Local music, still relevant?

Roon Software Discussion
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I originally started using Roon back in 2017 to play my local music collection with my Meridian MS600, G08 Pre and G57 Power amp, I also had a B & W Zeppelin Air and a Mac with speakers attached that were immediately all available to use within Roon.
I’d been using iTunes and AirPlay with my Zeppelin until I had my Hi-Fi gear shipped over from England, I’d already had a subscription to Apple Music and iTunes Library (where all your music was available in the cloud). I cancelled both of those subscription’s when Tidal was integrated into Roon and started using Tidal for finding new music and listening away from home (along with my two iPod classics).

I’m an ageing dinosaur that doesn’t want to let go of my personally curated library and I would much rather purchase music and have my own copy, although I don’t particularly want more personal effects so I can totally see where @Jim_F is coming from, which is why I generally purchase in download form only.

Nothing is permanent and there is no point to grasping onto things that will eventually pass but I’ve just gone through 18 months of intermittent internet drop outs, it was a ridiculous saga of epic proportions and the NBN network finally admitted fault and fixed the cabling to our residence two months before we moved interstate!!! It only took two different ISP’s about 15 technician visits and 18 months to fix. They constantly blamed my gear, I had 2 new modems, a new socket whenever a tech came out, they blamed the fact that I was in bridged mode and said I was being hacked. All the time it was the above ground cabling, which I had been asking them to check since the first visit.

Internet is great until it isn’t. Hopefully it wont happen to you.

Roon 2.0 and our reliance on streaming means that I cant listen to my own personal music on my Meridian system if the internet drops out. It’s bllsht in my opinion and doesn’t sit right with me at all. Luckily I still have iTunes and AirPlay to fall back on and I can link my iPod directly into my Pre-Amp so I at least have that option as well.

As an aside, I also use ARC everyday in my car with a Pioneer CarPlay stereo but I’ve just gone back to the Tidal app and my iPods linked to my car stereo. ARC drains my iPhone ridiculously quickly and if I have it on charge whilst using ARC and CarPlay it gets so hot that the OS stops charging the phone.

I can imagine a day where the only way you will be able to purchase music will be at gig or from an artists website. My children and especially their children probably will not understand why you would purchase music, it’s sad to think of but the generations who purchased albums, C.D.’s Etc will eventually pass on, of course there will always be those that are into retro and antiques.

It’s a mindset @mikeb and if you can get your head around it and adapt, more power to you!

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In the 2000’s i ripped my library of approx. 2000 cd’s to a External HD and learned how to stream with the Logitech Duet. Before I developed a conscience i downloaded 320 bps mp3’s from a Ukraine-based web site. I discovered Roon in 2015 and went lifetime in 2017. Time passed and i came to believe that files in Qobuz and Tidal were sonically superior to my mp3’s. I systematically replaced my library with superior versions, using the “hide albums” feature to visually eliminate them. I will keep those mp3’s just in case there is an Apocalyptic event and music streaming services all disappear. For now my local files are 99% irrelevant.

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Local content is still relevant , I see reliability of internet raised BUT what about power. I would guess , judging from the respondents, most of the commentary above is US/UK/Europe ?

Back on my local sob story but currently in South Africa we have less generation capacity than demand so we are subjected to what is referred to as Load Shedding where selections of neighborhoods in rotation are powered down for 2.5 hr periods. Depending on the national situation this can be as much as 3 x 2.5 hrs a day. You even have to plan little things like using a microwave to defrost food etc ! If the food doesn’t defrost all on its own some.

Add to that the internet providers are also subject to this load shedding so internet services will blip. Yes they have UPS but one of the favourite pass times of our criminal element is Battery and Cable theft.

Roon still supplies MOST of my audio needs when we have power but my “powerless back up plan” is my Cell Phone with a 256 GB SD card of FLAC files , USBPP and either a Bluetooth speaker or headphones (Beoplay A1 and Sony 1000 WH 4). This was originally for holidays but now has become home audio too.

Sorry if this sounds like a sob story but its reality for us and indeed in many other African countries (for example I saw a few days ago in Zimbabwe the drought has stopped hydro electric generation as the river has no water.) where the modern age has outstripped generation capacity (for whatever reasons) . I will refrain from commenting on reasons for fear of moderation. If you are interested Google Eskom and read the (sordid) details.

The fate of streaming services hasn’t been raised for a while but for example JRiver will not (Never ?) support streaming as their CEO firmly believes they are financially untenable . Not sure I agree. BUT …

No one has mentioned the fate of smaller streaming services under the onslaught of the big 3. Tidal was “forced” to introduce a more competitive offering a to compete with Apples pricing , Qobuz , other than Australia have not discovered the Southern Hemisphere so are not an option for me as well as being a lot more expensive if we were to subscribe in Euro’s .Tidal and Apple have local pricing cost me a little under $8 , and $4 if I went CD only.

If the big 3 take over we will be at their mercy

I have a large local library which I mostly listen with supplements from Tidal. For all of the above I can’t see me pulling the streaming only switch any time soon

Rant Over

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I go back and forth on this in my mind and every time I think I’ve settled the matter, I start to rethink it.

So, I continue to use it all. Qobuz. CDs. Ripped CDs in Roon. Vinyl.

I have fun curating THE CRAP out of my physical library for a few weeks, then I get bored with doing so. I think, Aw man just stream it.

Then, something goes missing or a technical issue arises, and I rally around owning music instead of leasing, and I go back. Until I feel like changing my mind again.

I probably need therapy.

In the meantime I just pay for it all and keep it all enabled and keep buying music so it’s all ready for when and if I want it.

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I don’t think about this at all. If people want to stream only that’s cool. I have every record, cd, mini disc and cassette I ever bought. I have the means to play everything except cassette. I can’t see that needing to change any time soon.

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This is broadly true, but if you are accessing the service through Roon it is mostly irrelevant.

I subscribe to Qobuz but I never use the Qobuz app (I don’t even have it installed), so I don’t see the stuff they are pushing. I just select what I like via Roon, and Roon shows me things that match my tastes.

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For me I have maybe 50 albums only. Why so few? Because I always thinking about it for years but I have no time and place to keep it :slight_smile:
Now I bought some albums - but ONLY my favourites ones. I have no rule but I think 1) albums I’ve listened hundreds times for years/decades like “The City” by Vangelis 2) something new but where I like more than 50% songs.
I don’t want to pay for more than 1 music service. Unfortunately in Poland I can only use Tidal with Roon.
And yes - I remember some albums I liked 20-30y ago. Now remastered versions sounds often worse. Or quite often some albums are not available or available partially.
The main problem with offline usage is that Roon requires internet connection. The second - I have no CD player only computer CD drive :smiley: but for sure I will buy it soon (Cyrus CDt should be great).
I don’t trust music services - lack of my music, remasters, incompleteness. And I can use my rip-s with other software/hardware - eg in my car.
I regres that very often CD contains only a disc and booklet with only 1-2 pages and thats all… But 16/44 is enough for me. I can see audio is now focused on numbers. More kHz, more Farads, more dB… It’s a miracle that we are still able to buy vinyls or tube amplifiers :slight_smile:

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Same for me with TIDAL. Works great that way.

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Oh, no biggie. And I get that you were just using an example.

I just found it interesting you felt catered to (or not catered to) by a streaming service. Using roon I guess i don’t feel like i’m being swayed in any direction, or being fed a particular group of artists. The service is just serving up files/artists/albums that I search for or request.

Artists I’m not interested in seem to be out of sight, out of mind.

I might feel differently if I used the Tidal/Qobuz apps directly, not sure.

EDIT: I see that @Tim_Rhodes said essentially the same thing! Missed that! :crazy_face:

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hello
my name is tom
i am a local streamer

I’ve also been on Tidal and Qobuz, but got off of them.
Now I only take local stuff, but the dose is often still a bit too high.
But I’ve learned to live with it.

thanks for listening :slightly_smiling_face:

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My thoughts exactly, it doesn’t effect me as I rarely listen to my own ripped files these days, but why Roon simply can’t show a pop-up that explains some metadata might not be available whilst you are not connected to the internet defeats me?

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I think I read it’s more to do with processing in the cloud, AI and Search rather than metadata , but agree in principle

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There isn’t anything else at all like Roon, and when it first arrived the thought of a really gorgeous interface to my own ripped music files totally won me over. Since then I’ve ‘replaced’ most of my library ‘primary’ copies with re-released or/and remastered Qobuz versions that I really like the sound of (one or two I prefer my original and that remains the primary copy). I rarely listen to my own ripped files and I am actually surprised when they pop-up in a Roon radio listening session as my Qobuz library is now huge in comparison.

But of course I suffer from the ‘unavailable’ curse when Qobuz update their database with a newly licensed or simply moved file and Roon no longer points to the new ID, this I am sure will get sorted with both teams on it. Also of course as stated often in the thread your ‘library’ is only available if the streaming service still have it licensed or the label hasn’t withdrawn it in favour of an new version. Plus of course the streaming service might die, but its unlikely we will see this with the main players as they should have gone years ago if they were going.

A good failsafe is to have a third party copy of your streaming service library on Soundiz (if that is still what it is called) then you will at least have a list of all your files and might be able to port them to another service.

Roon was never envisaged as a streaming service GUI so how that works out in the future who can tell. As the streaming services evolve and offer more metadata and library functions who can tell where Roon might end up. Audiophiles I think will always enjoy the many other features Roon provides and maybe files will continue to be the main option for Roon users.

There is no real answer here to the original question, as it depends upon the individual and their likes and dislikes. I for one would absolutely love to start collecting my historically significant albums again, also those I have found since that resonate with me for one reason or another - but I don’t see a current format that I would choose. CD’s have no physical value or presence for me at all, they were just a cheap plastic case and an easily transportable means of delivering digital files to a playing machine. Records are a dinosaur of the past, a lovely presence, but it never was an ideal medium, the opportunity for errors to arrive during pressing, the surface noise, click and pops, they wear out eventually - and then there is setting up and maintaining a record deck. Been there, did all that, that’s just not an option for me. Even though I love the physical presence as I say!

Hey! I’ve just had an idea… what about the record companies and labels (not the distributors or streaming services) releasing vinyl covers (with record inside for those who have a deck to play it) and a bar code on the physical medium unique to each record. This barcode could then be scanned by a ‘player’ streaming unit which would go get the master copy files and stream them into your system? Direct from the label, no intermediary, so always available? For the retro minded (I would definitely do this) there could be a record deck designed to appear to be playing the album but that was actually just reading the authorising strip and streaming it?

Or maybe I need to get out more… :rofl:

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Thats interesting perspective. I have not really thought about comparing the music streaming sites to the video streaming sites.
More reason to me to continue what im doing, which is buying cds

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If I would give up on my local music, I would have to say goodby to many CD’s that is not available as streaming. So for me, not an option.

And I want to keep my independence :slight_smile:

Have a nice WE

Torben

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Shocking, but I guess should/when the Apocalypse happens you’ll be better prepared than most.

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Seems to me the whole ideas of files being on some kind of local LAN is obsolete. Cloud it, folks!

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But storage location is not the relevant difference here. The OP was more about maintaining one’s own files vs. leaving it all to streaming services.

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Tidal serves me this. Except when I search for a particular artist or genre.

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Same for me

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