From Roon to JPLAY
For a long time, I listened to music exclusively through Roon. It was my standard, the app I considered irreplaceable — until I discovered JPLAY.
The conclusion I came to was clear: when it comes to sound quality, JPLAY was superior to Roon. However, it wasn’t on the same level in terms of implementation. The library was much more rudimentary, collection management left a lot to be desired, integration with streaming services was limited, and the overall user experience was far from Roon’s level of refinement.
Even so, I chose to overlook these shortcomings in favor of sound quality. At the end of the day, for an audiophile, it’s the sound that makes the final decision.
The Birth of Serento
That’s how I ended up talking to Lorin, the developer behind Serento. He had reached much the same point of frustration with Roon, especially after a serious issue left him without a working application for almost nine months, without the problem ever being properly resolved.
He then decided to build an application himself — one that would be better than anything available on the market at the time, taking the best features from existing applications, but with one essential, non-negotiable condition: the sound must not be altered in any way.
Developing Alongside the Tester Community
Once the concept started taking shape, I, together with dozens of other audiophile testers, became actively involved in the development process.
Each of us brought our own ideas and preferences regarding how the application should work, testing features, providing feedback, and helping shape the app as it evolved.
The result exceeded our expectations.
Serento has managed to achieve something quite rare: bringing together, in a single application, the best features of the existing solutions on the market, without the compromises that each of them previously required.
What I Wanted from the App
As a user actively involved in testing, I had several clear priorities that I wanted to see implemented:
- Perfect synchronization across multiple devices simultaneously — playlists, tracks, albums, and recently played music should be available identically on whichever device I happen to be using.
- Album-version visibility — I want to be able to see directly in my library which version of an album I have available before I start listening.
- Multi-select for tracks — the ability to select multiple tracks at once instead of wasting time clicking button after button, allowing me to simply focus on listening.
What’s Next
Not everything has been implemented yet, but the direction is very clear:
- Displaying the Dynamic Range (DR) value for each album or track — a feature I’m convinced we’ll see very soon.
- Fast integration with TIDAL and Qobuz.
Why This Matters Most
Beyond all the features, the thing that truly convinces me is that Serento does not alter the sound in any way. It is completely bit-perfect.
For an audiophile, that is the fundamental requirement — the baseline that no amount of functionality, no matter how useful, can compromise.
There are many more things I could say about Serento, but I’d rather leave some space for other users to share their own opinions and experiences.