we’re playing Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours across zones: “Dreams” on the portable JBL Charge 5 via Bluetooth for one person in the kitchen, while the album art shows on the living room LG TV for the rest of the family to enjoy visually.
These classic tracks bridge generations—grandparents reminisce about the ‘70s drama, kids groove to the beats, no one argues over the queue. Roon’s multi-zone and ARC make it easy without chaos.
How do you handle shared/multi-gen setups?
Tips, frustrations, or wishes welcome, especially from UK households!
mjw
(Father! Father! Resist not! Let us destroy the core! Set us free!)
2
Since there is only one library with multiple profiles, I don’t permit adding streaming sources to the library … only Listen Later. Any I find get zapped immediately!
Not an issue here. Only me and the wife in the house. We have a few zones - main room. kitchen, conservatory, outdoors, main bedroom, bathroom. I would say, in order of usage, my wife uses kitchen, bedroom, outdoors, that’s it. Our musical taste is different, but with some crossover. My wife is all about playing her favourite songs, so her one playlist is big…but gets a lot of plays. She is very happy with Roon/Qobuz, so that makes my life a lot easier
@Suedkiez I think I’ll be taking a leaf out of yours and mjw’s booklet, let’s say I have an acquired taste to certain music but others don’t in this household
This is basically our household too, her playlist dominates the kitchen/bedroom/outdoors rotation. We’ve got different tastes but zero issues since profiles keep things separate-ish. Loving how hassle-free it is overall.
I’ve still not listened to qobuz as yet I’ve heard good things tho, is it worth the upgrading from tidal?
Having never tried Tidal I cannot answer your question. Qobuz is great for us. Generally has everything we look for. If not, we have plenty of cd’s and vinyl that can fill the gap. For the most part I cannot be @rsed to rip cd’s.
A good friend of mine has listened to both apps he reported qobuz it sounding more “focused, natural, refined” with better detail/separation/blacker background. He says it’s much more suited to the audiophile
The statements from your friend are not something I can comment on. I just listen to music (albeit with a hissy right ear) I’ve always been a music fan, rather that an audiophile… which I am not. I do like music, when, (to me) it sounds good. Having said that, I’d rather have a good song, despite the format/audio system dynamics. If I were you I would not get into a dilemma about any perceived sound differences between Tidal/Qobuz. Just focus on the selection of artists that best fits your musical preference.
Thanks for the perspective, you’re spot on about focusing on the music over the format wars. For me, Either way, Roon ties it all together nicely. No need to overthink it!
If they have the same masters and audio files, they sound the same. However, they didn’t because of Tidal‘s MQA, and most likely this still affects many albums that were not properly replaced.
Cheers, yeah, with MQA gone and FLAC taking over, most of those old diffs should be history. I’ll be Sticking with TIDAL for now, and it sounds great in Roon these days. Music first
The moment Qobuz came out in my region, I dropped Tidal faster than a hot potato. So, imho, yes and I never looked back.
I buy, because streaming service content is never stable, the album might be removed, a different version you dislike might replace it, etc etc. So, on that score Qobuz destroys Tidal since, I get up to 50% off purchasing high res. The discounts over a year more than cover the price of the subscription, for me.
Thanks for the reply, Rugby—appreciate the insight! I get the point about streaming instability; I’ve had albums vanish or get swapped for worse masters on Tidal before, so owning hi-res makes sense long-term.
Have you tried any DSD downloads yet in Roon? From what I’ve read, you just drop the files into a watched folder, Roon scans them in as local, and plays native/DoP if your DAC supports it
mjw
(Father! Father! Resist not! Let us destroy the core! Set us free!)
16
Treat them as a commodity, especially if used via Roon, and go for the best deal. That used to be an annual sub with Qobuz, but a monthly TIDAL sub is pence each month more nowadays.
Tip: Roon is offering a two month Qobuz trial; code when you sign in to Roon.
Yes, I’ve purchased many DSD downloads over the years from various stores. Just put them in the watched folder of the RoonServer. If your DAC can play native format (which doesn’t mean it actually plays the DSD format in it’s 1 bit format**) or via DoP, then yes, otherwise Roon will convert the DSD to PCM and send PCM.
**Example, Chord products can take a native DSD stream IN, but, immediately converts it to PCM as Chord products (except Dave) cannot play 1 bit native DSD streams. To do so, you need to have a 1 bit native DAC.
Well at least I’m not the only one who doesn’t like the Mrs or anyone for that fact touching the Hifi system hahaha brilliant I’ll be telling the Mrs she’s got a new job dusting mine tomorrow
