Duplicate tracks of different quality - which will play?

I plan on using both my iTunes database and rip all my CDs for use with Roon. But I will have duplicates because some of my CDs and also individual tracks on my CDs are also in my iTunes database.

I realize you can mask those dupes, but my question is which track will get played? Reason being is because when I ripped some of my CDs into iTunes many years ago, I used pretty compressed files from what the CD was. When I rip them for Roon now, I will not compress them from the CD files. Therefore, if there’s a duplicate, I want the recently ripped CD to play as opposed to the iTunes version which will be of lower quality.

How can I handle this dilemma?

I wound up moving all my old iTunes MP3 dups to somewhere else, so Roon doesn’t see them.

Why not delete duplicates if they are your own files at lower resolution?

I hate to delete things, that’s all.

I believe that Roon will use the higher resolution file.

So a losslessly compressed file, e.g. a flac file, or even an uncompressed file, e.g. wav file, would be played rather than a lossy file, e.g. mp3 file.

Also a higher resolution losslessly compressed file, e.g. 24 bit or 96kHz, would be played rather than a 16bit or 44.1kHz file.

What this means is that all your new CD rips will be played rather than your old rips. No worries.

You need to designate which album is the Primary Version.
Go to Albums>Focus>Inspector and check Duplicates.
Then, Roon has these instructions:
The default primary version is the highest resolution. If you want to change this you do it through the Versions tab.

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Thanks for the instructions on the dupes. That makes sense to default to the highest resolution for the primary.

This has got me rethinking my strategy for music as a whole. Thinking maybe I should dump iTunes, although I do like having some of my own music when I’m not at home as opposed to just streaming stuff. But maybe not. Just need to think about it a bit more.

You can have it both ways, if you want.
If you have all your iTunes in one watched directory, and all your other stuff in another directory, you can turn one on or off whenever you want. That makes if very easy to tag, bookmark, or do other things.
Memory is cheap these days.