Do You Have A Roon Fallback Plan - Options / Alternatives

I have two cores at two different homes but I’ll manage with the one license for the time being. I can’t really personally justify a second license.

Michael

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What speaks for Roon ARC and one Core is the missing ability to sync/share Cores. Playlists, edits, history etc.
I don’t have the need for two licenses as i only use one at a time

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So, my strategy moving forward is:

At home - Roon 2.0 core on Nucleus streaming Tidal and Qobuz to Oppo 203 and RPi4(1).
Away from home - Audirvana Studio on Dell XPS 15 streaming Tidal and Qobuz to RPi4(2).
In the car - Apple Music USB to CarPlay or Roon ARC.
Walking my dog - Apple Music USB to FiiO KA1 or Dragonfly Cobalt or Roon ARC.

If we lose internet - Audirvana Studio on Dell with Verizon hotspot.
If we lose power - Apple Music on iPhone.

I use Roon to manage library and keep Tidal and Qobuz in sync.
I use Soundiz to keep Apple Music in sync with Qobuz.

Lest someone thinks this is an expensive plan, Roon and Audirvana 3.5 are paid lifetime. Tidal is $120 and Qobuz is $130. Audirvana Studio is $70 and Apple Music is free from Verizon. Soundiz is $36. I dropped Netflix and U-Verse movie channels to fund my music habit.

Yeah, all these subscriptions can really get out of hand. That makes me want to steer clear. My new fallback plan is playing cards with the wife :rofl:

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The only thing I have added is Audirvana Studio for $70 per year. I just really don’t like Audirvana 3.5, but I can let Studio expire next year if I find out I don’t really need it. I’m paying an extra $5.83 per month ($70 per year) for the privilege of keeping my Nucleus active and Roon ARC working when away from home. Maybe Roon will solve that dilemma.

The ironic thing is the first time I’m away from home for a week, Roon ARC does not work for me because, evidently, my Nucleus has lost connection to Tidal and Qobuz and I’m not home to fix it. I can still play my 42 local tracks on the Nucleus, but how many times do I want to listen to them?

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You could well be streaming (or playing locally synchronized) music from native Qobuz and Tidal apps, no?

Yes, I could. But, I would rather use Roon and Audirvana. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t think $70 for Audirvana Studio is going to break the bank. Minimizing cost is not my only consideration.

Vinyl + native Tidal (& sometimes Spotify) streaming to my RopieeeXLs.

There lies the problem , if you have a reliable internet, power supply and can leave your core on 24/7 and guarantee it will be up and running when you want it then ARC is a good bet

At the moment I have to plan what time to eat depending on whether our power utility is giving us power. We are losing power 3 x 2.5 hrs daily. Thankfully South Africa is a country of BBQ !!

A cell phone and Bluetooth is a good back up plan !! :smiling_imp: :smiling_imp:

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My Nucleus has been running 24/7 for almost 3 years. However, there are always going to be blips with power and internet. That’s why I like having several alternatives. For instance, driving back to Atlanta tomorrow, even though my Roon ARC won’t be working, we have Sirius Radio and Apple Music.

Now that Apple Music plays lossless high resolution with iDevice and a DAC, I could actually get along very well with just Apple Music if I had to.

I am waiting for the coming soon “Primephonic Make Over” Apple Classical , its been promised for 2022 , time is running out . I may consider Apple come that time.

Apple also need to do some sort of Apple Connect ala Tidal/Spotify Connect to negate the use of an iPad on a string to the streamer

Meanwhile I am happy with my lot

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my ARC Fallback plan :slightly_smiling_face:

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Fallback plan…Plex and plexamp.
Plex is a lesser roon.
Plexamp is a better arc.

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For now. It’ll be interesting to see how ARC develops. The folk at Roon have made a point of saying that ARC is at the start of its path.

Michael

Yup. It could eventually be great. But plexamp has been great for a while and melds beautifully with roon 1.8. ARC competes with functionality that is already available and it does so at the expense of offline functionality. It has actually inspired a thread discussing alternatives to Roon. Two people i told about the internet always on restriction chose not to even look at it as an option.

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This will end up being one of the best posts of the year. Chapeau!

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Thank you Uli :slightly_smiling_face:

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In the car or if unaccompanied on walks/runs, there’s audiobooks. I haven’t made use of ARC for that reason.

I think that you could have both offline basic functionality without affecting either the cloud functionality or ARC.

As @danny stated, there is local search (how could you not have local search?!) but it is basic. No problem with that when the internet is down.

So I don’t think that ARC and offline are mutually exclusive at all.

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No. I don’t think so. And I’ll tell you why.

CDs were, in my opinion, terribly flawed from the start with its streaming redbook format and unlike data CDs, non-veriable blocks. So with CDs, the idea of perfection (to the recording) can never be achieved. I worked in the audio industry and sold high-end CD players and DACs. Now, one would think that all you would need is to extract the data from the CD using ANY CD player and plug in a very high-end DAC. No. It turns out that the CD player is as or even more important than the DAC, in a split CD/DAC system. Also, much like the VHS BetaMax wars, CD audio quality is, in comparison, poorer than for example, DVD Audio.

What makes vinyl intriguing and timeless is its tactile analogue nature. Not saying vinyl says better. That depends on the recording and the quality of the transfer to vinyl. But there is a visual element to vinyl. You can physically see the loud and quiet bits, the tracks, the matrix numbers on the trailing edge, and, of course, the sleeve art. CDs are horrible bits of plastic housed in a jewel case, the standard being so badly designed. They break easily and the ‘rose petals’ always come off rendering the CD moving about in its case prone to scratching.

There is nothing particularly nostalgic about CDs much like cassettes in my opinion.

But vinyl is an exception…