As all my colleagues went bananas for Spotify Wrapped, I didn't need to check out the green circle to see what my listening stats were. No, I needed to look at my whole home music system, Roon.
See, not only does it bring all my music streaming services and devices into one cohesive whole, but it also tells me how much music I've been listening to. No, it's not smothered with fancy graphics — but it does tell me that I've listened to 457 hours of death metal this year.
Bringing disparate parts together
As much as Sonos, Wiim and other companies might want us to fill our homes with devices from one particular manufacturer, the reality is a whole lot tricker. My home, for example, features smart speakers from Sonos, streaming boxes from Wiim, and even HomePods from Apple.
Controlling all of them together can be, for lack of a better term, nightmarish. Different apps for each speaker, and not all of them support the Qobuz or Tidal connect standards. Enter Roon.
It works with all the different devices of my house together, so that I can stream music to them without heading into a different application. It's something of an audio revelation, especially given how easy it is.
When I want to listen to something on my Sonos Era 300, I select it from the list, and choose some tunes. Then I move room, so I want to change the playback device. Back into the list, and new music device selected — simple.
Built-in music server
I've had numerous music servers so that I can play my collection of tracks around my house through different speakers. There's been a Plexamp, I've used Sqeezeplayer (with its lively and fiercely loyal online fan base), amongst other options.
Roon has made it very simple. I went the easy way — I bought one of Roon's pre-made server boxes (called a "nucleus"), and then filled it with a hard drive and all of my music.
You can make your own Roon Nucleus server with an old computer, so you don't need to spend the money on one from Roon, but it is nice to have a simple, all-in-one boxed solution.
Once you've setup your nucleus and signed into all your music services, you can now access your own music collection alongside the extensive libraries of either Qobuz or Tidal (or both).
Those can both be streamed to your smart music devices. This is not a streaming service in and of itself, and neither does it want to be. Instead,
Bring your music on the go
I don't know about you, but it's annoyingly hard to find a phone with expandable storage in 2025. I don't really want to fill my phone's limited storage with FLAC tracks. So when I want to listen to music that's not available on anything but my home music server, live becomes a whole lot trickier.
At least it was. Thanks to Roon Arc, an extra app, I can listen to my entire library on the go, including all the tracks stored within my server. It's very cool and means I can play the music of Wendy Carlos without having to take up extra space on my phone.
Tracking those stats
One of my favorite bits about Roon is how it can track the music you listen to, and give you constant read-outs that let you in to the secrets of your listening habits. I don't have to wait until the end of the year to find out like everyone else — I can just have a look on my Roon app.
Let's see how much death metal I listen to in 2026...
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