Roon core optionally transcodes the files while streaming to save data from your bundle. So it is already possible to do it in real time. I would expect it to be a small feature. I currently store 256kb/s AAC from iTunes on my iPhone. I’d like to replace this scenario with something similar using ARC. It’s for use with Bluetooth headphones or for playing music in the car. No lossless audio required. I’d enjoy quicker downloads and above all, more music files on my phone.
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Agreed Jan. The fact that Roon Core demonstrably already has the necessary compression codecs because it can decompress streamed data makes it all the more frustrating that the same compression options can’t also be made available for files being downloaded to Roon ARC.
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Yeah, this would be a great feature. Streaming from a laptop remotely seems to be a PITA from my experience
Bump…it’s frankly baffling that this hasn’t been implemented or at least confirmed to be on its way. The transcoding functionality already exists for streaming. Simply do the same exact thing for downloads. There are myriad very legit reasons for wanting this, as has already been discussed. Download times, limited phone storage space, limited mobile data, battery life, etc. etc. ARC does me little good without this. And they’re also raising the price significantly. I’m getting antsy. Renewal is becoming less of a certainty.
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Hi all, as you know we had to make some hard calls to get ARC out the door and this was unfortunately something that had to get postponed. We agree, these are all valid use cases we’d like to support.
To clearly confirm—this is on the roadmap. We are kicking off the work soon and aim to have it in ARC in Q1.
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This is super exciting to hear. Thanks for the update Michael.
Even though you have announced upcoming support for my most wanted Roon ARC enhancement please forgive me if I get a bit cheeky and high;ignition one other feature request here because, at least for my use case (wanting to be able to download my entire local library to my phone), it is very tight;y coupled to this request.
For those of us who want the compressed download feature because they do want to be able to store large amounts of music on their phone then the other half of that equation, once the space situation is solved by implementing compression, is how does one download potentially hundreds of albums to Roon ARC when right now the only way to do downloads is an album/track/playlist at a time? So, for those of us here who do want to download a large number of albums might I suggest that you switch your votes (presumably no longer needed here) to a feature request that allows more convenient downloading of multiple albums. I would humbly suggest my own feature request from a while back that asks for multi-select, as already seen in the Roon remote apps, to be implemented in Roon ARC so that one can select multiple albums (for instance), or do a select-all, and then apply the download action to the entire selection. You can find that feature request here …
Apologies for what some might consider an off-topic post but I consider these two feature requests so tightly coupled, at least for those of us who do want to download lots of stuff, that it seemed appropriate to put that link here.
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Hey Julian, we have a feature already in early access testing which shows you a list of all of your downloadable content and allows you to download anything with one click. Hopefully that makes things a bit easier.
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Great to see this feature on the roadmap for Q1… I also support the use case, to convert/limit downloads to 16/44, as I don’t need 24/192 on my phone, but I would prefer 16/44 over lossy 320Kbps 
Actively discussing this one.
What are the issues you have day to day that this would solve?
I’d like to replace the (local) music on my phone which I still sync via iTunes to an ARC based setup.
The advantage is that I can have around 10 GB of local storage dedicated to music for ‘on the road’, which wouldn’t eat into my data bundle (like I have now), but I would still have the complete Roon experience and access to my complete library when needed (which I currently can’t).
I can’t wait to listen to Roon radio based on my favourite artist, but streaming only a minority of the data (library and Tidal combined) and relying for the most part on data that is already on my phone (a user experience that the Apple Music app doesn’t offer, unless if I make my own playlists).
Lossless is not required when listening on the car radio or with TWS earbuds, but a large number of local files would be great.
I hope that sufficiently helps advertise my use case.
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I just thought of a more pressing reason to add this functionality by putting myself in your shoes. Even though it would be a better experience, currently, I am not using ARC at all.
Firstly, because it would allow me fewer files on my device, but more importantly, because my company is paying for my data bundle. I don’t want to run out of data for professional purposes simply because I have been listening to streaming audio via ARC.
I therefore continue to listen to Apple Music on my device which I sync in an ever unfriendlier iTunes ecosystem (Apple Music is not iTunes anymore, it wants to be a music streaming app instead of a library manager and device synchronization tool).
The reason I would love to have the ability to convert downloaded files ist quite simple.
I travel a lot (by car and train). Depending on the area the net coverage can be really bad, which leads to regular dropouts, which drives me crazy - especially while driving by car. I am also often traveling between countries (Germany & Switzerland in my case). The provider change also causes dropouts. Therefor I always keep a “standard package” of albums and playlists offline on my phone for traveling. As storage is expensive I would really love to have the capability to convert/limit downloads to 16/44, as I don’t need 24/192 on my phone. That’s why I still use mostly PlexAmp, when I am traveling…
Damn, still waiting for this…
I assumed compression was an option. Got to this thread trying to find out how to enable it. Downloading files and using ARC offline is the only way I can get it to not crash within minutes, I was hoping I could put a ton of files on my phone for an extended trip where I will not have access to internet. I will have make sure to choose wisely.
This request can be changed from “[on Roadmap]” to “[Implemented]” (or whatever terminology is used to show feature requests that are now addressed in a general release) can’t it?
A big thank you to those involved at Roon for getting this done. This, together with the ability to do a one-click download of all of my local library files on my server, should now finally mean that I can use ARC for my local disconnected iPhone playback rather than having to create AAC versions of all of my FLAC files to use with Apple Music for iPhone playback.
I still don’t think the ARC UI is as nice as Apple Music, e.g. no tile option for album and artist views (the subject of a separate feedback request posted by someone else and my main complaint with the UI now) but both of the show-stopping issues that made it impractical for me to get my entire local library onto my phone have now been addressed.
I just wanted to say a personal thanks @michael for shepherding this feature through design and implementation. I was one of the people you reached out to a while back to schedule a zoom call to discuss and understand what I, as an example of a potential use case, wanted from this functionality and why. Your commitment to the product and to making the feature happen was very apparent on that call and, although it did take a bit longer than expected to get to full public release (as is often the case) it did happen (and more - smart downloads(*) as an added bonus) and that’s ultimately what matters.
(*) Not a feature I’m likely to use, I just download everything, but still nice to see innovative thinking and going beyond the basics.
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Thanks for your feedback on this one @Julian ! I hope that download all nails your use case 
Closing this thread as it’s out there. If anyone has more feedback, please submit a new thread!
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