Roon principals have stated that more and more users are primarily or exclusively streaming listeners. As such, planning for future library size increases, especially greater than 100,000 tracks, may become an almost nonexistent concern.
While local files have to be added to a user’s Roon library, there is little to no benefit to adding streaming albums to a Roon library. Albums can be removed from streaming services or have their licensing identifiers changed at will. Adding streaming albums to a Roon library does not prevent either of those issues from occurring. But as long as the albums remain available for streaming, even when they change licensing identifiers, they still can be accessed from Discography and Search without contributing to the Roon library track count and weighting down the Roon database.
For primarily or exclusively streaming listeners, best practices for maintaining a streamlined Roon database should be to add just 1-2 local files or streaming albums per artist to the Roon library. Those serve as signposts for the artists. All other albums available for streaming from those artists then can be accessed conveniently from Discography.
As it currently stands, tagging, favoriting, full Focus features, editing broken metadata, and other things are only available when albums are in the library. Seems like a benefit to me, even though the IDs can change, which happens but not all the time for me (and could be solved)
Nah, doing user maintenance on any streaming albums is a fool’s errand. It is like you paying for the materials and doing the work to renovate the apartment that you only rent.
That doesn’t mean that those listeners are the majority. In fact, if you look in some of the music threads in the forum, you will notice there is a fair number going back to physical media ownership that is occurring. ( And I don’t mean just vinyl but CD purchasing as well).
But, you do bring up a point and I know some users who have the same thought. There is one user I chat with that has begun pruning his online library to get beneath the 100k limit to go with the One. I wonder how many others are doing the same.
However, we cannot know if that will affect Valence Roon suggestions. I.e. Is music in your library weighted differently in the algorithm?
It’s not ideal but also not without benefit. I lost a very small amount over 3 years. There’s a bunch of feature suggestions to allow copying of user metadata & edits from one Qobuz ID to another which would be helpful with this and other things and seems like a doable feature. I’d take that.
I did free up recently (from upgrading it) following fanless mini pc, made by Zotac, ZBOX CI660 nano with following spec (bought back in early 2019),
Intel Core i7-8550U (quad core 1.8GHz, up to 4.0GHz)
32 GB, 2 x DDR4-2400/2133 SODIMM
Intel UHD Graphics 620 (Integrated)
2 TB, 2.5-inch SATA 6.0 Gbps SSD
2 x 10/100/1000Mbps LAN
I’m currently running Roon server from Windows machine in HP Z840 server class PC, only because it has Nvidia card for CUDA cores for HQPlayer. But recently i’ve moved on from HQPlayer, don’t use it, need it. And i don’t use any DSP from Roon either. Just simple, straight signal path. Hence, looking to offload the Roon server to its dedicated, fan-less PC that i can just put next to my audio gears. I do play quite a bit of native DSD256/128 and PCM 384khz / 32 bit contents. And all my contents are out in NAS boxes.
Should i wait for N1, i don’t mind the price. Or, will my spare mini PC config above, fanless, be sufficient to function as Roon server in Windows 10?
I get around this by adding ONE album of an “interesting artist” to my library this now means that artist will appear in my Artist view. Keeps the clutter down and gives a simple way of getting to an artist
I now use
Artist View > Filter ‘xyz’ > Artist Page > Discography > Album
I have been actively pruning as well. My NUC has a 4Tb SSD and an external HDD, I have 3 base folders set in Roon, one is normally disabled to keep he track count down for performance reasons. It comprises a lot of very big boxes whos contents have been duplicated in the main library as “single CD’s”. - around 70k tracks.
I occasionally import it and let Roon scan it before Disabling it again. It takes few minutes
With that folder Enabled even with an i7 I notice sluggishness
I’m really looking forward to purchasing this item in Australia when it is released. I wasn’t able to afford the high end Nucleus but the “One” is a game changer I think. I should open the door to a lot of new people wanting to try Root.
I’m considering the Nucleus One as, while my M1 Mac Mini works perfectly as a core (never really had a failure or need to restart since I moved it to the Mac from my old Windows 10 laptop), running the Mac headless is a bit of a chore and ‘dialling in’ remotely (with Splashtop) to perform maintenance tasks has been a bit hit and miss. I recently ended up having to drag out the table in the hall it sits on, hook up a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to sort it all out.
I believe Roon needs the albums you care about to to its magic. I may add that it is the latest release that makes it possible to run roon server on such a tiny (4 core N100) machine. This would not have been possible without the changes made just recently.
I am pretty sure Roon will fill the gap between their current offerings, so no one will be left behind.
I am not sure I understand what you’re saying here. If you add an album as a favorite, it becomes part of your Roon library. This is very important to me because I very often have multiple copies of albums: local, Tidal, and Qobuz. I want all of these to be grouped, and usually the local copy set as primary.
Check the context. This thread is about Nucleus One, which has a practical maximum of around 100,000 tracks, including both local and streaming tracks, of course.
As long as the relevant streaming albums can be found via Discography or Search, actually adding those albums to the Roon library, hence database may be unnecessary for those interested in Nucleus One but concerned about library size exceeding the practical maximum.
That is especially true in the multiple local and streaming versions scenario you propose, because if you have a local album, then the Qobuz and/or Tidal equivalents already are populated under the Versions tab. They do not need to be added to the Roon library; that is an unnecessary luxury if unconcerned about database size.
No, not at all. I have many different Roon Server machines. I oft run a 100,000 track library on an N5105 based mini PC. And the N5105 is a bit older and benchmarks slower than the N100, but both are newer than and benchmark faster than the i3-7100U in the original Nucleus.
Well, maybe. Depends on what the user wants from Roon and how Roon actually works. In your scenario a user only picks and chooses what they want to play. However, if a user want to enjoy suggestions made by Roon’s algorithm for Roon Radio, Daily Mixes, etc etc. Then, it might not be as good a decision.
We have no idea how much of an influence having an artist or album IN our library vs not in our library influences Roon’s Valence. I personally suspect that more weight is given when an artist is IN your library vs. playbacks of non-library content. Of course that doesn’t matter if you don’t want to use those Roon features.
What is your relevant point? You are not in the market for a Nucleus One, again, the context of this thread.
We have seen your system. You have broadcast it to the world. You have a 200,000+ track library. You are the target market for a Nucleus Titan, which has a much longer runway for Roon library size.
My point is really very simple: I find Roon’s album grouping and the fact that all of my liked streaming albums and local albums are all merged together in one interface invaluable. And I expect that is an important feature for many, which is why I bring it up.
Also note that if you like an album on TIDAL or Qobuz apps, it will automatically add to Roon, so to have your workaround work at all, you would have to avoid liking albums in any of the streaming platforms.
This is way too tricky in my opinion. If someone has to go through these hoops, maybe Roon is not for them.
Apologies if this has been covered but there are already 400+ posts and I couldn’t find the answer via search.
When will the Nucleus One be available in the UK?
I take it Roon won’t sell direct in the UK so it would be through a dealer? Whey will dealers in the UK receive stock? Will it be around the release time or a few months after that?
