I’m both an Apple Music and a Roon user.
Apple Music is good enough for me to discover new music. Streaming music is currently just this for me: a huge rented library available to discover new artists.
If I really like the discovered songs/albums then I buy them so I can own them. Possibly lossless and somewhere else because Apple doesn’t sell uncompressed music (yet, maybe with this rumored Hi-Fi tier things will change). You know, HDtracks, HIGHRESAUDIO, NativeDSD…
Having my library in iCloud for casual listening on the go is a nice and convenient addition. Hi-res files are stored locally in my Apple Music library (DSF format too – Apple Music just ignores it and takes the ALAC copy I provide). AAC counterpart files are in iCloud.
For serious listening I use Roon. Albums and playlists are synced with Apple Music library and works well.
Let’s be honest: general music streaming services (not the “niche” ones – IDAGIO or Primephonic) like Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, Amazon Music are still a mess for an “audiophile” point of view. You never know for sure what you get through that stream of bits.
CD quality? 88.2 kHz? 96 kHz? 192 kHz? MQA? If used on Mac, does Audio MIDI Setup switch automatically the sample rate? And so on…
If you ask them, they answer: what the labels have provided us. To some extent, I can’t blame them: millions of tracks, tens if not hundreds of labels, different album versions, different metadata…
Maybe Qobuz is right now the only sufficiently serious music subscription available. And even with them sometimes questions arise (MQA signaling in Qobuz stream?).
That said, if Apple will offer hi-res streaming (whatever this will mean) and hi-res music files for purchase, I will be happy. An Apple Music-Roon integration would be fantastic. Unfortunately I doubt it will happen soon, if at all. Apple is too closed in its world.