Time for a new music topic. As a music lover I almost always have music playing whether at home or away from home (aka On the Go!). With modern mobile phones and other devices running various music apps, listening to music when away from home has never been easier. Some of us listen using Roon ARC, some, like me, use PlexAmp while others might use one of the music streaming apps (Tidal, Qobuz, Apple Music, etc). In any case it doesn’t matter how you stream music on the go as long as you’re enjoying some music while away from home (and Roon). Please post some of your recent on the go listens. I encourage you to also list how the music was streamed, i.e. using what app, and the device(s) used for playback. And music listened to while in the car also counts as On the Go!. I’ll go first:
I often go for long walks and use my iPhone and Focal Bathys headphones connected to the iPhone via a USB-C cable and the internal USB DAC of the Bathys. I stream the music using either PlexAmp (Roon ARC doesn’t play nicely with my very large music library ) or the Tidal/Qobuz app. PlexAmp offers the ability to use headphone equalization presets, similar to the new Headphone EQ now available in Roon and Roon ARC.
Today’s walk featured these musical selections played via PlexAmp on iPhone with Focal Bathys headphones. Note the images are screenshots taken using Roon and a PC. In the future I will try to take some screenshots using my iPhone.
Away from home, I use Roon server and client on my Dell XPS 15 with a Chord Mojo 2 and Focal Clear headphones. I stream from Tidal and Qobuz using Verizon cellular data on iPhone and two iPads. I play all the music in my Roon library whether at home or away (4220 links from Tidal and Qobuz).
Occasionally, I use Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones and Audio Quest DragonFly Cobalt DAC.
I had a free Apple Music subscription, but dropped that when Verizon stopped paying for it.
I did a road trip yesterday to visit family for Thanksgiving. I had arc running on my iPhone 14 Pro connected to my Kenwood head unit with component and coax Focal speakers and an audiocontrol DSP/5 channel amplifier which was a recent upgrade from a previous older 2009 five channel Alpine amp. Definitely like the sound of the audiocontrol DSP/five channel amplifier combo Though I find the software a bit of a nightmare to use, but it does sound great and Makes the focals a little less harsh and more laid-back. I used Tailscale for connectivity as I have now found that to be virtually flawless. I was even able to do original Fidelity most of the time and didn’t have to have roon choose a lesser streaming format. I didn’t drop the connection from Virginia to Indiana once! I did have a little drop in signal last night going to visit my sister and put Arc back to the select Best function. Point being I have found tailscale to really be the savior for making arc work after countless headaches with the roon auto setup function and/or port forwarding…Tailscale just plain works!
Any way to the original post…I played a mishmash of Classical/jazz/rock music, including the Joseph Moog performing the Grieg and Moszkowski piano concertos, some of the Bernstein set of Mozart symphonies, the new Miles Davis 54 prestige recordings, Peter Gabriel‘s I/O album, the Maestra movie soundtrack, Xian Wang’s new MacDowell piano Concerto No. one recording, a high definition tape transfers release of Britten conducting Britten of the young person‘s guide to the Orchestra, the new Father John Misty album and a few other test tracks from recent Don Henley remasters…
Doug
I can’t find where Roon actually announced Tailscale for use with Roon ARC, but it must be out there somewhere. It’s an alternative to the port forwarding method.
Thanks for the feedback exclamation point like Jim said below Tailscale is a way to get around forwarding. It is essentially free VPN between your Roon Server and whatever device u r running ARC on. In my case I downloaded tailscale to my sonictransporter and then the tailscale apps onto my iphone and ipad. Instructions here:
As long as you have ur roon sever on mac, windows, a sonictransporter, any roon product like the Nucleus and likely some other compatible servers u just create the free tailscale account, load the apps and voila! A few things they mention is make sure to turn off port forwarding in the roon settings and on ur router if u enabled it. I also discovered the other day that if I want to use arc on my iPad. I have to make sure I have turned off Tailscale on my iPhone. It’s literally just a button in the app you click to connect or disconnect. It’s pretty much instantaneous. But apparently you can’t try using arc on an iPad or iPhone if you are connected to the other one. Not a big deal but just something to consider. Usually I just use arc on my iPhone, but I happen to have my iPad with me so I tried it that particular day. Will probably use it more on the iPad if we ever get our dedicated arc app for iPad. In the meantime, the iPhone works just fine
Doug
) or the Tidal/Qobuz app. PlexAmp offers the ability to use headphone equalization presets, similar to the new Headphone EQ now available in Roon and Roon ARC.
