I perfectly understand the “version” label when there is, say, an album in Tidal that is CD quality vs. the MQA version, thus two versions. What I don’t understand is when I add a Tidal album to my library and then I see there is a version label. When I click to see the other version, it’s the same one – same bit rate, same release date, same album art, etc. It’s listed as the Tidal version. Well, I already added the Tidal version to my library. This doesn’t happen for all the Tidal albums I save in my library; only certain ones. Anyone have an idea why?
It is really confusing sometimes. I don’t have Tidal, but the same situations pop up in Qobuz. There may ultimately be a bug in there somewhere, but I’ve seen some pretty subtle things happen that could be another cause. You will sometimes see an album released a week or two later. It is the exact same everything, but released at a different time. On very close inspection they may have a different product ID.
When we look at the versions tab for a fairly popular album there is all kinds of stuff mixed in there. There is the very subtle stuff. The technical differences you point out. Explicit/clean versions. And then there are just different albums (IMO) where there may be another 10 songs added on in a deluxe version. It seems to me this sort of cross-version identity is somewhat behind other Roon misbehaviors.
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