Roon is not sustainable with lifetime subscriptions. If you enjoy it and want it to stick around, go with annual.
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I went Lifetime after my first two months on Annual. I break even this summer.
About your decision -
- The longer you potentially put off Lifetime, the longer it will take you to break even should you decide for Lifetime.
- The current price of Lifetime or even its availability is not guaranteed.
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The value of the dollar goes down over time. That means the buying power of your $700 is higher now than it will be in the ~6 years it takes to cover lifetime vs. yearly.
However, technology changes fast… really fast… and I cannot foresee how Roon would have no competition over that time period. At $500, and 2 years ago, it made a lot of sense to dive-in with lifetime. If I was making this decision today I would stay with yearly and apply the other cash to new electronics (or invest it!)
Anyone contemplating this decision I recommend go yearly. If it’s nothing to your lifestyle / situation to dump $700 as a convenience, so as not to be bothered by a subscription renewal, then you also don’t care if you’ll reach that 6 year mark*. At that point, you’re not making a decision on the better value. You’re putting value on your time and paying for the privilege of not being bothered.
*If I dump Roon 2 years in then my $500 would equate to $250 a year. I still consider that a decent price for the time I had with Roon. Knowing I ~doubled the cost of Roon by going lifetime and dumping it 2 years in would not bother me if I found something “better”.
Well… my $0.02 anyway.
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Regards Roon competition, they have invested and had many manufacturers adopt RAAT. This leaves them well ahead of any competition for the foreseeable future.
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For bit perfect yes… but the customer base for bit perfect is small compared to people who simply want to send audio to “a speaker”.
Google Cast, Airplay 2, Sonos, Samsung AllShare Cast, Bluetooth, etc. On a large enough “customer base” all of these are competition to RAAT. Even within this thread, you have people who have switched to Amazon HD as their primary source. Those users have moved away from RAAT to one of the “competing” options. So, while RAAT might be technologically “well ahead” of the competition the adoption rate is significantly behind.
Roon will develop and if people want quality as a priority, there will be no competition. If people are prepared to forsake quality, then yes, you are correct. Plenty of convenience options as always.
Honestly (and no offense), but not my problem! They’re not a charity, so I won’t be mailing a cheque just because I feel sorry for them. They have a product to sell, they have to keep it innovative and attractive.
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$499 was justifiable, $699 is way over the pain-threshold - but thats what they wanted to achieve. Personally, I won’t subscribe to anything (if I can help it), so I’d be looking for other “solutions”.
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Spot on. As if hundreds of software houses around the world did not thrive on one-off payments for their apps. As long as a company continues to innovate, it will survive regardless of payment models - and we are customers giving money to profit-seeking companies; not patrons for charities.
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That was my mindset until I actually had to build an application where I owned none of the infrastructure for which that application ran. I’ve seen the light. The world has shifted to subscriptions because the entire “supply chain” of software is subscription based because, what used to be capital expenditure, it’s all operational expense now. Roon is cloud based. The backend is rented. Roon pays every month for the rental of that infrastructure. It’s only fitting they pass some of that rent to you every month as well. Their cost goes down if you commit (a year at a time) so your cost goes down as well.
It sucks because what I “pay monthly” is silly compared to a couple decades ago but it really has enabled innovation on a scale no one could imagine back when my monthly bills were simply utilities. If it helps… just think of AWS, Google Cloud, etc. as a utility. You’re not paying them directly but you’re paying them through Roon, Netflix, Tidal, Qobuz, etc.
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I paid for a lifetime sub within 7 days of starting my trial as on principle I don’t like renting stuff and I believed in the premise, and that I would continue to believe in said premise in six years time.
Interestingly Roon was the first piece of software I have ever purchased directly, everything else has been bundled (eg. osx) or open source (and I donate to projects I care about).
If Roon’s survival requires an ongoing subscription model due to cloud overheads then perhaps they should try and remove these dependencies. Beyond the essential (website / installer hosting) I’d be happy to have a Roon that worked offline, eg. not sending my data to the cloud, dropping radio feature if it couldn’t be achived on device.
As for competition, this is a pretty niche space. First off there isn’t a great deal of competition in high end audio software, and then less so in the networked, multi-room space. I looked far and wide for an alternative before committing and nothing was capable of doing all the things Roon can.
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Help support the product long term I say, annual.
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As you will get all different answers based on each user’s decisionand how they came to it, you will need to form your own opinion based on your own decision factors.
However I’ am happy to extend the chaos a little.
Disclaimer: I am a lifetimer.
I would/will never pay 700$ (€ in my case) for a software.
I was happy to pay for a Roon lifetime subscription as part of my investment in Roon streamer/server.
I would never have bought Roon without the hardware. i also would never have bought the hardware without Roon.
When looking at Roon as a ‘service provider’ the annual ‘service subscription’ is very easy to justify (in contrast to a software subscription).
Key strong points for me are: support multiple zones (including LMS), integration with streaming providers (Qobuz in my case, Tidal and me are mutually not compatible), library mangement and metadata - no changes whatsoever to my ‘ripped CDcollection’.
And really key on personal level - integration with HQplayer for top DSD sound.
Now, to turn things upside down, would I ever consider to quit Roon as a service provider?
Yes, I could consider that when:
- Qobuz would not be supported anymore (for whatever reason, i.e. Qobuz out of business)
- Cease of support of HQplayer
- Roon going back to an almost exclusive hardware/software business model (Nucleus & Rock/NUC). It really must remain as ‘open’ as possible.
If I did not have a lifetime subscription, and I was all set with the hardware of my choice, I would definitely go for a yearly subscription.
But as your deadline is (almost) passed, what have you decided?
Dirk
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I only use Roon 4 hours or less a week. Lifetime better for me. I have 2 library, small one connected to network I use Lumin app and Lighting DS Auralic app. Big library USB direct to ST I7 run Roon.
I was in the similar situation couple weeks ago. I considered paying for Roon annually, but I’m confident that I would eventually purchase lifetime license. The idea of spending $1,000+ on software was not acceptable for me. Therefore, I decided to go with lifetime option from the start. Roon is clever in pricing department. Lifetime fee is high enough to discourage purchase and stir potential customer towards annual license. I do not think that even in 10 years we will see any other software that comes close to what Roon can do.
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Ya know time marches on… when I took a lifetime sub in April 2016, I kind of remember telling myself - “self, you are nuts!”… even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while 
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When I read these posts I wonder how much money people have invested in their systems. We I considered this question alone it was a no brainer to go with the lifetime subscription.
This is not to suggest that my setup or gear is the end all be all … but rather given my hobby / passion / obsession / addiction of being an audiophile / stereophile the lifetime subscription just seems to make sense.
For those who chose something other than lifetime and it works for you … all good!
Looking forward to Roon being around a long time!
I hope everyone has fantastic 2021!
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I purchased the lifetime option as the current $ to € rate is sooo tempting. But I have no idea how Roon pictures their survival and how the software will progress. The pool of people wanting this is limited. I guess investing the annual fee and living from it might not work with the current interest rate. Roon will have to come up with add-ons that are not included and will require an extra payment. Companies like Adobe have monthly plans only, no annual. They know why. Other serious software companies have a lifetime price plus annual maintenance fees of 10-20%. I have no idea how Roon will finance themself in the future…
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There are other threads where Roon staff make it clear they favour a subscription model and may phase out lifetime. It could be that the life investors come to depend on the subscribers by proxy.
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Honestly it was a no brainer for me. After my first year I went lifetime. Two other friends that I introduced to Roon went lifetime by the end of their 7 day trial. Roon is simply the best music playback software available, IMHO. I also have Audirvana but it is just not as good at file management, Tidal integration or suggesting other music that I might like. I have a substantial library stored on an SSD but most of my listening is now streamed. As for sound quality, I think that Roon sounds better than native Tidal or Audirvana. There are things that need improving, for sure, but the develops are continually improving it.
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