Zone

Think of a zone as a room in your house, or as an output device that you use to play audio.

Roon is a multi-room system, so it supports playback of music to one or more Zones. The very bottom area of Roon's user interface, called the footer, is dedicated to showing information about the currently selected zone. You might have a zone for the Living Room, one for the Bedroom, another for your Office Speakers, and yet another for your Office Headphones. For more information about output devices that work with Roon, see the Partner Devices Matrix. For more information on Roon's architecture at a higher level, see Architecture

Switching Zones To switch the zone you're controlling in desktop and tablet interfaces, click the Zone Picker in the footer, next to volume:

On a phone, switch by clicking below the volume popup:

 

Transfer Zone

Roon allows you to transfer or move your current track, queue, and radio to another zone. While viewing the queue, click on the double arrow icon and select the new zone. On a phone, click the middle of the footer, on the song name, and select Now Playing. Just below Now Playing will be the double arrow icon . From there select your new zone.

Other Ways to Transfer Zone

1. You can also Transfer Zone by left-clicking (or tap) the Zone Picker at the bottom right of the screen. From there, click on the speaker icon next to your currently playing zone and select the Transfer Zone icon (the double arrow).

 

1. You can also Transfer Zone by right-clicking (or long-press) the Zone Picker at the bottom right of the screen. From there, select Transfer Zone.
   

Zone Grouping

Roon supports Zone Grouping, or synchronizing audio playback in several zones within your house. Zones can only be grouped with other zones of the same type, meaning Squeezebox zones cannot be grouped with RAAT zones, Meridian zones can't be grouped with Airplay zones, etc. Not all technologies support grouping, but the most commonly used options do. These are the types of zones within which grouping is possible:

1. RAAT Zones
   
1. Roon Ready devices
   
2. Roon and Roon Remote outputs on macOS, Windows, Android and iOS
   
3. Roon Bridge outputs on macOS, Windows, and Linux
   
2. Squeezebox zones
   
3. Meridian zones
   
4. Airplay zones
   
5. Sonos zones
   
6. Chromecast zones
   
7. KEF Zones (LS50 v1 + LSX)

Note that Chromecast zones are not grouped using Roon, but grouped using the Google Home app. See the Knowledge Base article on Chromecast for more information.

MQA Playback to Grouped Zones

Since MQA authorization by an MQA device requires MQA signaling information to complete the decoding and rendering processes, grouped zone playback interferes with MQA devices’ abilities to authenticate and decode the stream. If you’d like your MQA device to be able to authenticate and decode an MQA stream while playing in a grouped zone, you should set its “Clock Master Priority” setting to the highest in the group To Group Zones, select the zone you're controlling in desktop and tablet interface, by clicking the Zone Picker in the footer, next to volume:

On a phone, select by clicking below the volume popup and clicking Switch Zone:

From there, click on "GROUP ZONES" (here highlighted in the screenshot).

This brings up the available zones; for example:

Now click the desired zone(s) to be added and select Save. Your grouped zone will be called something like 1st DAC + 2nd DAC. If you wish, you can edit the name of the grouped zone in the Zones pop up menu. Click the speaker icon next to the Grouped Zone and select the Settings icon (the gearwheels icon). Now enter the Grouped Zone Name. Note that the name will be lost once you ungroup the zones. To ungroup your zones, select your Grouped Zone and click "Group Zones" at the top of the zones panel. Next click the zones you want to remove and click Save. You can also rename your Group Zone by right-clicking (or long-press) the Zone Picker at the bottom right of the screen. From there, select Zone Settings.

Zone Settings

The Zone Settings screen is used to access zone-level settings like zone names, crossfade, volume leveling, and volume limits. To access Zone Settings, select the zone you're controlling in desktop and tablet interface, by clicking the Zone Picker in the footer, next to volume:

On a phone, select by clicking below the volume popup and clicking Switch Zone:

If you wish, you can edit the name of a Zone or set Crossfade and Volume Leveling in the Zones pop up menu. Click the speaker icon next to the Zone you want to edit and click on the gearwheels icon to access the Zone Settings. Now enter the new Zone Name or set Crossfade, Volume Leveling, or volume limits.

Note that if you have Volume Leveling set to "Off", you will not see the additional Target Volume Level and Volume adjustment settings.

Another Quick Way to Rename Zones or Set Crossfade, Volume Leveling and Volume Limits

You can also access Zone Settings by right-clicking (or long-press) the Zone Picker at the bottom right of the screen. From there, select Zone Settings. To learn more about the Zone Settings click here.

Private Zones Private zones are special because they don't support remote control. They are invisible unless you are controlling Roon from the same device where the private zone lives. They are most commonly used on laptops and mobile devices when you might not want other people in your household to take control of your speakers or headphones remotely. Because they can only be controlled locally, they are excluded from Zone Grouping.

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