It’s terrible… everybody wants our money, monthly. Every month. Forever. I wish this subscription craze would finally just blow over.
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You can try the good old Foobar2000. Free and plays everything.
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Are you sure € not $ ?
They said € or $. Currencies will be treated the same.
Personal library wise Foobar is a way much better tool than Roon, in many scenarios.
The subscription model makes sense for a service like product, but from a software application’s point of view it’s now more and more of a trend than a technical/economical (from the company point of view) necessity.
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SaS is a trend but a profitable one. You can use a program for many years if it works. No need for an upgrade. But that means no income for the company. With a reasonable price you can have a rolling release and happy customers.
Now Roon is the best in that role. Each year I give the money because I get them 100% back. If audirvana manages to do the same maybe I’ll switch. But I don’t want a static program. I want continuous improvement.
Which is exactly the biggest issue with the subscription model: it doesn’t do any good to innovation and real development progress!
It’s a far cry for the best and mostly because their focus is more on the service they provide and less on the application (and sadly others that offer this combination of software/service/subscription are having the same approach).
SaS (software-as-service) is not the same thing as a subscription. And it doesn’t necessarily implies a subscription, though we are going fast in that direction.
I’ll probably trial it (AS) maybe on my Windows PC / RoonServer Core and while Roon Lifetime is fully paid up now after 5 years it has to compete not just is SQ but use for multiroom or its no contest.
pity there is no option to use on a NUC like ROCK Nucleus with Linux but I guess I can always swap out the SSD and use Windows on that. But my Windows PC is silent/fanless bar the 16TB HDD in it 
FWIW I just renewed my JRiver license , ie bought V.28 license for the princely sum of $20
Just saying 
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I just pre ordered JRMC 28 myself. @Mike_O_Neill
Been using since version 17. Still a useful program, along with the jremote app.
I think I beat you , I started at v15 
I still manage all metadata edits and custom views for my Big Box Sets that Roon struggles with.
My Cambridge Audio CXN is. V1 and hence not Roon Ready so it works ion DLNA , well for me
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I use it a backup of sorts. Still works well.
What about Qobuz or tidal integration?
With JRiver you will never get streaming integration, the CEO is absolutely adamant streaming isn’t financially viable.
I use mainly JRemote for control but I also use mConnect and Cambridge Audio StreamMagic both of which give me Tidal and Qobuz access , we don’t have Qobuz as it happens.
Neither has the Roon level of integration, I doubt anything does.
That’s why I use both !.
Audirvana also provides access but less integrated than Roon
Audirvana says that they will be continually improving Studio, and subscribers will automatically and immediately be updated with anything they add or improve. They say.
I’m a lifetime Roon subscriber, but if AS gives me a better experience, I will use it exclusively until Roon 1.9, then I will try that and use whatever works best for me, and keep using whichever works best after whichever update happens. Virtually all of my music is local, and I don’t really use playlists, so that will be painless for me to do IF AS does all they say they will be doing. We’ll see.
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Just watched the video. WOW what a negative response to a subscription model,
I see lots of deserters, Roon can only win from this
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Aren’t all of them saying that until they get your money? Then, as stupid as may sound in the software world, you have customers which are very loud and proud saying that you pay for the product that you buy at that moment and EULAs which are saying more or less the same thing and bye bye innovation… And what’s even more disturbing is that it almost makes sense, what’s the point of being innovative, application wise, if the customers don’t care about (I don’t really believe that the 300 millions or so customers Spotify has are there for the application) and you get the money anyway from the service?
Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz and so on are services sold through an application to users who pay for that service (and not for the application). Roon and Audirvana are applications sold through other’s services to users who pay for the application, for the other’s services (and for Valence for example). And yet, as it is right now at least for Roon (I never used Audirvana), their focus is still more to the service than to the application itself, hence the very poor Roon’s development cycle for example.
Anyway, the software subscription model is here to stay because it brings big money, but that’s not because is some genius approach, it’s because it shifts the focus from the real software development and innovation to the service. With a very big help from customers who all swear they’re here for the music and that’s the only thing that matters, but none of them want to use Foobar2000 anymore (just an example, nothing wrong with that application, long may live). So you see, the application matters too.
It’s actually here only because people tolerate it. Very sad. And, as you say, if you all you want to do is listen to local music, Fubar2000 is actually very functional, just as the native streaming apps are too. No, if you want people to subscribe, there needs to be value over and above the alternatives, and it should be updated (for the better) extremely regularly. I’m not sure this will be good for Audirvana.
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