Roon and Qobuz, the perfect match

When the world was young and we wore shorts, the shelves in our bedrooms were our record collections, whatever format they were in. Depending on how old we were, there were cassettes, vinyls, CDs, etc. All organized according to our own criteria, which was usually the last one we bought, in the front row or clearly visible. The albums could be counted quickly in a few minutes, as there weren't that many. Even the most organized ones had them classified in a notebook, with the name of the album, band, style, year, and purchase price. Although, let's be honest, these were the "weirdos"; we didn't usually go to such lengths.

Today, with the advent of digital media, having thousands of albums is not unusual, especially considering the massive piracy that has existed and continues to exist today, particularly in audiovisual material. Therefore, we needed software or a computer program to help us classify all our mental madness, converted into digital hoarding, in order to escape from the saturation of bits in our computer storage devices with dignity.

The first programs were copies of bibliographic classifications, but for music. It was difficult to find recordings; you usually had to move between folders (formerly called directories) and locate your desired song. Later, we added cover art and some extra information. And later, external links to documentary databases about the work, and so we grew.

Add to that the fact that these programs were usually limited to sending data to the PC's sound card, which acted as a DAC, with a 3.5 mm headphone or self-powered speaker output. With the arrival of USB, the rules of the game changed. This communication interface has turned computers into authentic tools connected to their environment. It quickly replaced serial, parallel, and SCSI ports, and everyone adopted it as the de facto standard for external communication.

Now we take a leap forward and enter the world of music managers, where traditional music classification criteria are now a thing of the past. The visual presentation of information, as well as easy access and fast search capabilities, are essential. Additional information about an author, artist, or group appears directly in the application, eliminating the need to leave it to find out more. Its millions of cross-references allow you to enter a rock band, choose one of its members, and easily follow their work within that band or other groups they have worked with, whether as a lead artist or a simple collaborator. Not only this with artists, but you can also do the same with producers, directors, etc. Its cross-references are a real black hole where you can lose hours of your life traveling through the life and miracles of any author, any musician, any...

Or maybe it does, although what is certain is that there is no correctly digitized and tagged digital discography. This causes errors when classifying your favorite bands. For example: Rolling Stones, The Rolling Stones, Rollin Stons, and De Rolin Stons are four different bands for any classifier. And considering that much of the "owned" discography on home hard drives is pirated, the tagging is very poorly done, so welcome to musical chaos.

Another issue, and no less important, is the different way of presenting the work or cover art. As if the legislation and prevailing morals of each country were their own, something as simple as album covers also differs, not only in the record label that publishes it, but also in the graphic arts. Nowadays, with globalization, this practice is falling into disuse, and large companies prefer to use bland, neutral covers to avoid legal problems in certain countries.

Roon Ready is the ultimate solution for manufacturers of streamers, AIO (all-in-one) devices, and other devices with a front display. Instead of having to develop a proprietary solution to make their display more interesting and marketable, they only need to make their devices compatible with the Roon API (Application Programming Interface). From that moment on, the search, location, and presentation of data on the display is delegated to an external source, and the task is complete. However, Enno Vandermeer and his colleagues have gone much further and created a RAAT communication protocol to control the entire data flow from the server to the digital-to-analog converter (DAC). In short, they control system priorities, giving maximum speed and minimum latency to their data pipe.

In addition, they have created a hook where you can transparently incorporate DSP digital filters to adapt the audio output to personal preferences, or try to correct certain room problems, emphasize frequencies, etc.

Within every music lover's musical heaven, there is a desire to enjoy all music at the highest possible quality. Tidal and Qobuz fall into this category. I have chosen the latter because it gets the most out of my Roon. As a web application or software, it may not be my favorite, and its personalized music selection is not as good as other platforms, but the sound quality is in a league of its own. And you should bear in mind that to enjoy it, you need an excellent Internet connection with low latency, stability, and a certain amount of power. Many of the complaints I have read about the quality of certain platforms or streamers (audio transmitters) have more to do with the above than with the actual quality of the original source.

High-quality streaming has many advantages and only one drawback: you need to move large files (they're not really files, but large amounts of data). This has nothing to do with MQA; here, the music is heavy, and I mean really heavy. Get yourself a good input signal and start walking through paradise. Just don't limit yourself, and don't even think about asking Roon to balance the output volume. Without leaving Qobuz, there are recordings that differ by +/- 6 dB; crazy, no matter how you look at it. So, remote control and you're good to go.

Playlists are a great way to combine your local recordings with those available on Qobuz. If you have a series of recordings about Alfredo Kraus locally on your hard drive and want to add others that you are missing, you can locate them within Qobuz and add them to your list so that you can enjoy the complete collection that you want to have at your fingertips. And it is at this point, in the seamless integration of the two sound universes, that you can achieve high productivity.

Access to music from Roon to Qobuz can be done directly or indirectly. The direct way is through the main link and entering each user's personal page. This would be the first option. The second would be through searches using the magnifying glass. This will display both local results and those returned by platforms connected to Roon, in this case Qobuz.

Indirect access includes playlists, which belong to the main Roon structure and also provide transparent content management. Another way would be through user-generated tags to classify particular styles or interests. In my case, for example, I want to test music systems that arrive at my home and "review" them acoustically with this set of songs.

Throughout this article, I have only mentioned two platforms, Tidal and Qobuz. This is not an oversight or an attempt to silence others, it is simply because Roon only accepts these two. I don't know why other platforms are not given access. Although I can speculate about it, briefly, very briefly. Spotify is quite averse to providing its connection APIs to third parties, in addition to offering sound quality that does not meet Roon's standards for its product. Deezer has a well-known lack of connectivity with various components. It usually has to connect via Chromecast or AirPlay as the only way to stream music, without dedicated ports such as Spotify Connect or Tidal Connect.

Some time ago, they took a step forward with a feature that could be defined as absolute mobility. In a nutshell, it consists of being able to connect to your Roon server from anywhere on the planet, although usually that place on the planet is your vehicle... With the dedicated app, you can move freely through your discography or access your music platform from wherever you are. The setup is a delicate issue due to security concerns, and I will write about this later to help you with it.

Obviously, there are other options on the market that are also very valid for all users, but my personal choice is between these two. Working separately, they offer less than when combined, which is why I am totally devoted to this powerful combination that is greater than the sum of its parts.