It would be very useful to be able to set a DSP volume control startup level on Roon Core, eg -30 or-40db. Roon would revert to this level whenever it is booted or when it has been idle for a user set period of time.
After a loud listening session and then the system being turned off or being idle this would prevent the sudden loudness shock when Roon is turned back on, perhaps by another member of the family.
In some circumstances it also has the potential to be a speaker saver, too.
I second this one. Seems I always wait for the track to start and turn down volume after powering up.
How do you, or a family member, know when the Core has been booted? Or idle for a while?
I’ll let Gordon speak for himself. For me, it’s not the core, but everytime I start the remote app. Volume is most often too high on startup.
I use a fanless low power i7 PC for my music. It’s not used for anything else. So, if it is off it is very obvious - the power button led is not lit.
If the PC is on but has not been active for a while the screen will go off (it actually shows a no signal message), but the computer power light will be on.
So it’s pretty easy to tell what state the system is in.
Sure, but is the core in your living room? Can you see it?
And do you listen in any other rooms?
Headphones? Bedside? Office?
The reason I’m asking is just to get you guys to think about what your request means in a distributed architecture like Roon’s.
Just to illustrate, here are some observations from my place:
The Core is in a place where I never see it. And it is never turned off.
I listen in various rooms, including moving about and playing from an iPad or phone, out on the deck or on an exercise bike.
When I listen in some location, I have a control unit (e.g. iPad) and an endpoint (e.g. MicroRendu connected to a DAC connected to an amp). The control is not relevant here, an iPad is rarely turned off, it just shuts down the screen — I certainly would not want volume adjusted when I put the iPad down and it goes to sleep and I pick it up again. And sometimes I change control: I turn the music on with the phone in my pocket and later pick up an iPad for better reading of album covers, that changeover doesn’t mean anything.
How about the endpoint? I may turn off the amp but Roon doesn’t see that. I may turn off the DAC, Roon may see that through the MicroRendu, it may not. I never turn off the MicroRendu… So this depends. And volume control depends,
In my main listening space, the big rig (electronics and speakers) are turned off when not in use, and they can be set to a fixed startup volume. It communicates bidirectionally with Roon, so Roon will see the volume it starts on and Roon can control the volume. (As I recall, I don’t use this feature.) This would allow what you are asking for, but this level of integration is rare.
So tricky…
I can see we have two different use cases, here. However, I don’t think that they are incompatible.
What I am suggesting is that in settings there is the ability to set a startup/idle time volume setting eg -40db. The idle time could be set independently eg 30 mins of non use.This functionality can be turned on or off. It would be off by default.
As I see it if this functionality was off this would enable your use case to work for you and if it was on it would work for my use case.
Happy to be corrected if I got this wrong.
I’m not concerned about my use case, describing my environment was just an illustration of what common use of the distributed architecture looks like.
The question for your suggestion is, what is “startup”?
Startup of what?
Startup - either turning on the PC and booting Roon or if Roon is already running, but has not been used from some time, starting from idle.
“The PC” refers to the Core machine, right?
When you pick up a phone or tablet or laptop to play some music on your speakers, after not listening for a while, you expect this lowered volume, right? But what if a family member had just been listening, or is listening, on headphones in a different room? In that case, the sound would come blaring out of the speakers at full volume?
This is why I think powering down the Core is not a very useful trigger.
Of course, for somebody living alone, with only one audio system, and the PC right there in the living room — in that case, Roon is not distributed, it behaves like a receiver, and soft startup seems reasonable.
Yes, PC refers to the Core machine.
We’re going round in circles here and not getting anywhere.
As I said before, if what I’m suggesting doesn’t suit your use case you wouldn’t turn it on.
Bump on this thread as it doesn’t seem to have been solved. I’m running Core on a laptop to a Devialet Expert Pro 440 master using Roon Ready.
I have. 30 day trial, and my wife and I like the sound, it’s certainly an improvement over other solutions we have tried.
But - and a big but, every time we reboot the laptop the volume comes up with a default at 100%.
I’m aware of the min/max settings and the additional 10 dB using the + button.
Call me old fashioned, but after many years of living in small communities with less than reliable power I turn things off when not in use, meaning that the laptop running Roon is booted at least once a day.
Can my wife and I learn to turn down the volume after booting up the laptop? Sure, but why should we have to when the solution is to have a setting for that.
It’s like your car starting with full throttle unless you turn it down before putting it into drive. It’s an inelegant solution fraught with potential disaster.