Hi there, I’m running a Tidal trial for now, but I guess after that ends I will go on a Qobuz subscription (not sure yet).
When I add albums to my library from Tidal (because I like them and want to continue listening to them - I might even want to buy them at some stage), so when I have added Tidal albums, what happens after I end the Tidal trial and start a Qobuz sub?
Do these added albums then appear via Qobuz? Or are they “bound” to Tidal (and will from now on appear as “Unavailable”)? A further question in the same realm is: What happens when I add one of these albums to my local storage?
If the album is also available on Qobuz then you can add that one to your library as well. Most albums that I have added this way are available on both services. I’ve only run into a handful of albums that are only available on one of the two.
Albums are “bound”. So if you add a Tidal album, it will not automatically become a Qobuz album. I always have to add the Qobuz one manually here.
I’m not sure about what happens with your favorited Tidal albums after you quit Tidal. Probably become unavailable.
Music added from either Tidal or Qobuz will not be added to your “local storage” as they are online. You probably mean when you add them to your Roon’s library. They don’t get downloaded when you add something.
If you are planning on going Qobuz instead of Tidal, then it would be wise to start adding the Qobuz versions of the albums you’ve added. You can do this manually, or use something lik Soundiiz - Draag afspeellijsten en favorieten over tussen verschillende streamingdiensten I don’t have experience with the latter. As I don’t add a lot of stuff to my library. But a lot of people here in the Roon Community are using it.
Roon won’t move the albums from Tidal to Qobuz. You can use Soundiiz to transfer them as favorites from Tidal to Qobuz and then those will be added to Roon, but any edits (credits) you made will be lost.
Load it into Soundiz and hope that Soundiz can match the tracks against Qobuz — no guarantee it will, especially if it contains rare tracks and vinyl rips that don’t exist on the streaming services.
Sync that playlist back to Roon
Create an editable Roon Playlist from the Qobuz playlist — now possibly missing some tracks it couldn’t match.
Manually add back any missing tracks from your local library (you’ll have to check the CSV file to remember what these were)
Possibly replace any Qobuz tracks with local versions (no nice way to do this currently) if you don’t want to be tied to Qobuz — I often prefer having local tracks (over Qobuz) in my playlists so I can export them and create a ‘downloaded playlist’ in ARC.
Finally delete the old Qobuz playlist so that you don’t have two near duplicate copies of your playlist showing up in Roon.
The alternative is to manually work though your Roon playlist finding the new versions and deleting the old versions of tracks as you go, but again there is no nice way to do this automatically or even semi-automatically within Roon. In fact it’s a horrible, convoluted process.
100% Qobuz to Tidal, or Tidal to Qobuz is fine(ish) and can be achieved relatively easily with Soundiz. But as soon as you start mixing in local tracks, or want to give preference to local tracks it get complex and convoluted.
They are linked to Tidal so will stay so. Also they can still stay in your library if you don’t do a full cleanup afterwards.
If you want Roon to add all albums from Qobuz that you had in Tidal then you need to use an app like Soundiiz to transfer your library over from Tidal. Qobuz via the app offer a few to with Soundiiz to do this. So keep you Tidal account ope until you have done this. Then when you add Qobuz to Roon they will sync in. Unfortunately any play history and edits is per version so you loose this when switching.
I find Soundiiz’ playlist synchronize feature useful so I pay for Premium.
Without Premium if you’re using Soundiiz to transfer your Tidal library to Qobuz you may need to transfer your albums and playlists one at a time and there’s a limit on how many tracks can be in a single playlist.
However once you’ve joined Qobuz you’ll find a Soundiiz coupon code on the Qobuz site that will unlock the Premium features for transfers to Qobuz.
Good to know that Roon does not “move” a library item from one Storage Location to another. That was exactly my question.
And Soundiiz is a great pointer to help with such a move! (Of course, Soundiiz can only help with a move from Tidal to Qobuz, not from Tidal/Qobuz to local storage.)