Not a feature request, just thinking out-load about how I could use Roon at both home and at work (or on the road).
At home, I run Roon server on a Mac Mini + NAS holding my library (about 1.25 TB on disc).
I would love to run Roon at work, but (a) my MacBook doesn’t have a large enough disc to hold my library and (b) I don’t want to maintain two versions of my library on an external drive (nor do I want more than one “curated” version of my Roon library).
I’ve really gone all-in on TIDAL and Qobuz, to the point where I’ve added about 400 albums from these services to my library. And, yes, I’ve stopped buying physical/downloaded media.
What if I could go all the way? Roon Core could crawl my iTunes library and look for the matching version of every track on the available services, choosing the best available replacement for my local library. For now, let’s ignore the discussion about which version has better mastering, et al.
Then, Roon could make the streaming version “primary” and, optionally, remove the local iTunes version from Roon. Yes, there would be some misses for unidentified albums - but right now, my library has only 12 unidentified albums, which are all singles releases or bonus material from other albums.
Then, my Roon library would be based entirely on my streaming service catalogs. After that, it’s a simple matter of syncing playlists and metadata adjustments. Maybe this could accomplished via Dropbox? I know I am over-simplifying, but it seems doable with some caveats.
Now, I purchase a Roon Core license for each machine I want to play from and everything streams from the cloud, with the same metadata updates and playlists I’ve created.
Finally, in the stream-only model, it would be far easier to add Roon Core services to appliances, like Bluesound, with only a Dropbox account, along with your TIDAL/Qobuz accounts.