Hello, everybody, I am new to Roon and I’m testing its features.
I can’t understand why Roon ARC is completely unable to play anything from Qobuz without a connection to my Roon server installed in my Windows PC.
I use normally the Android app “USB Audio Player Pro” and it is able to connect directly to Qobuz and play my Qobuz playlists.
My Android Roon ARC, after a connection to my server, knows the playlists that I have on Qobuz, but, if I turn my server off and I try to play my Qobuz playlists on Roon ARC, it is impossible until I turn my server on again. Why does Roon ARC need the server to stream my music from Qobuz?
I am exploring Roon because I would like a unified system of playlists for Qobuz and for my local files, for my computer and for my smartphone, but, given this limitation, this strong dependence of Roon ARC on the server, Roon turns out to be useless to me.
Roon is basically an example of a client/server architecture - both components are needed to work together to achieve the end result. This Help article goes into more detail:
Perhaps consider using a dedicated Nuc installed with Roon Rock [Easy Peasy], or Roon’s own ‘One’ if you don’t feel confident building a PC and installing Roon Rock.
Roon one [Ready to go]
Roon Rock Kit [DIY]
This segregates Roon Server duties from any computers you may use for daily tasks, and provides a much better long term experience IMHO. In this scenario you don’t need to worry about whether you have left your PC on or not… and rock just works flawlessly.
Roon ARC connects to your server for login credentials (Roon, Qobuz etc.), for library access, updating play history etc., and streaming local content from the server. Qobuz content comes direct to ARC.
One of the many benefits of Roon is the seamless library integration, including play history, favourites, tags etc. when at home or out and about.
This weirded me out at first too - I bought the Black Friday 3 months for price of one thing to give it a go. It would be nice if it didn’t need to physically see your own digital music collection (in my case, I’d say over 90% of what I actually own is available on tidal) but that’s the way it works.
After my initial ‘why / that’s a shame’ feeling on this I quickly decided I really, really liked it and wouldn’t want to go backwards. I also decided I didn’t want to leave my PC on 24/7. A quick visit on eBay and a lucky win of a 7 series NUC in perfect condition for £43 I built a Roon ROCK. It’s dead easy - cost me a little more as I added a 256 gig memory stick with my actual music collection on it. It works perfectly.
UAPP is a self contained application it just uses Qobuz API and doesn’t hold any library info. Roon doesn’t use the API in this way to manage Qobuz. Also being a server client system the ARC app doesn’t manage anything. It’s purely a remote player. The server side is required for managing it all storing your library, playlists, authentication of your Roon license, authentication of your Qobuz account. If you want the integration of local and streaming that’s how it works.