just weighing in to observe Hallelujah Man is a great song off of a criminally unknown record.
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Just for clarity, this thread is not about Roon Radio not playing music in our libraries. This thread is about Roon Radio playing a track that is in our local collection but instead streaming that same exact track via Tidal or Qobuz instead. It means that even if we have collected the best version/release of a track that we have in our local collection, Roon Radio will still just play the streaming version. It also means Roon Radio wastes bandwidth when not needed.
This isnât huge on my list of world problems. But I think the posters here want to set the record straight and be sure that the Roon team understands exactly what is happening, because their explanations appear to differ from our observations.
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I addressed that. It doesnât bother me that for a particular track, Roon Radio streams from Tidal or Qobuz instead of a local library. Others feel itâs an important thing. When people make a request or suggestion, it OK when others express a contrary opinion. When Roon decides what issues to address, they should hear both sides of every issue.
If I only wanted to hear my own music, I would play my own albums or shuffle my own music files or use my own playlist. In my opinion, Roon Radio should not be looking at a personâs library. âRadioâ implies to me, something outside my own library.
You are not wrong. My opinion about this is very much informed by having used and loved Sooloosâ (originally developed by the Roon founders) Swim feature which, well, âswamâ through your local library in really interesting and enjoyable ways.
Also, I happen to use Tidal only to sample music and for the occasional party playlist (remember parties?) so I only pay for the cheapo plan, which means everything streamed from Tidal is low res.
That said, when using Roon Radio, I am left with the idea that Roon doesnât really understand my library as much as I thought it did and it disappoints me.
I think Roon Radio only understands the last album or maybe the last track you played, but IDK.
Just a data pointâŚ
Let Roon Radio run about 3 hrs (about 52 tracks), every track track was streamed from Qobuz, absolutely nothing from my local library, despite the fact a number of the tracks played are available in my local library. So at least in my case, Roon Radio not only prefers streaming from Qobuz, but does so exclusively!
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Last time I let Radio carry on it did actually play a locally stored track. Itâs the first time I remember it doing this. But 99.9 % it Qobuz and the choices are not as good as when I had Tidal as well.
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If I own it, play the local version. Itâs that simple for me.
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Agreed. We can debate whether Radio should be playing stuff from your local library or not, but if the algorithm picks a song thatâs in my library, it should play the local (or highest res) version.
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Iâd prefer the local version no matter what the res. My versions have been curated by me for best mastering, which completely beats any âhigh resâ version a streaming service might have.
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Very true. Hadnât thought of that. I also have lots of 5.1 material and Iâll always want that to rule. Iâm no coder, but why canât I they just build a select âplay local version if it existsâ toggle? I have to believe the majority of Roon users have substantial local libraries.
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If you read up, Danny says it is supposed to. I think something got broke. Itâs a minor annoyance, but does waste bandwidth.
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Roon Radio is all screwed up. Itâs like the database side of Roon knows what, for instance, Indie Rock is since it mostly classifies my local library correctly. But if I ask Roon Radio to play the Indie Rock genre, it outputs a bunch of songs that seem questionable to me and it almost never plays anything from my extensive local library of Indie Rock (only the super popular stuff like Beck and Wilco).
Roon Radio frequently repeats the same 20-30 artists over and over and over in each âstationâ, barely ever branching out. You wonât notice it for the first 60-90 minutes, but then after that the repetition really starts to get irritating. Some starting points (genre, artist, song, etc) are more repetitive than others, but even ones that should have several thousand possibilities get stuck.
Iâve documented a lot of it in a thread here. I really hope Roon is working on fixing it.
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No, itâs more complicated than that. I think it comes down to an inability to differentiate amongst versions when Valence is deciding the âperfectâ pick for you to listen to.
Radio playback chooses Tidal MP3 over Qobuz CD quality - Roon Software / Feature Requests - Roon Labs Community
But as Mike points out in the post, itâs not the most desirable behavior, it is just how it works now.
Since I donât have any visibility into the mechanics, I cannot totally dismiss this as a potential cause. But I will say that I have seen cases where version recognition should absolutely not be an issue. Roon recognizes all versions of the album that a track is from, it is playing from a Tidal or Qobuz album that is in my library but not the preferred versionâŚno extra tracks, different releases to confuse Valence. Just ignores a 24/192 FLAC that is the primary version.
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Roon may not be âthinkingâ about this the way you and I are. What is âbestâ is sometimes a math problem. So if the way Valence is picking a track isnât anything like how we pick a track, it may be more difficult to parse out the equivalent version of âbestâ that we prefer.
I honestly donât know how any of this works (and itâs probably obvious). But it could be complicated in ways we arenât thinking of. Just sayinâ.
I too notice that, after a while, I get the same songs repeatedly. I get that the same artist may come up again but itâs the exact same song. Iâm not playing obscure music either. If I start Radio on an artist it used to play songs from their influences, genre, era, etc. It seems now that it more narrowly defines the selection and repeats. It reminds me of listening to top 40 radio back in the day. The other drawback Iâve seen is I canât favorite a track if it isnât in my library (and thatâs another problem that is frustrating - having to add a whole album from Tidal to my library, only to be able to favorite a track). If I could favorite or âthumbs upâ a track, Roon could learn what I like and head in the right direction with Radio selections. It just doesnât seem focused on this part of the user experience.
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The place to do both of these is the Now Playing screen, rather than the queue screen.
Roon Radio - Thumbs Up / Down Button - Roon Software - Roon Labs Community
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Thanks. I checked again and, to my point, unless the album is in the library, I canât favorite it. Even from the now playing screen. To do it I have to add the entire album to my library (this is assuming the album isnât already in my library). Then I can favorite the song. I donât want to add the whole album, I just want Roon to know I like a song so it better understands my tastes.
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Ok, I see now that there is a thumbs up options (should have reviewed your link first!), But the interface I use (often my galaxy phone) doesnât display the thumbs up/down option. Is there a way to do that?
My comment still stands about the frustrating process of adding favorite songs (hearting them) by having to add the album first.