Questions from a Trial User

Roon Software Discussion
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Hello all, trial user to Roon and am enjoying it very much and debating between annual vs. lifetime subscription. I have a few questions if I may and thanks in advance for any assistance. I am also trialing both Tidal & Qobuz.

  1. can I backup and restore core on any machine provided they are only used one at a time? I presume I can have multiple cores and the second I use one the other one will kick off? (so either bring core from home to office or transfer to different machine down the line).
  2. it took a few days to backup core to Dropbox (about 5k albums; hard drive size about 750GB). I realize this Dropbox in the cloud but does this amount of time sound correct? Would it be better (time efficient) to backup somewhere else?
  3. is there a difference between using the “shuffle” button or the “roon radio” button?? I presume they do the same thing…
  4. can I filter out explicit content with focus (needed when kids around)? doesn’t seem possible.
  5. in regards to Tidal/Qobuz…if I add one of these albums as primary and remove a lower quality owned version of the identical album that I own I’m aware I can “remove (the) duplicate.” However, if I no longer subscribe to said streaming service will the inferior copy once again appear in my library automatically as the “primary version” or is this something that manually needs to be done? I presume (obviously) the saved streaming version will no longer automatically be in library (or else Roon would go to play and not be allowed to play since not there). Just curious if there’s manual work to be done in these instances. (as the reading of these forums alerted me to the need to manually add Tidal/Qobuz versions of albums to library).
  6. there’s a setting, “background audio analysis” that can be set to “throttled” or “fast (1 core)”, “fast (2 cores)”, etc. I have no clue what this does or means and typically shows a number / 50,000 or something. So “analyzing 432 / 53229” for example. Always seems to be a different number too.
  7. does roon core shut down on its own if not being used? or shutdown if computer that has the core becomes too stressed?
  8. I have not tested multiple users but seem to be able to group zones and play different songs in different zones. I presume this functionality is for one licensed user? Meaning once trial is over everything I can do now I can do with one license. I’m likely only user but may setup a user profile for kid(s) down the line if possible/allowed/functional under one license.
    9a) one of the marketing tools for Roon indicated album notes/booklets and such. I have seen Qobuz offer this on some of their albums but haven’t seen anything from Roon on my library or otherwise. Does Roon have these? …
    9b) …If not I notice a pdf function for visual content seems to scan into your library that’s in your owned music folder (such as multiple photos and such). What are the file types that will import into library to be opened as “pdfs” (I notice photos work)? How do I add this content once an album is already in my library?

Thanks in advance for any questions you may answer.

Dan

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  1. You have to deauthorize core 1 before authorizing core 2.
  2. There are two different things here: the Roon library, which just tells Roon what tracks, albums, etc, you have, which is pretty small and easy to backup; and the tracks themselves, which Roon itself does not store or backup.
  3. No. Roon Radio tries to sequence tracks according to a model of track similarities and user preferences. Shuffle, just randomly shuffles.
  4. No idea.
  5. You set the primary version for Roon. If the current primary goes away, the existing is what plays.
  6. That is analyzing the tracks so that it can do automatic volume leveling. It’s done once for each new track added. It’s quite demanding of the CPU, which is why there’s that setting in case analysis is interfering with other uses of the core machine.
  7. No. You have to manage the computer yourself.
  8. The multiple users are so that different people can have different preferences, history, etc. What you license are cores, not users.
  9. a) Roon will show any notes/booklets that are stored with your tracks, such as PDFs of liner notes distributed with some digital downloads, or anything you yourself put in the corresponding album folder. Some (but not all) Qobuz albums have PDF liner notes. b) PDF, JPG, PNG, and probably others, in the corresponding album folder.

Enjoy!

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Thank you for the quick responses!

  1. great! is this a lengthy process (like how the backup was) or something that can be done quickly on the fly?
  2. this was my understanding which is why I was surprised it took so long…maybe since it was the first backup.
  3. so roon is smart enough to realize this is no longer a removed duplicate and reinserts to library…nice.
    9b. so I just add files with these extension and roon will add to the existing library? nice as well.
    5, 6, 7, 8, 9a. got it thank you!

…again appreciate it.

Dan

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  1. I’ve not done it recently, so not sure. I’d just ask Roon to do a backup to a particular storage location on core 1, deauthorize core 1, start Roon on core 2, authorize it, and restore that same backup. Don’t recall this taking that much time, maybe 10 minutes max, but my library is smaller than yours.
  2. Don’t know. My Roon setup back up the library to a Synology NAS, and the NAS backs it up regularly to Google Drive. That way, Roon is not waiting for the cloud, it just backs up to the NAS on the same local network, and the NAS can then take its sweet time to upload the backup.
  3. Yes, AFAIK. I’ve done it for sure, but I can’t recall a recent experience.
  4. b) Those files are shown in the album browser in my experience.
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I didn’t realise this. Works great, thanks :+1:

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There is a toggle on the Queue screen to filter out Explicit content from Roon Radio. Look to the right of the line with Queue, under the three dots…

Note that Shuffle will use your own library. Roon Radio will use everything of interest among your library and all of your streaming services. So it is a much broader selection of music.

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I have found that the tagging of explicit content in Tidal to be spotty at best, but there is an option to tag albums as explicit yourself if it has been missed.

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Wonderful thank you. Both the explicit toggle and another toggle for limiting Roon Radio to library only is there in the spot you mention…never noticed!

Great point on the Shuffle vs. Roon Radio…essentially Shuffle is library only and RR will include discovery of add’l content. Thanks again.