ARC continues to get better and better. I particularly noticed the difference with the introduction of Muse and the ability to easily load up specific headphone settings. My music on the go has never sounded better.
But what then happens, immersed in listening to a wonderful piece of music the app freezes, the music stops, silence. I am abandoned. I restart, same thing happens after a few minutes.
I abandon ARC and go to PLEX, the music plays on and on. But I notice a difference, PLEX does not send as good as ARC! Once upon a time there was little difference sonically between the two.
The moral question is should Roon stop enticing us with wonderful software upgrades that never quite deliver in practice. Should we simply say go back to plain Jane Roon and avoid the frustration we are now left with
The last time I used ARC it did sound better than Plex to my ears, cleaner somehow, on Bluetooth. Using a USB DAC and the difference was greater.
But I abandoned it for Plex due to it’s unreliability. Press play on Plex and it will play until you press stop, with ARC it would stop in the car after one track, losing the play queue, so frustrating.
Anyway, anyone can go to an ARCless Roon there’s no mandatory need to use it.
I’m sure the devs with sort it but last time I used it, it felt like pre beta software and I’m not interested in that.
Welcome to the frustrated ARC users club. Yes it sounds a lot cleaner than Plex even using same headphone eq on both or without. But it’s let down by its reliability.
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I use Arc daily, I’ve used it from 10,000 miles away, to hundreds of miles away and the only issues I’ve had are signal issues, that’s all. But, it’s been a lot better at reconnecting. However, there are times that the app just needs to be restarted so it can reconnect while using Tailscale. Again, this is usually down to signal issue (when I’m out and about).
As I already used Tailscale, it was easy to integrate Roon/ARC, I even decided to reinstall ROCK so I could use UEFI, so Roon Server has Tailscale incorporated now.
I’m sure things will change over the years, but to be able to easily listen to my music while out and about has been great. And, a great upgrade from Synology’s AudioStation…
I can only speak for me, being in the UK and using EE’s Network.
P.S. Just to add, I have Tidal and Qobuz signed in and synced too.
Interesting observation. ARC works fine for me, but a) I do not have Qobuz installed on my Android phone and b) I rarely stress ARC’s connectivity - it’s usually tied to the WiFi in the local gym rather than using cellular connections.
ARC is super reliable for me- have been using it daily since I went abroad about a week ago with no reliability issues whatsoever.
I am on the latest iOS release and still haven’t installed the latest Roon update onto my Core. Shame it isn’t working as smoothly for everyone but as far as I am concerned, ARC rocks!!!
The Tailscale integration is great but I’ve not used it often because it will restart or dropout with any signal issues. It is a great app and sounds good.
I switched from ARC to Navidrome back in February, and I haven’t looked back since. Navidrome has been far more reliable—it’s even more stable than PLEX—and it fully supports ID3 tags. Plus, it’s open-source, has a web-frontend, and have various compatible desktop / mobile apps.
Navidrome can work with Tailscale or ZeroTier to access across multiple NATs, and it can also access by reverse proxies (something ARC couldn’t do), which is linked to a domain name or another server with a public IP.
I use ARC in the car and for me it’s working great.
However I do have a technical concern.
To get Roon ARC working I installed port forwarding on my home router and soon noticed that that there were attempts to get access to my home network. After having blocked 5 Ip Addresses I removed port forwarding from my router. Btw all IP address were from the USA.
I’m now connecting Roon arc to Roon via VPN. Anyone experiencing the same thing ?
Every port on every publicly visible IP gets scanned by automated scanners all the time. As long as they are closed, your router wouldn’t report them, and some routers do report when the ports are open.
