Danny: Although the financial difficulties of 2008 may have forced youu in a new direction, I think it was a blessing in disguise. Look at how many of the world’s largest companies today are not just software companies, but are software platforms. Compare that to 20 years ago, where hardware still dominated. I also think it wise that you are resisting M&A offers for the moment. Most acquirers will want to take you in a direction that benefits their legacy business, but may stifle the long term opportunity for Roon while they do so. Remaining independent for as long as you can gives yo great flexibility and will likely keep Roon a better product for most of us consumers.
The other point that I think a lot of this audience misses is just how hard it is to integrate a platform broadly into the other pieces of music in the home, be they hardware or software. We keep talking about “SmartHome” products, but few realize just how difficult the integration required not only to make everything work together is, but how difficult it is to keep a platform working in unison, as its individual participants take their own products in new directions. So far, Roon has done a terrific job of this, but I recognize it is far harder than most of us users recognize.
For me, the biggest concern is the move towards ever greater streaming even as the economics of streaming businesses remain right on the edge. Roon with Tidal (or any other streaming service) is a far stronger product than Roon alone. But, that integration puts you into a position of some dependency on Tidal (as it would if you were linked with Spotify, Pandora, Apple, etc.). Short of Roon itself at some point becoming large enough to provide its own streaming capabilities, I don’t know how to avoid that risk. I suppose that is also where some of the M&A opportunities will continue to come from.
Keep up the great work (and please stay independent as long as you can)!
i love this idea…bring it on for other major players (sennheiser, hifiman etc etc) do do their legwork and submit their info to Roon to implement…why not also for powered speaker systems like Dynaudio and Kef.
Well, for speakers it’s a lot harder since the room affects the sound so much… with headphones, there is much less variance – and before anyone talks about the shape of the ear, I know it’s a problem – but that’s nothing compared to the giant inflatable fish filled with balloons that my 2 year old has in the livingroom.
For speakers, you really need proper room correction DSP, and we are working on that solution.
Speakers are hard to equalize because of how the room affects the sound.
Ear shapes and in-ear geometry affect sound as measured at the ear drum, but the brain compensates for this, and most people (with normal hearing) perceive sound in very similar way. We have evolved this way and have depended on our hearing for survival. This makes it a bit easier to develop calibration profiles for headphones with some confidence that it would be liked by the majority. Of course there are no guarantees, as our tastes and preferences may differ.
I’d say the contention in the original post was absurd. Danny’s response, in the other hand, is well-reasoned and intelligent. End of story for me. The evolution of Roon is a blessing for all users–except, apparently, for the occasional whiner.
In the past I was using a beautiful app on the Iphone called Accudio™. It transforms (or at least tries) your headphone into another brand or model using a database of recorded frequency responses from 1000 models. Unfortunately the app disappeared and the company behind, Orfeo http://orfeosound.com/about-accudio/ seems to be inactive. Maybe their database could be revived in roon and could provide a very nice user experience for those of us that like fiddling around with sound.
Audeze is an American company and hand crafts their products in America… what does Paris have to do with Audeze? As a user of Audeze headphones I’m happy with the new DSP engine.
Audeze isn’t doing this because they’re great fellows. This is essentially, no matter its utility to Audeze owners, an advertisement for Audeze headphones.
How many people, like myself, have looked at the Audeze settings and thought, “Maybe I should think of Audeze for my next headphones”. Plenty.
It’s a further recognition that Roon is a major player, pun intended, in the audio field. After all, Audeze didn’t make DSP settings for JRiver.
Curious - any Audeze owners try these settings and if so, do they make an appreciable difference?
The Audeze thing is probably a great feature, and I’m glad it’s there.
However, I have to admit I was rather taken aback to see advertising copy from another company inside the Roon interface. It seems a bit dirty somehow.
On the other hand, you don’t have to look at it. And probably it was necessary though to get the feature in there.
At least it’s not some intrusive pop-up, not that Roon would contemplate such an thing. I agree that it is a bit disconcerting, maybe the pictures of the headphones are what makes it so obvious.
Still, I stand by my original comment to OP and that is, that things like this can only be good for Roon’s long term viability.
I decided to buy lifetime subscription a week into trial in 2015. The reason I came to Roon was I needed a one stop solution for all my music playing needs at the same time also wanted to do DSP (Roon +HQP). I did not want to play local files on one and Stream on another etc.
I have seen Roon evolve since then. I was using HPQ for all my DSP needs as I use some form of EQ, crosfeed, spatialization for all my headphones (Audeze/Focal/Hifiman/Stax). But when the DSP engine was added, I started playing with filters in Roon. At this point I was another user just like many here. Seeing how easy it was to use, I had proposed the idea to Roon. I saw this as benefit for Audeze customers and also Roon users such as me who also happens to have Audeze cans.
There was no arm-twisting involved. I liked Roon and I happen to head DSP at Audeze. Roon team provided us with an idea for interface, we provided the required assets.
I thought you seemed to know a thing or two about DSP ! But never once have you talked down to anyone or appealed to your position/authority in an argument or debate. Nice going man.
What Audeze has done is a good thing, but I have Grados and Oppos. I fired off a e-mail to those manufacturers telling them about the Audeze settings and asked that they supply DSP settings for their headphone models.
How about it Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, et.al. users of other brands of headphones. Talk to your favorite headphone manufacturer. I’m sure once they realize what Audeze has done, they also will want to participate.
Roon will have to add a new screen to DSP settings, called ‘Headphone Settings’ and list the various manufacturers’ settings there.
Well, I’ll stand by this: Roon is losing its reputation as THE choice for audiophiles and music lovers. In some circles its not regarded as the sonic best even now. Diluting the program with brand specific stuff is sending the wrong message and probably takes resources away from a more global objective. I really don’t care if Audeze did most of the lifting (as they are now claiming) to add to Roon. It was a Roon team idea. Really, how many Audeze users are out there? And, I don’t like that their crap is lurking in the background of my Roon program. At minimum these manufacture programs should be OPTIONAL uploads to the main program, not be forced on the collective. Kind of like the App Store. But, Roon is a long way away from being able to support this kind of model IMO. Sonics and fundamentals come first. Maybe this will make my point very clear: Roon still can’t get it’s act together regarding classical music metadata and thats been a request since the Sooloos days…but hey, its got Audeze DSP now…
It never was and it never will be by all. We get the bits to the devices perfectly now and always. Nothing has ever changed in this regard, but every release is a “massive change in SQ” to some people. Go figure.
We also claim this… We lack the expertise, knowledge, and equipment needed to do what they did. It bewilders me to think you could possibly make a claim otherwise. You are not in a position to know.
Were we that? Neat.
Don’t be ridiculous. If you think there is something better, vote with your dollars.
SongKick, lyrics copyrights, TIDAL, etc… we already do this type of thing and are not going to stop doing it any time soon. Audeze presets + their top headphones sound REALLY good. It’s not my/their fault the other manufacturers failed to innovate here.
Global objective set by who? This project fit in our global objective: bring joy to Roon members. Not every feature needs to bring joy to everyone.
I think we do a lot better than we did in the Sooloos days, but we haven’t stopped work on it. Metadata and the infrastructure involved with it is our biggest development cost. The team on metadata don’t do bizdev, UI, or DSP.