Thinking about canceling Roon and Tidal... can you help?

If there is enough interest I will create a separate thread for this. Will require some discussion to vet this solution. The music is alway local or Tidal. What is synched is the roon core database.

A lot of interest! Please create a new thread!!

There have been other threads but they all ended with ‘this works intermittently’ and they all said networking (subnets) was the limiting factor but a Roon DB synch strategy may work. IDK. Love to hear more.

Also, did this get messed up by emojis?

Edit: I’ve given all of 30 minutes to how this could work but I keep getting stuck with considering three things

  1. owned music - where the owned files are located could be a constraint — if in the cloud I think that’s fine— if on a computer then the files would have to be copied to the mobile device right?
  2. Roon is more than a DB- it’s a player, too and it uses intense processing power for playing music
  3. network/ subnet stuff

In other threads, folks have two “versions”- one for work and one for home. At work they likely restore from backup on a computer and deauthorize home and authorize work. That works (pun intended) because all three of the above constraints are met - 1) files are on both computers/servers or all in the cloud 2) the work computer can process Roon and 3) all on the same network.

In a truly mobile situation, all the local files would have to be on the mobile device or in the cloud. That’s easy to meet as a requirement.

But what mobile device could do the Roon processing? Constraint #2?? Idk.

Also, Constraint 3 could likely be met if all the files are local to the mobile device or in the cloud.

There’s a third option: have a cloud service which pulls from the LAN store as required by the mobile device. Need two servers, one running in the cloud, one running on your LAN, connected to the cloud service via, say, websocket. The cloud service gets requests from the mobile, and fills them by pulling what’s necessary from the LAN service as needed.

In fact, this is the architecture I’d use if I were extending Roon to do mobile. Roon is already running two services, one in the cloud and one on your LAN. The missing piece would be the cloud<–>mobile part.

Intriguing. I think that’s how Plex works but I’m not sure a user could create this framework. I think only Roon could make this happen.

In the current architecture, at some point the user would have to “trick” Roon into thinking everything is on the same network even though it isn’t, right? That’s why some have employed VPNs and the like to access remotely.

Idk. My networking skills end at DNS and simple routing elements.

Right now, yes, a single network, usually via VPN.

The dual-service approach would also be tricky to implement, and would no doubt require a lot of caching. Many users have asymmetric network connectivity, with less bandwidth going from LAN to WAN than from WAN to LAN. That consideration would push the “everything in the cloud” architecture.

A lot of users have very limited “up” bandwidth. Also, there are a lot of “thou shalt not run any servers” in residential ISP contracts.

Excellent point, but in my scheme, it would be a server in the same way Roon Core is. That is, it wouldn’t open a port to the Internet which could be connected to. Instead, it would connect to a port on an external cloud service. There are lots of these kinds of servers running in residential LANs now, with the advent of IoT devices.

Hank, you are correct on all counts.

The misprinted emoji in my previous reply alluded to an os x based phone. I knew of no mobile device capable of running a Roon core(RC).

I think, architecturally, the music can live in the cloud and ‘mounted’ on the machine running RC. In my thinking there are multiple RC’s. The network bandwidth from RC to an endpoint for an enjoyable experience requires this.

There are use cases where a single shared Roon database between RC’s is necessary and other use cases where they can be separate. Barring a solution from Roonlabs, the shared Roon database is doable with a carefully crafted workflow — backup from primary RC — restore to secondary RC rinse and repeat.

We have many options for a stationery RC - Nucleus and Nuc to name two. For a mobile RC we need a powerful and rugged enough device that is light to carry and has a battery life to match the battery life of your phone ie Mobile endpoint. The device running the RC also need to provide routing/wireless access point services. I envision a device you throw in your pack and it stays there.

In essence we have made a software problem into a hardware problem. What fun!

Shown below is the actual bit rates on the ethernet port the endpoint is connected to. The difference between theoretical and actual is probably TCP/IP overhead and/or ‘Roon Value Add’.

These reasons by OP are key reasons I cancelled my roon/tidal.

It’s just too annoying to use, i want a full integrated experience at home and on the road through my phone and/or tidal.

Currently they act as a disjointed ecosystem with small integrations that just don’t cut it at all.

Remote Access is KEY to this IF you cannot integrate Tidal and Roon properly.

I just don’t understand how Roon as a company cannot see this. Streaming is the future, if you cant STREAM roon music from your own library and tidal on the go then what’s the point?

And what’s worse, you cannot add local tunes to tidal playlists or manage tidal playlists properly from Roon so once your on the road, your tidal isn’t even up to date.

It’s stupid and a deal breaker. It really makes many people give up and just use spotify for how much easier it is, and I have spent over 30k on good audio equipment so certainly crave quality.

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Answer, I listen mainly at home…

It’s stupid and a deal breaker. It really makes many people give up and just use spotify for how much easier it is, and I have spent over 30k on good audio equipment so certainly crave quality.

It would be interesting to see how you use this kit on the road.

If you are happy to use Spotify on the road, convenience wins over quality with you here.

Already publicly confirmed to be coming… no timeline given.

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/mobile-music-sync-and-streaming-on-roadmap/15249/16?u=sean2016

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Hey! I, too, believe streaming is the future and quality will not suffer (in my vision of the future). Time will tell… Many may not recall we used to buy BluRay (goodness HD-DVD for that matter) discs and rip them - 30-40gb in size so that we could have the best video and audio quality for watching movies. Now that streaming is here to stay… streamers will continue to improve and quality will not be a limitation.

We just need to have our music accessible…

I would critique Roon on giving a different UX on a phone-- the whole “limited real estate” premise falls a bit short to the “different / almost unusable user experience” on the phone. Consider, if I’m using my phone as a remote control for ease of use-- I can’t

  • Sort playlists
  • Access DSP
  • Access screens/displays

Providing an ellipsis (…) to access more functions would best the limited real estate issue.

FUNNY THINGS

  1. Peep this funny thing-- when using my phone as an endpoint and using the Audeze DSP add-ons I have to make my phone public, then pick up my iPad to connect to the iPhone zone, then access DSP for the iPhone to turn on the Audeze DSP add-on. Then back to my phone to play the music. That’s just awful!

  2. One more funny thing-- the workaround for Airplay 2 is weird/wonky. When casting a Tidal track from my i-Device to the Homepods in stereo mode the volume level is inconsistent. Even within a song the volume goes up and down. This does NOT happen when I use Tidal. Weird.

Finally, I wish Roon delivered releases more like sprints (Agile development)– you know, each 2-4 weeks we got mini little releases, in release 1.5.1 we addressed a sorting bug… in release 1.5.2 (a month later) we added a new feature… now to those who counter with DevOps constraints and saying creating a long-term solution is mutually exclusive to sprints-- well, I disagree. But I know you would have to scale your Dev team to do point and long-term releases- it’s definitely possible. Ask me how I know? :blush:

Idk- it’s still a good tool and I’m not complaining.

Snap! Release 1.6 is out. Gotta try it and see if the improvements are grat. Assume they are. Excited!!

I see that Roon has addressed two of my most recent concerns… and one of my first concerns:

  1. UX on phone-- now DSP and other features are accessible
  2. Karaoke/music lyrics now display without the need of a separate display – only applies to computers playing music
  3. Search - not sure how much better it is yet-- but my old search that failed to find the track now works!!

Cool, thus far

NO you are not crazy. Moved to QOBUZ. Where I get some Roon functionality and ALL MY PLAYLISTS are in the same PLACE. I have taken my credit card info off Roon and it will shutdown in May.

Moved to Qobuz from what? You do know that Roon is fully integrated with Qobuz, right?

Moved from Roon to using Qobuz exclusively. Matched my local Library as much as possible with what is available in Qobuz. As a result, I have almost everything under one roof. I can also listen to my consolidated music/playlists 16bits/44kHz to 24bit/96kHz anywhere and including all my devices, primary and secondary audio systems at home, our 2 cars, visiting friends, and when I travel or even at work. A basic thing Roon cannot do.

To be fair, Roon can do many other things that the Qobuz app cannot do: Filter, bookmarks, tag, statistics, save sorted and easily classify music, shows you the resolution of your music as it travels between it’s DSP and your hardware any many other functions that are welcome. But still it cannot do anything outside your home.

No, Roon is not fully integrated with Qobuz, or for that matter Tidal. Roon cannot give you access to any of your music or your playlists when you are not physically at home. Being able to access playlists you have created at home and having access to them and your music when outside your home is a basic requirement and function in this day and age. The counter argument that I get is that Roon will be mobile someday, they are working on it. Unfortunately this has been the answer for the past 2 years and still not even a sign of this development.

So you have to use a second application when outside your home (or inside your home for that matter) like the native Qobuz or Tidal apps where you can add/update your playlists.

Now you are back home and you fire up Roon. Yes you have access to your Qobuz/Tidal playlists from within Roon when at home but that’s not a Roon playlist it is a Tidal/Qobuz playlist.

The result: Two (2) sets of playlists and favorites, Qobuz/Tidal playlists and Roon playlists.

Now if you want to add items to your Tidal/Qobuz playlist from within Roon, you cannot. Period. To be fair the only thing you can do is favorite items within Roon that will be reflected in the Qobuz favorites (not Qobuz playlists) and that does not work for Tidal at all.

So now all you can do is add items to your Roon Playlists from within Roon. However you still cannot sync or push those new/updated playlists back to your Qobuz/Tidal Playlists (so that you can listen to them when outside your home).

So you think that you should be able to sync playlists between two services with yet a third paid application like Soundiiz. But alas, Roon does not work with Soundiiz. Yet apps like Tidal and Qobuz (and many others) can sync playlists automatically between them using something like Soundiiz. So you have to do it manually one by one.

The counter argument you get for this is that Roon cannot do this because how would it be able to resolve Roon playlists that incorporate items from two (2) services at the same like Tidal and Qobuz (and your local music of course) lets say. The answer to that is in the paragraph above. And if not, I assure you that they can write software to resolve that. Also, most everyone does not subscribe to both Qobuz and Tidal at the same time so how about we get it to work with at least one music service at a time? In addition, there is no sign from Roon is there is something that would resolve this.

So I repeat, no, Roon is not anywhere near integrated with Qobuz or Tidal or any other music service I know of. And I really, with today’s software technology, don’t want to have to manage multiple playlist in multiple apps to listen to my music. I want this to be easy, not hard. If and when Roon goes mobile, I may come back.

If the Qobuz app does all that you want then you were not a candidate for Roon in the first place.

No winders, Qobuz does not do everything that I want. There are many many features and functions that Roon provides that Qobuz does not. However, if you read my previous post, I explained that Roon does not provide some very primitive functions. It does not provide any access to your music and playlists when you get out of your home. Period.

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