I’ll give it a shot, @eric - please let me know if I can clarify.
The only one who routinely changes anything in the library is me, and that’s generally either some cleanup after adding CD rips or downloads into the library (adding music may average once a week or two, it’s definitely not a daily thing), or it’s just the act of podcasts downloaded by iTunes getting recognized by Roon and then selected new episodes being added by me to a playlist of talking we’ll want to listen to.
It would be unusual for library edits to go on at the same time as playback, just because of the order in which I tend to focus on things.
An awful lot is just local tracks, and those usually play without incident as long as I’ve kept the playback zone group sizes reasonable. One day a week we tend to play a lot of podcasts. Six days a week usually start with 2-3 hours of internet radio.
Of course - constantly. In fact, recent zone-grouping UI changes to Roon made me think that the Roon devs / UI designers must for some reason think that zone groupings are a static thing, given the extent to which some frequent operations became less convenient, requiring more steps.
I basically never disable zones - I actually have trouble imagining what purpose that would serve, so the only time zones get disabled in our household is when they drop out temporarily during reboots after software upgrades.
But zone groupings are a constantly adapting thing - for instance, in the morning while prying my eyes open, I’ll usually play WFMU to the Bedroom; then before moving around the house, I’ll generally add the Bathroom and Kitchen zones. I’ll stagger out of bed, feed the dog in the kitchen, then shave and shower.
Once I’m done in the bathroom, I’ll remove that room from the group - because the sound of the speakers in there reflecting from the tile makes things sound subpar in the two other rooms.
When I finish dressing in the bedroom, I’ll want to remove the bedroom from the zone grouping and just continue listening in the kitchen while I get a bite to eat; but here’s where recent damage to the Roon UI makes things more difficult:
- If I initially created the Bedroom/Bath/Kitchen group starting with the bedroom, for some inexplicable reason I can’t now drop the bedroom from the group: the first zone in a group has a special status now which as far as I can tell has zero actual utility for the user. So to drop the Bedroom from the Bedroom + Kitchen group, I either have to do an explicit extra ungroup operation first, or I have to drop the Kitchen (the only zone I don’t want to drop), save the new group without the Kitchen, then go to now playing and transfer play to the Kitchen.
Anyhow. Side rant over. However accomplished, I’ve now trimmed the group down to where I now need the music playing and continue on with the day. But yes, fluid adaption of which zones are playing is an essential part of daily life, and happens routinely throughout the day. I drop unneeded zones because their speakers affect the sound where I’m listening and I’d rather not have that extra source coming out of a too-near room, or because the zone I’m currently paying attention to is lower (higher number) in the Clock Master Priority pecking order than the zone I’m not listening to and it seems silly for the situationally more important zone to be getting the bit-imperfect stream.
Turn off meaning… what? Power them down? If that’s the question, then - no, never. I don’t see what utility that would have. I always want them on the network available to be chosen via the Roon UI.
I’d say 95% of the time I control everydamnthing from my Android phone.
Exceptions would be: while building up a podcast playlist, which I’d do with the Mac Roon application on the same machine whose iTunes instance had just downloaded podcasts; and when building a big playlist for a party or something which I’d also do from a Mac Roon instance - because the full Roon UI, screen real estate, and a real keyboard make everything less frustrating.