When using Roon ARC on the road does my server where Roon Core is installed consume data? If so then data is consumed both on my home network and on my mobile. It would be important to know for people with limited data bundles.
Thks
Peter
My best guess is yes. Everything Roon goes via the core , it’s almost irrelevant where it goes afterwards. If Roon consumes data for local playback then it will consume the same data before spitting the stream out to ARC.
I live in South Africa and our data costs are high so ARC is of little interest to me. 
This is not true.
If you’re playing tracks / albums from Qobuz or Tidal, they are streamed directly from the respective streaming service. Only when you play your own local music (stored somewhere at home), will it go via the Core. If you download the latter to your phone, it will play from your phone instead.
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Hope this is true as i have the same problem of high data cost here. We pay 80$ for 300GB per month for the home connection. It could be useful to get a confirmation from Roon support.
It has been clarified many times that streaming service content does not go through the core. A casual search found one post by a Roon developer stating this explicitly, but this post is in the Early Access testing area. I don’t know if there is an official statement in the public area, but a search will find many posts about this
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This is correct; Qobuz and TIDAL stream directly. There are a couple of things that confirm this:
- Buffering is different for Qobuz / TIDAL when compared to content on the core
- When choosing lossy streams, Qobuz and TIDAL deliver this directly, e.g., MP3, whereas content from the core is converted to Opus 48 kHz
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There still will be some data consumption from the core for authentication and for accessing your library database but this is small in comparison to streaming. Roon isn’t totally in the cloud so has to call home to get certain info. Your own files will be streamed from core to phone but as said Tidal and Qobuz streams are pulled directly from the respective service.
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I stand corrected, certainly not what I thought was the process. My understanding was that all data was process to a “RAAT stream”in the core prior to distribution.
If Tidal streams direct that implies they stream in a RAAT compatible format ?
Some formal clarification would be nice @danny ?
FLAC and MQA I suppose, and some others for lower resolution perhaps.
Thats all OK, i understand that.
My question is what the protocol is that travels the network my understanding is that the only output from the core is RAAT
The formats you show are what Roon brings in from Tidal but what does it send to my streamer i though RAAT and only RAAT
Am i misguided ?
Are you talking ARC or local network playback ?
This thread is about ARC no?
According to the same FAQ, “Yes, ARC uses RAAT just like Roon and has the same capabilities with regard to USB DACs”, and “For Android, the answer is more nuanced. ARC shares Roon’s mobile implementation of RAAT, which uses Android’s AAudio framework to deliver an audio signal to the operating system on your device.”
However, I don’t quite understand this 
I thought RAAT transports PCM data and its main purpose is synchronized multiroom. No idea in which part of ARC it comes into play
It doesn’t send anything to your streamer. Roon ARC goes to your mobile, and your mobile alone. From there, it depends how you connect your audio device / headphones (e.g. via bluetooth).
Are you talking ARC or local network playback ?
Doesn’t a direct stream sott defeat the object of Roon , by passing the DSP for example ?
Am i missing something?
As for now, ARC does not do DSP, though this is planned. Not sure where the DSP will take place, on the phone endpoint or the core
Please keep in mind that this thread is about Roon ARC and Roon ARC alone. Roon ARC doesn’t do DSP.
Until it does I’m likely to stick with streaming services and a couple of Android DSP apps I use in tandem with them. If streamed content bypasses the core then DSP for ARC may be a slow train coming…
Things are getting complicated and we’re mixing things up. What and how the streaming services deliver the music to your Roon Core or Roon ARC, is not something that I consider part of RAAT? Once the music has reached your Roon Core / ARC, then further down the chain it will use RAAT.