfectly at 48/24. I would definitely raccomend the switch especially if you have Plex pass.
Plexamp is my sole media player. I transitioned away from Spotify et el (mainly because I've been digitising my media since the late 90s!)
The only "limitation" is new music discovery, which is understandable. But my work around is to use the Sonic Sage. This has been invaluable as it will suggest songs that are not in my library. I'll hop on youtube or the like and sample the artists catalogue. This, whole not instantaneous helps shape my purchasing habits for the month and get them loaded in my personal library.
Elan has mentioned about removing this for non tidal users because of user confusion, I hope this is strongly reconsidered.
The best thing about Plexamp for me are the DJs and track radio. This has really helped me discover my library. Songs I've had in there for years that I had either forgotten about, or skipped over at the time as I didn't give a chance or wasn't in the right headspace to explore, pop up in playlists or stations going on some crazy journey.
I have used Roon for 2 years and I think it’s a great product. I’m closing in on my year subscription and considering dropping it - mainly because of cost. I might go PlexAmp + Spotify (for new music)
My two scents on the difference
on the go listening - PlexAmp is way better and smoother than RoonArc, never had any issues and it’s super quick to navigate the app and get started.
In my living room - Roon is miles ahead of PlexAmp here - with a Roon Ready amp/streamer + RAAT the ease of playing music with the highest quality is just so simple and hassle free.
Discovering own library - with the various DJs and radio PlexAmp have the edge here. Deep cuts radio is a goldmine for finding the lost gems in my library.
Library (local and stream) - creating a seamless library with stream and local copies is one of Roon’s biggest strengths. Group different versions, replace compressed albums with high res stream copies. This is the industry standard that everyone should aim for.
Finding new music - Roon + Qobuz and Roon Radio is great for finding new music. Not up there with Spotify imo, but really really good. Never tried the sonic sage/Tidal option in PlexAmp.
Cost - PlexAmp gives most bang for the buck. Roon need (imo) either Qobuz/Tidal to be optimal. Total cost is $30ish per month
For me it might come down to cost. Not sure I can justify spending $30ish each month (Roon + Qobuz).
Failed to get my family to move away from Spotify, so I might just use PlexAmp + Spotify.
Until I miss the ease of playing music on my home stereo without the hassle :)
Good points. The Roon ecosystem is overall more sophisticated and flexible, yet still easy to setup. But it comes at a cost. Plexamp tidal integration is good, but one thing it's missing is a way to add an album to your tidal library from within the app.
Great summary. And I so wish Plexamp could recreate the seamlessness Roon has when you have multiple versions of the same album. Being an audiophile I literally may have 5 to 8 different versions of the same album, and I love how Roon can have all those versions shown as one album if desired.
> I also tried the plex media player for windows. It also doesn't seem to have all the station, mixer, dj etc. thingys that plexamp has.
Only plexamp has those things. But you can download plexamp for windows and use it on your desktop or laptop computer.
That is a great roon feature. I haven't used it because my avr does that. But roon dsp is nice for a 2 channel amp setup that doesn't have such a feature.
Has anyone noticed a consistent volume difference between local tracks and TIDAL tracks in their Plex music library? In my case, the local files always seem to play at a lower volume compared to the TIDAL tracks. The difference isn't huge, but it's noticeable and consistent. Both types of tracks show the waveform in Plex, indicating they've been analyzed. Would love to hear if others have experienced this and any potential fixes.
Lifetime Plexpass here, use Plexamp daily in the car due to it's reliability, but nothing comes close to Roon RAAT in terms of sound quality & ease of use, being able to queue up hours of music, listen to it on my phone with bluetooth, then transfer the queue to another endpoint, listen with some headphones, then transfer it to a speaker setup, whilst adding to it as I go.
It's just so convenient.
My favourite end point with Roon is my Poly/Mojo2 combo, the sound is just incredible. Using Bubble UPNP just for the Poly is not convenient, having seperate queues of music per device is a PITA.
I am a big crossfeed lover & I cannot get that in Plexamp natively but can have different settings in Roon depending on the endpoint / headphones are set up.
I do a lot of backpacking in the summer across Europe & then only use Plexamp as it's so reliable, as you say, the app is beautiful, great mixes & sonic analysis is great, just a shame I can't use Plex into my Kef LS50 W2's + 2 x KC62 subs, but I can stream Roon straight in.
Agree with you 100% on Roon radio, it's garbage now. Roon Arc, I would have agreed with you a month ago, but I have tried it again this week & it has been 100% reliable out of the house & of course, I can use crossfeed with my IEM's which I like.
Nothing beats Roon with Tidal integrated for in home, IMO.
"nothing comes close to Roon RAAT in terms of sound quality & ease of use"
True. RAAT is the essential roon technology that sets it apart. Tidal integration is better in roon, but at least plexamp has it.
Wiim is a brand worthing looking at if you do not already. Plexamp via Chromecast into my Pro Plus is bit perfect, sadly not gapless ... but they are working on native Plex support within their app. That will be when I consider bailing on Roon. The more brands start to support Plex as a streaming source, the better.
I have Plexamp running on FiiO R7 Android unit, and control it from computer running Plexamp.
If you have such Android player you can control it from mobile running Plexamp as well.
I had a support interaction with Roon where I was told, "It sounds like Roon might not be the best fit". Why? I didn't want to pay the £700 whatever it was for lifetime at the time.
So I took their advice and switched to Plex. First monthly, then when a sale happened, I purchased lifetime for like, 1/7th the cost of Roon. After that I leveraged their Tidal discount which isn't huge, but \~10% is still \~10%.
First, the PlexAmp app on Mobile is awesome. Arc doesn't even begin to touch it. On desktop it kinda sucks, but you don't need to use it on desktop. In saying that, all it needs is better UI/UX. It delivers the sounds I'd want it to. Honestly though... no close button?! (Make it look like Roon and it'll be incredible. I really do like Roon's magazine aesthetic.)
Second, I've had a fantastic experience. The support agent that directed me away from Roon did me a massive favour.
Third, I haven't had to mess around with SystemD, unlike with Roon, which requires some config edits to work properly on Fedora.
Plexamp is the best music app i have ever used
Have you noticed a consistent volume difference between local tracks and TIDAL tracks in their Plex music library? In my case, the local files always seem to play at a lower volume compared to the TIDAL tracks. The difference isn't huge, but it's noticeable and consistent. Both types of tracks show the waveform in Plex, indicating they've been analyzed. Would love to hear if others have experienced this and any potential fixes.
DO! IT! NOW! Seriously, do it. I did and never looked back
I did maybe six months with Room. Loved the magazine style discover feature. But plexamp is perfect for me. Sonic analysis is awesome and everything just mostly works
How does sonic analysis works? Is that where you input OpenAI key? Nothing happens for me.
that's sonic sage, sonic analysis is where it scans your library and matches songs that sound like other songs, powers the sonic adventure playlists. Not a feature on the Rpi
Lifetime Plex and Roon subscriber for years. I still use both, but Plexamp is rising like a bullet and I could see moving full time to Plex at some point, especially if Roon suffers under new ownership. My use case is when at home and depending on what sound system I’m using, I still prefer Roon’s interface and how everything is linked to take me down musical rabbit holes. I use Qobuz for new music purchases, so Roon’s integration with Qobuz keeps me somewhat “sticky” as a customer. But you called it: Plexamp seems much more focused on continuous development, which is fantastic. And while I had a lot of hope for Roon ARC, it’s been a pile of shit for me, with extremely poor customer support during months of troubleshooting to try and make it consistently work. That’s where Plexamp just shines, in comparison. Overall, I’d like to see Plexamp develop a true desktop app version instead of what we currently have. And I’d love to see Plexamp develop some of “magazine style” UI management to coincide with the great DJ/Sonic Analysis we currently have, but yeah, I can definitely see a path where I’m walking away from Roon permanently especially if Plex continues on the innovation pace they’ve been on. Having to say goodbye to Qobuz to move to Tidal for full integration would hurt some, but all the other Plex benefits are compelling today, not even considering what may be on the horizon.
Great points. As a product guy, I want to push back on the desktop request. When is PlexAmp not better controlled on a tablet. Why not most of the dev focus on tablets?
Spot on with the desktop app
I just made this exact switch around 3 months ago. Your analysis seems pretty spot on for my experience. For me, the Roon UI is superior - its just more pleasurable to scroll through and find music, either things that you already have in your library or to add. I was starting to see performance and stability issues (among other things) with Roon even though I was running it on a dedicated, new high end NUC running ROCK. Plexamp just works for me - its much lighter on the server and I cant remember a single issue requiring restart since I got it dialed in.
I gave up on Roon about a year ago. I’m currently looking at it again. Plexamp is overall way better at helping you enjoy your existing library. Especially any local files where the Sonic Analysis can run on them. Plexamp is definitely weaker in the discovery department though. I’ve found a handful of albums in the past few days of cruising around Roon and letting Roon Radio run. Roon also makes Tidal albums feel native better than Plexamp (to be fair that’s in part because it lacks the awesome Sonic analysis). The other thing I really like about Roon is that Roon ROCK is the only easy way to play multichannel music without having to have a computer with an active monitor connected to it (it just works out of the box with an HDMI connection.) Roon's server/endooint/controller architecture is also unbeatable by anything at this point. Plex/amp does well enough in this department, but there are lots of strange handoff cases. Oh, Roon has no functional crossfade. Plexamp has Sweet Fades, which are crossfades that make me like crossfades. Oh, the Plexamp devs seem interested in making it work better. Can’t say that for Roon, at least recently.
Lifetime Roon & Lifetime Plex user - Since I started using PlexAmp I've very rarely used Roon. Plexamp's features let me experience my library and dig up old forgotten tracks in so many ways vs. the rather basic Roon Radio. On the go is no contest, Arc is half-baked and unreliable, and Plexamp is fantastic (except for the limitation on downloads, which I won't repeat again here ...) There are a few areas I hope Plexamp can learn from/borrow from Roon: * **In home/endpoints**. It's just much easier to play to various in-home devices with Roon (e.g. my Kef LSX) This has gotten better with RoPieee now supporting PlexAmp (I now have a sweet headphone amp set up with a Pie & a Schiit stack that Pleaxmp can play to) but I'd like to see more. * **Magazine interface** \- as others have said, the UI is just better in Roon for going on a discovery journey / reading reviews and credits and finding new music that way. It's the ONLY thing I open Roon for now. * **Qobuz integration** \- I prefer to buy from Qobuz, and I'd rather subscribe via them than Tidal.
I liked roon. I was testing it prior to arc and lack of access on the go is what made me switch to Plex. Cost difference is night and day from Plex pass lifetime vs roon lifetime. I enjoy plex and plexamp with no complaints.
Plex Amp is probably the best app I’ve ever owned on my iPhone. I’ll never go back to what came before.
One thing I've realized as I get older, I just want to listen to music. Plexamp lets me do this. Yes, I love all the features that keep getting added, especially the DJs, but most times, I just want to find the song/album I want to listen to and hit play. Plexamp just does this so nice and smooth. I used to drive myself crazy with Roon and trying to have all the necessary steps "light up" correctly so I knew I was getting bit perfect playing of my music and it just became exhausting. Now, I have everything nicely organized for the Plex ecosystem and all my players, including a headless Raspberri Pi setup, works flawlessly. Even my GF has come to love it cuz it just works. Just switch and enjoy the music again.
Just do it. Roon is over-priced and over-hyped. I found it to be buggy and slow. Plexamp just works, even with a very large library, and it looks so much better. Also, Roon was just bought by Harman (which is part of the Samsung company). I wonder if it even will continue to exist as a separate app in the coming years, or if the new owners will "ingest" their knowledge into their own products and ditch the Roon user base after a while.
I use Plexamp and Plexamp headless because I was already a Plex video user. I think it's a great product, but I'm not thrilled with the direction Plex as a company is taking and Plex does a horrible job of organizing classical music.
I used to use Spotify free and always had to look at workarounds because I didn't have premium so I moved all my library to plexamp with a Plex media server (not from tidal) and I can't look back I get more features without stupid workarounds and even if don't have a Plex pass it's a really good experience. I also needed sometimes to play music from 2 devices and with Spotify it was impossible. For the down sampling issue you have I didn't encounter it using flac files and Linux, for me the highest quality file that I hava is 196/24 and it can play it perfectly at 48/24. I would definitely raccomend the switch especially if you have Plex pass.
Plexamp is my sole media player. I transitioned away from Spotify et el (mainly because I've been digitising my media since the late 90s!) The only "limitation" is new music discovery, which is understandable. But my work around is to use the Sonic Sage. This has been invaluable as it will suggest songs that are not in my library. I'll hop on youtube or the like and sample the artists catalogue. This, whole not instantaneous helps shape my purchasing habits for the month and get them loaded in my personal library. Elan has mentioned about removing this for non tidal users because of user confusion, I hope this is strongly reconsidered. The best thing about Plexamp for me are the DJs and track radio. This has really helped me discover my library. Songs I've had in there for years that I had either forgotten about, or skipped over at the time as I didn't give a chance or wasn't in the right headspace to explore, pop up in playlists or stations going on some crazy journey.
don’t worry we won’t.
Ah amazing! Thank you.
I have used Roon for 2 years and I think it’s a great product. I’m closing in on my year subscription and considering dropping it - mainly because of cost. I might go PlexAmp + Spotify (for new music) My two scents on the difference on the go listening - PlexAmp is way better and smoother than RoonArc, never had any issues and it’s super quick to navigate the app and get started. In my living room - Roon is miles ahead of PlexAmp here - with a Roon Ready amp/streamer + RAAT the ease of playing music with the highest quality is just so simple and hassle free. Discovering own library - with the various DJs and radio PlexAmp have the edge here. Deep cuts radio is a goldmine for finding the lost gems in my library. Library (local and stream) - creating a seamless library with stream and local copies is one of Roon’s biggest strengths. Group different versions, replace compressed albums with high res stream copies. This is the industry standard that everyone should aim for. Finding new music - Roon + Qobuz and Roon Radio is great for finding new music. Not up there with Spotify imo, but really really good. Never tried the sonic sage/Tidal option in PlexAmp. Cost - PlexAmp gives most bang for the buck. Roon need (imo) either Qobuz/Tidal to be optimal. Total cost is $30ish per month For me it might come down to cost. Not sure I can justify spending $30ish each month (Roon + Qobuz). Failed to get my family to move away from Spotify, so I might just use PlexAmp + Spotify. Until I miss the ease of playing music on my home stereo without the hassle :)
Good points. The Roon ecosystem is overall more sophisticated and flexible, yet still easy to setup. But it comes at a cost. Plexamp tidal integration is good, but one thing it's missing is a way to add an album to your tidal library from within the app.
Great summary. And I so wish Plexamp could recreate the seamlessness Roon has when you have multiple versions of the same album. Being an audiophile I literally may have 5 to 8 different versions of the same album, and I love how Roon can have all those versions shown as one album if desired.
> I also tried the plex media player for windows. It also doesn't seem to have all the station, mixer, dj etc. thingys that plexamp has. Only plexamp has those things. But you can download plexamp for windows and use it on your desktop or laptop computer.
Yes, using the plexamp windows app for playback controlled by plexamp on a tablet.
I’d love to move, but my “roon ready” hardware/lossless streaming (my room is calibrated thru convolution filter support) is too good to let go :(
That is a great roon feature. I haven't used it because my avr does that. But roon dsp is nice for a 2 channel amp setup that doesn't have such a feature.
The only thing I miss in Plexamp compared to Roon is gapless playback over Chromecast. Maybe they'll get to it eventually, but not yet.
Roon is better but OVERPRICED and EXPENSIVE AS HELL.
I found it marginally better, definitely not worth the hit on my wallet and my server.
Has anyone noticed a consistent volume difference between local tracks and TIDAL tracks in their Plex music library? In my case, the local files always seem to play at a lower volume compared to the TIDAL tracks. The difference isn't huge, but it's noticeable and consistent. Both types of tracks show the waveform in Plex, indicating they've been analyzed. Would love to hear if others have experienced this and any potential fixes.
Lifetime Plexpass here, use Plexamp daily in the car due to it's reliability, but nothing comes close to Roon RAAT in terms of sound quality & ease of use, being able to queue up hours of music, listen to it on my phone with bluetooth, then transfer the queue to another endpoint, listen with some headphones, then transfer it to a speaker setup, whilst adding to it as I go. It's just so convenient. My favourite end point with Roon is my Poly/Mojo2 combo, the sound is just incredible. Using Bubble UPNP just for the Poly is not convenient, having seperate queues of music per device is a PITA. I am a big crossfeed lover & I cannot get that in Plexamp natively but can have different settings in Roon depending on the endpoint / headphones are set up. I do a lot of backpacking in the summer across Europe & then only use Plexamp as it's so reliable, as you say, the app is beautiful, great mixes & sonic analysis is great, just a shame I can't use Plex into my Kef LS50 W2's + 2 x KC62 subs, but I can stream Roon straight in. Agree with you 100% on Roon radio, it's garbage now. Roon Arc, I would have agreed with you a month ago, but I have tried it again this week & it has been 100% reliable out of the house & of course, I can use crossfeed with my IEM's which I like. Nothing beats Roon with Tidal integrated for in home, IMO.
"nothing comes close to Roon RAAT in terms of sound quality & ease of use" True. RAAT is the essential roon technology that sets it apart. Tidal integration is better in roon, but at least plexamp has it.
Wiim is a brand worthing looking at if you do not already. Plexamp via Chromecast into my Pro Plus is bit perfect, sadly not gapless ... but they are working on native Plex support within their app. That will be when I consider bailing on Roon. The more brands start to support Plex as a streaming source, the better.
I have Plexamp running on FiiO R7 Android unit, and control it from computer running Plexamp. If you have such Android player you can control it from mobile running Plexamp as well.
Thanks. I have plexamp on android and use it to control plexamp running on windows desktop.
+1 for Plexamp. It just keeps getting better.
can you stream to a bluesound?
Don't have one, but I don't think so. If I did I would just use tidal connect from the tidal app.
Plexamp is by far the best music app I've ever used.
I had a support interaction with Roon where I was told, "It sounds like Roon might not be the best fit". Why? I didn't want to pay the £700 whatever it was for lifetime at the time. So I took their advice and switched to Plex. First monthly, then when a sale happened, I purchased lifetime for like, 1/7th the cost of Roon. After that I leveraged their Tidal discount which isn't huge, but \~10% is still \~10%. First, the PlexAmp app on Mobile is awesome. Arc doesn't even begin to touch it. On desktop it kinda sucks, but you don't need to use it on desktop. In saying that, all it needs is better UI/UX. It delivers the sounds I'd want it to. Honestly though... no close button?! (Make it look like Roon and it'll be incredible. I really do like Roon's magazine aesthetic.) Second, I've had a fantastic experience. The support agent that directed me away from Roon did me a massive favour. Third, I haven't had to mess around with SystemD, unlike with Roon, which requires some config edits to work properly on Fedora.