Roon and Network storage

[Roikyou]

I wanted validate what i understand about Roon so far so I can grasp what will work for me the best. I’m posting here to see if the communicate can validate what I understand so far. From what I understand right now, it does not benefit me unless I’ve been download music and burning cd’s to store on a network device.

At first I had this weird idea that you could use Roon and Tidal as a solution that you could download your Tidal files to your Roon server for offline play, sounds simple enough, play it locally on your network without constantly having to impact download and how much bandwidth you use.

Not so simple from what I understand. Roon just sits there and watches for files to be added. So, you have to move musics files into the folders you want to use, then stream from a remote source from there.

The only benefit if the library you have exceeds the capacity your local storage, other than that, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

In a nutshell, does this sound correct? If so, I’d rather just use Tidal and my 500gb notepad and just clean house once in a while instead of hording my library.

Thanks everyone.

[Roark]

If you have not read through this thread, might be worth a read

Questions & Comments about Roon

I’ve noticed a lot of chatter about Roon and I thought it would be nice to create a resource for people who know about Roon to share with people who don’t. There’s a bit of an up-front cost, and there’s a lot to this piece of software so I can see why there are so many questions. Feel free to ask and answer them here. If someone could also write a beginners description of exactly what Roon is I think it would also be really helpful!

Roon is more than just a music player, it is a catalog of your digital library, it offers the convenience of 2 streaming platforms, and it’s an interface that is agreeable with most people.

Is it worth the price? I think it depends on what you value most, personally for me it is the best solution to navigate and play my personal music collection. I have Qobuz linked to it, yet use it sparingly as I will use Qobuz when I am not at home. The major downside of Roon is access when you are away from the computer running the Roon Core.

An alternative is to use Plex, you can link it up to Tidal and access your music library outside of your home.

Music | Plex

Hope this helps.

[Torq]

@Roikyou

In a nutshell, does this sound correct?

Not at all.

Roon doesn’t play offline content for either TIDAL or Qobuz. Those are always streamed live from the respective servers. Even if you’ve got the files downloaded locally for offline play using the TIDAL or Qobuz desktop applications, Roon won’t play them (they’re encrypted, so it can’t … a requirement of the content licenses).

One of Roon’s major benefits is making your local storage files (i.e. files you own, and have no DRM on them) and those you have added to your library from TIDAL and/or Qobuz appear as one seamless library.

It does not make much sense if you just want a streaming client, to play on one system, and don’t have a fair amount of locally owned files (i.e. stuff you’ve bought or ripped).

Where it becomes interesting is when you have more than one source for your music (local and streaming, or just two streaming services), have multiple end-points that you want to play music to (separately or in sync), want Roon’s metadata (which is really the bit you’re paying for) and UX and/or it’s various DSP functions.

The more of those features you use, the more useful and interesting it becomes. I use all of them. I wouldn’t use it if I was just using TIDAL as a source and playing on one system at a time, as the TIDAL app can do that, so can Audirvana.

[Roikyou]

you hit the nail on the head of what I was interpreting this was used for. It’s over kill for what I need. I’m better off using Tidal to my ipad or iphone to stream to my bifrost2. I think the ability to download locally and play offline from local files still falls under the licensing agreement but also keeps you from eating your data or putting a constant heavy load on your wifi. I’m understanding that I can still get high resolution content from the ipad just bf2 doesn’t tell me what level of the content I’m streaming.

Also, when I said “i had a weird idea how it works”, I knew this was incorrect after a short period of time using it. This thread was my confirmation I was incorrect and to help me stop this journey down this rabbit hold. I’d rather pay the subscription than purchase and store the music.

[Torq]

@Roikyou

I think the ability to download locally and play offline from local files still falls under the licensing agreement but also keeps you from eating your data or putting a constant heavy load on your wifi.

It does for the TIDAL app.

Not for third party TIDAL clients, though (Roon, Audirvana etc.).

@Roikyou

I’m understanding that I can still get high resolution content from the ipad just bf2 doesn’t tell me what level of the content I’m streaming.

TIDAL has MQA rather than true high-resolution content.

The TIDAL app will tell you what quality and format you’re playing.

If you enable the MQA core decoder, the the TIDAL app will do the first “unfold” for MQA material, and you’ll get whatever bit rate is appropriate. Bifrost 2 doesn’t have a sample rate nor bit depth indicator, so regardless of source it can’t tell you what format or resolution it is. It doesn’t support MQA either, so it’ll just play what the TIDAL app unfolds without doing subsequent unfolding or MQA filtering.

[Roikyou]

I’ve been looking at replacing the bf2 with Matrix Audio X-Sabre Pro MQA DAC for a resolution to that issue.

[Torq]

I don’t really consider lack of MQA support an “issue”, but if it is important to you the Matrix is the only DAC this side of $15K I would bother with that supports it.

[Roikyou]

It’s definitely not an issue. The Bifrost2 has been a great dac. I only considered the Matrix as I was considering upgrading the bf2 and honestly, I have credit in a store that sells them. I have tried to do some research on the Matrix but it seems there is very little information on it. It was recommended to me and I’ll probably make the purchase on that recommendation.