Can I access the Roon Tidal Collections without importing them?

Glad to see some of the earlier miscommunication in this thread resolved. One point I’ve made before that I’ll mention again is that much of Roon is built around your library, and many of our most powerful features only work on the content inside your library. This includes Focus, Radio, Favorites, Tags, and so on.

In the future, we are hoping to expand some of these features (like Radio) to include non-library content, but for now much of the Roon experience is built around building and exploring a library of albums you love, whether the music lives on your hard drive or in your TIDAL account.

The point of the Collections feature is to make it easy for new users to get the Roon experience, and use all of those features, even if they don’t have a preexisting library on TIDAL, or locally.

The idea of editorial collections that you can browse and add to your library “a la carte” is absolutely something we’ve discussed, and I think it’s a great idea – it’s just not what this feature was designed for, which was a simple way to “kick start” your library.

Simply converting these Collections into something “browseable” introduces additional complexity as well. Every country has access to a slightly different set of TIDAL content, as determined by rights holders. Like TIDAL and all streaming services, Roon has to respect these constraints.

The Collections feature requests the whole list from TIDAL, but only content that’s actually available in your country is added to your library. If we were going to display all the albums and let you browse, we’d want to precompute the availability for your country, since it would be lame to show you an album you can’t actually play or add.

This isn’t an insurmountable problem but it’s effort that cuts across the team – the lists need to be precomputed and maintained, the new screens need to be designed and built, our QA team needs to test as if they were in a variety of different countries, and so on.

For now my recommendation would be to add the Collections you’re interested in, use the Tags dropdown at the top of the album browser to browse, and then delete any albums you don’t want in your library.

As I think I’ve mentioned to Andybob, we are also thinking about how to make this experience less confusing for new users, so look for some changes in the “onboarding” experience soon.

And finally, thanks @allan2 for the feedback – we’re listening, so please keep it coming.

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Yes, the misunderstanding was resolved, and I will accept the blame for that. I have another suggestion as a relatively new user learning how Roon works. And this is directly related to the misunderstanding on my part. Of greater importance, the below suggestion is relevant to all of your users who added Collections, and then were concerned by the addition of all those albums, and then felt it was necessary to delete the Collections.

Andybob suggested that maybe collections should not be offered when a new user first subscribes as it is too confusing for a new user at that point, who may feel he/she must add collections. I agree with Andybob about that.

Here is my suggestion. You now say this on the collections page – “Don’t worry, these albums aren’t stored on your hard drive, and you can always add or remove them later.”

You should add this: “Don’t panic if you see a large number of albums that appear to be added to your Library! You have complete control over how these Collections, or for that matter, any Tidal albums, are shown in the views for Artists, Albums, Tracks or any other criteria. You can bookmark “views” that will show you only your own Library on your hard drive, or only the Tidal albums, or both your Library and your Tidal library. See the following FAQ for how to do this: xxxx”

(I should also note that calling them “bookmarks” is a bit confusing. They are really different views or configurations that are saved. I would call them Views or something similar in a future release.)

The FAQ should then include the illustrations used by Geoff or something similar. The illustrations are really helpful, as compared with a page of text describing all of this.

What you need is a step-by-step explanation, that uses both text and illustrations. For example, Geoff instructed us to use “format” in the focus view to show only the Tidal albums. It took me some time and searching to figure that out. But I kept looking for “format” and finally found it.

Using that example, an illustration of the Focus window, with Format circled, and the Tidal circled, would be very helpful.

Using this approach, your subscribers can FIRST read how Collections – and any titles from Tidal – can be managed. Then, with that knowledge, your subscribers can confidently add Collections and know – in advance – how they can be included in the Library, and at any time, you can see your Library with Tidal included, or without Tidal. With Tidal Collections, or without Tidal Collections.

I realize that you may think that information is already provided. But not really. You need the type of explanation with illustrations used by Geoff, but it needs to be broken down and step-by-step instructions provided.

And you need to refer your users to that page on the same page that has the checkboxes to add Collections.

But most of all, you need it done using step-by-step instructions and with illustrations.

So what caused this misunderstanding? I think a large part of it is Andybob knowing that there is no reason to panic over collections added to the Library, as he already knew all of the above. I didn’t know any of that. So an experienced moderator and a newbie were talking past each other.

Apologies for the long post, but I hope this is helpful.

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I have several questions for Andybob or Geoff. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

(1). Let’s assume, in my hypothetical example, that the Jazz Tidal Collection includes 10 albums that I already have in my own personal library.

Further, let’s assume that the Jazz Tidal Collection includes 10 additional albums that I have already added to my library from Tidal.

What happens when I add the Tidal Jazz Collection? Does it create 20 duplicate album listings?

(2). I previously added the Tidal Jazz Collection and then deleted it. But it now appears that I deleted most of the Tidal albums, but somehow, not all of them. So, if I now add the Tidal Jazz Collection, but some of those albums are already in my library, again, will that result in those Tidal albums being added twice?

QUESTION - Under either of the above examples, if I get duplicate listings of albums from Tidal, what is the easiest way to search for those Tidal duplicates and delete them?

You can have both a local version and the Tidal version of an Album in your library. Duplicate Albums (whether local or Tidal) are hidden by default, but you can display them by changing Show Hidden Tracks and Albums to Yes in Settings/General. When duplicates are hidden then only the primary version will show, with other versions accessible through the Other Versions button on the Album screen. Roon will default to the highest resolution as Primary but you can alter it on this screen.

In contrast, you can’t currently have more than one Tidal version in your library so there is no need to be concerned about adding a Tidal Album again.

You can Focus on duplicates using Albums/Focus/Inspector/Duplicates.

I hope this gets more attention before / at the same time as focusing on non library content. I think there’s benefit in polishing out the rough edges rather than continually adding other features that suffer the same rough edges.

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Cough:

I suspect that one of these will be an MQA version, the other not. So, in a sense they are different versions, but it’s the same album…

Albums in my personal library were ripped from CDs and saved as FLAC files. Will Roon always default to those albums as the Primary – since they are either equal to the HiFi quality album on Tidal or better? And then hide any identical Tidal albums?

I hope so, since occasionally I get a spinning wheel on Tidal and it won’t stream. (I don’t know why this happens occasionally but not consistently. I use an ethernet connection, so I think the issue is at the Tidal end.

But if Roon defaults to my own library albums as the highest resolution, then playback will always be rock solid.

I’m asking because in the illustration you included it appears that Roon is defaulting to Tidal as the highest resolution rather than a FLAC file in a personal library. That is the opposite of how it should work IMHO.

I looked through the user guide, and the “Format” criteria is not mentioned as far as I can tell. My suggestion is that in the Tidal section of the User Guide, include specific step-by-step instructions on how to use Format with Tidal selected, as the way to see only Tidal albums, or only your personal library albums without Tidal. I had to do a bit of hunting to find Format, and the first time I missed that Tidal is an option.

That discussion of using Format to create a Bookmark to turn Tidal albums on and off in the view of the Library can be combined with an explanation that the Collections are already tagged. So Format is for Tidal albums not in Collections, and Collections are already tagged. Then show how Bookmarks can be created for both – with your great illustrations.

Then you can explain on the Collections page that the “view” of the library can turn Tidal on and off – and refer your users with a link to the explanation in the User Guide.

My other suggestion is to move Bookmarks to a separate heading rather than having it as a bullet point inside of the discussion of Focus. It will just be easier to find the discussion of Bookmarks when scrolling through the User Guide.

Also, the single page on Bookmarks lists lots of ways to use them, but more illustrations of where the various settings can be found – before creating a bookmark, would be very helpful.

FINAL COMMENT (at least for now) and PRAISE for the Roon documentation –

You do have an exhaustive User Guide that is very well done. As a newbie, I appreciate being able to find that information in one User Guide, rather than having to search for answers in your community forum. This sets you apart from JRiver which does not have a User Guide and half the information they do post is very old, grossly inaccurate, and no attempt is made to update it.

My main suggestion, which I already made, is to include more illustrations similar to those used by Geoff. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

At the start of the User Guide, include a screen shot of the various views of Roon and identify the icons and what they do, with links to take you to an explanation of that feature in the User Guide. I have found myself wondering what some of the icons are for.

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Click them and see what happens. Roon was designed for people to play with as a means of learning. There are also circled i information icons which have brief descriptions of various things.

I can echo this sentiment. I confess, as an old age pensioner brought up in the era of stern notices about not poking things, this rather went against the grain. But, hey, I learned to let go and explore.

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I understand your point, but there is a bit of a mismatch with the design philosophy of Roon. You talk about what we often call “scenarios”, such as using Format to include or exclude Tidal, or creating bookmarks for Tidal and non-Tidal content.

But the system is focused on “orthogonal” capabilities, that all can be combined. And this is central to its capabilities. At one time, Roon did only local content, but it had the Focus capability. Then Tidal was added, and Focus works for Tidal. And it supports DSD, and Focus works. And DSP was added for room correction and other sound quality improvements, and it works for CDs, and high res, and DSD, and Tidal. And Bookmarks work for anything. And Playlists can contain anything. And Shuffle in a Focused view: there is no need to describe Shuffle of high-res, and Shuffle of DSD, and Shuffle of Tidal, and Shuffle of mixed resolution. I could go on, but you see my point: each of these special cases is a valid scenario, and somebody will be interested in any one of them, but documentation focused on scenarios will be very large, and difficult to find anything in.

Your scenarios make sense to you, and you would like documentation of those. But I would like to see a Bookmark for the most recently added jazz by Italian artists, say the last 3 months, both Tidal and non-Tidal, and another one for non-Tidal alone. (I’m not making this up, I have both of those Bookmarks.) And I’m Album and Artist focused, others are Track and Playlist and Collection focused and look for scenarios around those that don’t interest me in the least.

I’m not mentioning this just as a challenge, but to illustrate that the documentation will of necessity follow the philosophy of the product.

And I have no doubt that next year, when Roon adds telepathic control, it will support Focus/Format.

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I agree with your points. Just to clarify, it is not my intention to suggest that every scenario or way to use Roon must be documented. My only point was that I didn’t know that the “format” tool even existed until Geoff illustrated the use of that feature in his excellent post. So I suggested that “format” should be covered in the User Guide.

It is important to recall what started this thread. It appears that there are a significant number of Roon subscribers who import one or more of the Tidal Collections, and then don’t like what they perceive to be large numbers of albums added to their Library that they don’t want. As Andrew/Andybob explained, he then gets many requests to delete everything that was just imported. Several of the people who posted here fall in that category, as did I.

It was the posting by Geoff that showed that with the use of Format, Focus and Bookmarks that the Collections can be turned on or off in what is seen in the library, and the same can be done with any albums imported from Tidal, or as you note, anything else for that matter.

It is pretty clear that many Roon subscribers have no idea they can do that or they would not be first importing the Collections, and then panic and turn around and delete them.

Therefore, my suggestion was that this be documented in the User Guide using the same type of illustrations that Geoff already utilized. And that the web page on importing Collections point all Roon users to that section of the User Guide, so they can see how it works.

Then they can import Collections without any fear of it “messing up” their library.

Anyway, I was never proposing that all scenarios be included in the User Guide. But this would be a very useful clarification IMHO.

Andybob, in the illustration that you posted, it appears that Roon has identified a Tidal album as the Primary rather than an album with FLAC files on a local hard drive.

I would have assumed that Roon will always default to an album ripped from a CD that consists of FLAC files for the individual tracks?

That’s what I would like it to do, as sometimes Tidal gives me the rotating circle. And I assume that an album consisting of FLAC files equals the resolution of Tidal lossless HiFi files, with the advantage that it is on a local hard drive?

I think I had altered the primary version in the screenshot for some reason. I have done that where the Tidal version is an MQA version (in anticipation of MQA support), or where Tidal has a “deluxe” version with extra tracks or a remastered version (if the track listings are different these will present as different albums, but they can be grouped as versions in the Edit menu). In this case I can’t see an objective reason to prefer the Tidal version, but I can remember fiddling at some stage with the versions of this album (great album btw).

My understanding is that local Redbook files default to Primary version as compared to Tidal Redbook, but I’ll check and report back.