I’m surprised this issue isn’t raised more frequently. When I close Roon, music often keeps playing. Is it the Core or something else? In any event, how can I prevent it, i.e, when I close Roon, all music stops? Thanks
It depends on the endpoint you are playing from/to, the remote you are using to control it, and where/how your “server” is located/setup.
You need to stop playback on endpoints that you are controlling from a “remote” app. They will indeed continue to play unless told to stop by the remote app or you shut down the main server.
Thanks for the reply, but I have no ‘endpoints’. I’ve simply installed it on my Mac, and that is the only place I use it. Is Roon overkill for my purposes?
No, not overkill (lots of good discovery if you wan it and good interface).
You may be running two instances of the app? One as the server (always running in background as a process “headless”) and the other as the remote control (that you open when you want to play music). So in your case you just need to pause music before shutting down the remote app.
You should be able to find the “RoonServer” process and tell it not to run at startup. Then you can start stop the app/server when you you need it?
I don’t have a MAC so can’t say if I have this exactly correct.
They say its keeps playing after shutting Roon down, so I “think” they have a headless server running in the background?
Nah - simply that installing “Roon” on a Windows PC or a Mac actually installs two separate applications - the Roon user interface and Roon Server.
The Roon Server runs in the background and must be explicitly closed (if you want to do this).
Closing the Roon user interface while a queue of tracks is still being worked through (or Roon Radio is active) doesn’t stop the Roon Server from continuing to play music…
It’s hard to believe it can’t turn off. This is a deal killer. I’m looking for a media player, not an audio system.
Fine - if Roon is not for you, go for a simple media player.
Roon has a different architecture…
You can stop the zone from playing (hit stop on your Mac)
Roon is running as a server and continues to run in the background, until you explicitly shut it down , not like running Apple Music software on your Mac.
Yeah just hit pause before closing the GUI. You’re not closing the server, which you don’t need to…but closing the GUI doesn’t stop playback because that would cause a lot of other problems with the way people use Roon in more sophisticated ways.
Your argument is that your car should turn off automatically when you park it. You have to turn it off too.
An excellent question, and one you seem to be revisiting after having used Roon for a while (over 2 years?). I’ve created several iterations of a logic tree to help family and friend decide if Roon is right for them. I’ll share the latest version here, with the hope that it will reaffirm your decision to use Roon.
| Music player | Local files | Streaming | Bit-perfect lossless playback | Multi-room Synchronized Playback |
Core capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standalone desktop app | Yes | No | Usually yes | Usually no | Local-file playback, simple library management, broad format support, lightweight use. |
| Spotify, Qobz, Tidal | No | Yes | Yes | No | Streaming-only listening, playlist and discovery features, plays to one music device at a time. |
| JPlay | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited | Light weight, high quality audio playback, with emphasis on efficiency and speedy UI. |
| Audirvana | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited | Prioritizes sound quality with advanced signal processing, unified library management. Subscription to Studio required for local + streaming playback. |
| Roon | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Metadata-driven music management that unifies local and streaming playback with sub-millisecond, sample-accurate synchronization across multiple rooms and different hardware brands. |
If you are looking for a way to turn a scattered collection of music files and streaming apps into a single, high-definition experience, Roon is the gold standard. It will organize your music into a beautiful, searchable, and interconnected library. It’s waaaay more than a simple music player 
If your focus is primarily sound quality from the computer, Audirvana will help adjust your computer’s audio system for high quality output to your speakers. Provides an editor to update music files’ names, genres, and artwork directly, saving changes to your hard drive.
JPlay is the best choice if you want a good looking, mobile-first app to play music and control it all from your iPhone, iPad, Mac.
Thanks for the responses.
But I forget my original Q! Is there a way to run Roon without the Server?
No, but the server doesn’t have to be a separate machine. You can run GUI and server together on the same single Windows or Mac machine.
Confusing question
- The Roonserver needs to be running on some machine in your network subnet.
- A PC can run just the client, however, getting that setup depends on the situation
There are two ways of doing this. If you installed Roon on the PC and happened to install both, you can tell the server NOT to auto load when the system boots and then reboot.
OR, when you install Roon on a PC the first time, if there is another RoonServer running on the network, Roon will ask if you want to connect to that RoonServer or use the current PC. IF you say connect to the existing RoonServer on the network, only the client will be installed.