How does Roon decide on Qobuz, Tidal or Tidal MQA for tracks in their Daily Mix?

AceRimmer · December 20, 2021, 3:34am

Really just as the title says.

What algorithm if any does Roon use to decide where the tracks come from in their curated for me Daily Mix?

Listening to a great mix I got yesterday and as a new track started I noticed the signal path light change from blue ( I upsample to dsd) to purple.

A quick look showed this was actually a Tidal MQA track.

So I had not even thought about it but looks like the playlist is a mix of Qobuz ,Tidal and Tidal MQA tracks.

I guess my question is if there are Qobuz, Tidal and Tidal MQA versions of a particular track in the curated playlist what is the deciding factor for which one I am presented with?

Jim_F · December 20, 2021, 3:46am

I certainly don’t know, but it seems almost random. Doesn’t matter to me.

AceRimmer · December 20, 2021, 4:04am

Another thought occurred.
Would Roon select a different track selection depending on my streaming service?

If I had Qobuz only it’s limited to what’s, available on that service.
Same if it was only Tidal.

I have both which raises my initial question but now really has me thinking.

Depending on service I could conceivably see three totally different playlists even though the main architect was the same.

Jim_F · December 20, 2021, 4:10am

I’m guessing that’s correct. I doubt you would get Tidal music if you didn’t have a Tidal account. Same for Qobuz. But IDK.

AceRimmer · February 16, 2022, 3:56am

I still feel there is something very off with the Tidal vs Qobuz ratio in Roon Daily mix.

Last two mix I have bothered to check show exactly the same ratio.
Of 25 tracks, 21 were Tidal (2MQA) and just 4 Qobuz.

Just does not seem correct to my mind.

crowlem · February 16, 2022, 9:35am

I think this is true, for electronic music Tidal has a much greater selection. I would assume that my mixes would be pretty different on Qobuz.

Just looked at one of my mixes, its a pretty healthy blend of both Qobuz and Tidal.

I think Tidal is in more of the mixes because when there is a 16/44 only, Tidal is picked by default.

When disabling Tidal it replaces all the tracks with Qobuz versions so in this instance it made no difference.

ged_hickman1 · February 16, 2022, 10:12am

I’ve always thought it is biased toward tidal as it has more subscribers and data as it was first in to Roon and is available in more countries. So roon has more this person then played that pathways stored.

AceRimmer · February 18, 2022, 10:54pm

Let me check a few more Daily Mix spread over next few days to get a more meaningful average and I will report back.

Appreciate you listening Jamie to our concerns.

kwangomango · February 18, 2022, 11:43pm

@jamie Just from looking at your screenshot I can tell the instances where Qobuz has been chosen are where it has a hires version. Would you mind confirming this for me please by playing the tracks?

I’m pretty certain that you’ll never get a 44/16 track from Qobuz. Just like I am experiencing.

Sloop_John_B · February 18, 2022, 11:44pm

I have just looked at the first 2 daily mixes available.

Clearly Tidal is favoured over Qobuz

Clearly Qobuz is favoured over Tidal

Random is as random does!

.sjb

AceRimmer · February 18, 2022, 11:46pm

Just checked all six of today’s daily mix selection, only once is it close, the other five are a Tidal blowout.
Results are shown as Tidal/Qobuz.

15/10
13/12
22/3
20/5
21/4
18/7

Something odd is afoot and I am likely missing something important here that makes the Tidal choices higher.

Genre?

Most of my Daily Mix are a flavour of Prog Rock/Metal.
Maybe there are more selections just naturally available on Tidal of this particular genre??

This could be it in my case.
The one Mix that was close was a “Normal” rock mix ( Steve Winwood) with a lot of more common and mainstream artists.

And the worst case of 22/3 was a really obscure Prog Rock artist called Caligula’s Horse.

I think in my case I see the pattern and potential reason for the Tidal majority.

Ok final edit…

Just checked a Jethro Tull playlist I had saved with a lot of large house hold name artists…8/17.

kwangomango · February 18, 2022, 11:52pm

The only reason you are getting Qobuz hits are because it has selected a hires version - 44/24 or higher.

None of your Qobuz selections are 44/16.

kwangomango · February 18, 2022, 11:54pm

Please check if any of the Qobuz selections were 44/16 quality.

Sloop_John_B · February 18, 2022, 11:58pm

This may be the non-random issue then.

I have reported previously that AAC that are 24 bit on Tidal are preferred to 16/44 on Qobuz.

.sjb

AceRimmer · February 19, 2022, 12:05am

There could be something in that as well.
Most of the Qobuz choices I looked at were indeed higher res than 16/44.
Maybe @Sloop_John_B theory holds water here too.
And this would then all jive with my obscure genre theory as there would simply not be any hires Qobuz versions available for Roon to choose from.
So Tidal AAC maybe influencing the mix choice here.

I think it needs further Roon investigation.

Johnny_Ooooops · February 19, 2022, 12:27am

FWIW, if you want this to be configurable, there’s a feature request you can vote for…

Rugby · February 19, 2022, 1:18am

I have 6 months of daily mix data. Will give it a review of tidal vs Qobuz choices.

AceRimmer · February 19, 2022, 1:42am

Let’s discuss tomorrow…

Neil_Small · February 19, 2022, 4:18am

@kwangomango , resolution doesn’t (and never has) played a role in selection. Whether a Search or Roon Radio, resolution has no impact.

CrystalGipsy · February 19, 2022, 8:17am

I would hazzard a guess that Valence as per usual is picking the most popular versions of tracks or ones that match better from Roons user base like Radio does and as more users are likely still using Tidal versions as it’s more widely used as it’s available in more countries?