You are probably right, but does this also mean they will not care about that income? In business every penny counts. Also, in law suits these other players might play their ‘minor’ role.
I havent bought a cd or hi res downloads in about 2 years. Why buy when you can stream ,unless you think Apple ,Amazon & Spotify are all going to fail.
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I would stick with aac to Bluetooth that way your getting it exactly as it streams as aac does not need transcoding as long as your headphones or BT device support it. If you go lossless then the conversion to aac to send via BT will be on the iOS device and may not sound as good as Apple’s own encoded file and might possibly cause more battery usage. Personally for BT use I would stick with AAC less to go wrong.
I’m not debating that at all. It doesn’t serve my purposes personally, but, that doesn’t mean that I can’t see which way the world is headed.
My main point, as I mentioned in the Apple API thread, is that maybe the time is near for Roon to take a step back and stop being quite so precious about how they elect to approach working with their streaming partners.
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Or Roon could go the other way. Negotiate streaming rights with all the record companies (or whatever they are now called) and do the whole thing themselves. No more Qobuz or Tidal and all the aggravation an interface brings. No more moans about why they haven’t integrated Amazon HD, or Apple Music, or whatever turns up next week. Total control. What is so difficult about the deal that Qobuz have struck for example? Why can’t Roon get a similar deal?
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AM is not the ‘Business’ Apple follows. It’s HW and service. But AM is not service. Service for them is 30% of sales, not 5$ per month and then paying to right holders. To integrate AM into Roon would be a total sell out and complete loss of independence.
Not if they bought Roon.
Why do you think Apple Music launched with support primarily for Apple devices at first? $10 a month, not $5, from a huge percentage of Apple device owners, is gigantic.
With all respect to the great work done by everyone here, Roon is currently using volunteers to handle their customer service, as it is… Now you want them to own and operate a standalone streaming service?
I’m sorry, but, with the utmost respect to your opinion, that’s just not a realistic expectation.
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200$ for AirPods is the business. Every 1-2 years a new model. Next year one that plays lossless, in 3years one that plays hires 3D. They are rediscovering Audio. As AirPod revenue is becoming significant. They have delays on AR and after AR there is XR and Audio again…
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With a local library of 300K tracks, I rarely stream, even though getting Qobuz for free.
It must have taken years to rip all those cs’s
Darko speaks:
…A lot of sense, IMO.
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Listening to The Paper Kites using AM and Apple TV 4K. What a pretty screensaver video just popped up. It goes nicely with the music. Album is 24/48 which is the limit of Apple TV 4K also.
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He states in the begging that CD quality is available across the board.
That’s not correct. Apple said that over 20 million songs will be available in lossless quality at launch. The entire Apple Music catalog of over 75 million songs will be covered by the end year.
I can confirm that some tracks aren’t lossless yet.
I won’t be buying anymore AirPods Pro. Both of mine have been replaced multiple times due to a busted speaker sound when talking. It was so bad they implemented a replacement program. Now my left one is going out again and every time I call I have to talk them through the problem and point them to their own web page addressing it.
$120 a year and they can’t afford support staff?
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Depends how you look at it - I lost or won that fight on January 09, 2001, when iTunes was introduced. Lost, because of 128bit compressed is not good for the brain. Lots of problem were solved since then and the last one, forgetting about loss-full codecs, we are fighting right now. My hope is that next generation doesn’t have to know anything about AAC, MP3 or MQA.
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When Apple started asking artist and labels for the best possible material to be delivered to them, I knew it was just a matter of time before they flip the switch, this time is now! I do not care about Atmos, to me it like 3-D Video a few years back, 2 channel is all I need.
My setup is Roon or AM on desktop, RPI streamer next to my Chord stack.
Speakers or headphones depending on if I’m alone in the house or not. It is NIRVANA to the purest. Every time I select and push play, I can’t believe it is possible and that simple. In the last year I even dropped the amp from my chain and let my TT2 drive my speakers directly.
I know airplay doesn’t support HI-Rez, hopefully temporarily, but right now I do not care, redbook to Chord sounds sublime.
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Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate digital stuff. 
I started listening to audio files 10 years ago. Ripped my CDs and never bought one after (instead I buy files and streaming).
It’s convenient.
Sure, I lost the “manual ritual” of preparing the music, which has its own charm.
That’s it. I gained instead speed in playing music and simplicity.
What I’m trying to point out is that this simplicity is somehow undermined. Here specifically, in this thread, we’re debating about:
- What the hell is Apple providing us through its stream of bits
- How to squeeze out most of the music information (lossless/hi-res)
- Value for money in comparison to other streaming services
The third point is subjective.
The first two points, not really:
- Lossless and hi-res with DAC
- Lossless and not hi-res with wired headhones
- Lossy (and not hi-res of course) with Bluetooth (OK, that’s a technology limit)
- AirPlay suddenly messing (not always, though) what it didn’t mess since it was born (I’m referring to the ALAC to AAC issue)
- Dolby that with one hand gives me “spaciousness” and with the other hand takes me lossless
- Sample rate matching on Mac is done manually, otherwise: let the resampling party begins!
I can blow, ink or tension (figuratively) very little here. 
I’m powerless. Almost everything is up to Apple in this case.
For the record: I own quite a lot of Apple stuff. I don’t hate them.
The sentence “the playback will not be completely lossless” on Apple’s page is emblematic. Either it is or it isn’t.
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