As of today’s release Roon allows you to set preferences for streaming service, explicit content, and MQA handling.
We’ve heard your requests for more control in this area, and it’s become clear that a one-size-fits-all solution isn’t sufficient. So, we’re proud today to roll out a set of preferences that allow you to choose what kind of content Roon favors.
PLEASE NOTE: These changes were implemented to satisfy your feature requests. We aren’t making any qualitative statements about the content these settings effect. Please read the feature description below carefully to understand how these preferences behave. It’s also available in our Help Center. If you feel that the controls aren’t working as described, please let us know.
Also, let’s keep this positive. We’d like to emphasize that we aren’t interested in editorial commentary on one service vs. the other, or your thoughts about MQA as a format. Any posts of that kind will be removed immediately and you will be placed in time-out. We appreciate your cooperation. Thanks!
What It Does
Streaming Content Preferences appear on the General tab of Settings influencing non-library content across:
- Radio
- Search
- Recommendation Features (New Releases For You, In Their Prime, Collaborators, Performing The Music Of, etc.)
- Discography
- Daily Mixes
- Roon Playlists
These settings control…
- …whether you prefer TIDAL or Qobuz content when you have multiple streaming services enabled.
- …whether you prefer edited “clean” versions or “explicit” versions when both are available.
- …how MQA content is ranked against CD-quality and “Hi-Res” content.
What It Doesn’t Do
Apply to library content
Streaming Content Preferences don’t affect library content. For tracks and albums in your library, these streaming preferences will not be considered – you’ll simply get the Primary Version from your library.
Block or hide content
These are preferences, meaning they tell Roon what you would prefer when multiple choices are available – they do not “block” content. If you choose “Prefer TIDAL” and search for an album that’s only Qobuz, you’ll still get a Qobuz result.
This applies across all functionality listed above – regardless of your preferences, Roon will still recommend content that was only released in MQA format, or which only has an explicit version. These preferences are considered only when multiple versions of a given piece of content are available.
How It Works
When you use Roon with a streaming service, you’ll often have access to many different versions of a given album or track. For content in your library, Roon will always default to the Primary Edition – this always defaults to highest quality, and users can select a different version based on their preferences.
For content outside your library, we’ve now added three options:
Streaming Service preference
Choose whether Roon should prefer TIDAL or Qobuz when you’re logged into both and content is available from both services.
If left unchanged, Roon will select the highest quality version across both services
Explicit content preference
Choose whether Roon should prioritize edited “clean” versions. By default Roon will prefer unedited or “explicit” versions.
Note that this does not block access to explicit content or function as “parental controls”. This option controls which content is preferred in cases when both edited and explicit content are available.
MQA preference
Some users would prefer to default to MQA whenever available, while others would prefer Roon only present MQA content if no other versions are available. This setting determines how Roon will classify MQA content when multiple versions of an album or track are available.
Thank you for reading! 