Roon ARC concept of having your own music server at home and everything stream from it is really a good idea. Imagine you no longer need to carry store music in your mobile and DAPs. Since Roon ARC is still in it’s infancy, I’ll give credit for it’s good concept.
As for implementation especially for Android users, it may be dismay… As it can’t do lossless streaming (can’t bypass SRC) when using an external USB DAC. There are large android users out there and hope this will be addressed soon.
To add to a 1Tb phone ???
Hi Res music files eat up that 1TB quick.
For me this is a game changer! I can now access my 850+ CDs plus all the Qobuz favourites wherever I am, plus even in the car. Its an 8.5/10 for me. Getting it fully Apple CarPlay compatible will make it untouchable.
In my opinion ARC and the options it is opening up are generally positive. I have a moderate size (~1500) collection of albums on a NAS and about 1/3 as many via Qobuz. Many of the albums have been acquired via Bandcamp and are not available on streaming services.
Loaded ARC, needed some help from my IT guy to configure the Microtik router. He said that opening the ports and using UPnP was a bad security call and did it with some other IT super magic.
Tested it on a walk this evening. It was a treat.
Issues to solve for Roon:
Please get Carplay ASAP
Make it so that this issue with internet access being needed all the time is solved when playing music within the home network.
IMO this is a 7-8/10 product. Looking forward to seeing where it goes
It is only a game changer in the sense of being able to access native files from your own library and Tidal/Qobuz, within the Roon ecosystem
Being able to access your own library on a mobile device is far from new.
and this highres music you want to stream to your phone?
is LTE sufficiently fast enough?
Maybe ARC needs to be splitted to pure “on the go/mobile phone” use and a second home/server use.
For me these are different enough use cases to justify two different APPs or different modes in one APP.
I think what we need is really a “backpack Nuke”. A canvas knapsack containing a battery-powered Nucleus with a headphone jack that can be carried with you when away, and then just plugged into your home LAN when not away. Et voilà!
Lol.
This is basically me camping: Laptop, DAC, my huge UPS from my desktop PC for power.
No… I use Tidal on the phone… I was commenting on another post above
Not for me. The whole reason I bought Roon was to stream all my music digitally at home on my main audiophile system, sitting down and actually listening. My crapy iPhone is just not capable of the sound I want nor will it ever be, it just sounds poor. For me, ARC is a nice to have but plex was fine for distracted listening purposes.
Not an expert in any way in software
Neither no expertise in DAP devices or fancy DAC’s to improve listening experience
I think the trick is to have Roon app running outside home and reach YOUR library, for you own reasons, something both nice and important. Probably, as someone said, this has been already done before ARC.
But I think for the first time, easily…
Not for me, I have terabytes of my own music on a NAS but when I am out and about I’ll just continue to use Apple Music or Tidal for music. ARC is a big deal about nothing to me…
I must admit that this is one feature that I never expected to be of much use to me. However, after playing around with it a bit at home, I know I will use it quite a bit when I travel. I almost certainly will no longer download my own music in advance, except where I know that I am going to be out of wifi or mobile range for long periods.
There are two nice to have features that would improve my use of ARC, The first of these is accessing the PDF files stored with my Roon music and the second is the ability to specify the download quality. I have a lot of hires files but do not need them at this level of quality for on the go listening.
Having the music organised in the way I have it at home is important to me.
I think the best you could hope to do is specify the maximum download speed, I guess arc like every other stream service will vary the bitrate depending on network quality.
No point telling it you want max if it cannot provide it
I don’t think Arc is any kind of game changer based on the way I listen when away from the house.
Right now my primary use / testing of Arc is when im moving around in the car. It adds a nice usable function for me there but lacks in several key areas for my mobile music needs.
Arc is of little use for me when travelling with job as my physical library is more vinyl based than CD so I rely heavily on Qobuz/Tidal with Roon. As one cant download from Qobuz/Tidal in Arc It is of no use when transiting airports, sitting on planes and using mobile data outside of Europe.
My DAP is my goto mobile device & will not update beyond Android 7 (so wont even run Arc) but it still ticks all the boxes I need (and see no point in upgrading just to run Arc):
YMMV.
why does this Port Forwarding thing doesn’t work for you? I’m a Vodafone Customer too and it worked easily for me.
For me ARC is a Gamechanger for sure. Now it is possible to use the Playlist Section in Roon for the first time really. Having a nice Playlist in Roon but not synced with Tidal was always a Bummer on the go. Now I can use Roon everywhere for everything. Cloud based Roon would be perfect though. But thanks a lot from me for this update. Will lead into a Lifetime Subscription for me at Christmas most likely.
Some posts here make me believe that you have to be a professional customer to do that. I’m no nerd so any instruction how to do that would be nice. I use Fritzbox cable. Strange thing. I can see all my Playlists on ARC but cannot play anything. 
Yes, game changer for me. As a farmer, I do a lot of outside and tractor work and Roon on the go is great: acces to local music, follow up with history, etc. It has been reliable so far and SQ is excellent for mobile listening.