I am personally not too happy with Audirvanas decision.
But business wise I do understand them. I think this new way might be the only feasible way to finance a software like Audirvana. Lot depends on the acceptance. I will give it a try and decide on that experience of the trial. It must show to me to be worth $70 a year. It must fulfill the role of a Roon backup.I don’t want to depend on one software only….
All these years the software was bought once and they used it for many years. That created problems to the companies. If they had something good the customer didn’t upgrade. I’ve seen many people with ancient programs because they just worked. Now with the subscription they tie you to their chariot but since the price is much much lower it’s much easier for the customer to leave.
And I wrote that earlier. It’s 12$ year vs 7$. Half the price. If Audirvana is half good as Roon I’ll leave. And believe me a lot of people will do the same. And the only reason will be the price. You try and not buy. That’s why SaS is better. I also don’t agree but it’s better.
One reason software is subscription based is because the infrastructure that allows that software to function is rented. And, in a lot of cases, there are ongoing per-user subscription fees to 3rd party services which are required for some of the software features to do their thing. The days of standalone software are behind us. It’s simply the economics of software these days. Monthly costs of having the software work fluctuates with subscribers so it makes sense so would the revenue from those subscribers. And this is all before paying for new features, bug fixes, etc.
I realize some people still have completely self-contained libraries with no need for 3rd party data dips but that group is rapidly shrinking. Roon was significantly ahead of the inevitable here. Additionally, monthly fees makes software less sticky. From the perspective of maintaining customers it is a horrible model. But it’s necessary to be considered “feature-rich”.
And, I’m talking about companies with pure software play. Companies that bundle software with hardware have a completely different model. A model I’m not too fond of as it prioritizes a rapid turn-over of hardware in order to collect more revenue from existing customers (upgrade time every 2 years?). I prefer to keep my hardware for long periods of time.
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Yeah Audirvana sounds better than Roon. Its not a huge difference though.
I hate subscriptions. I bought Roon lifetime to avoid paying monthly or yearly. I am all subbed out and the sellers want this because its a gravy train to sit back and collect money continually from people. I avoid all subscriptions. if possible.
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I paid $96 in January for Audirvana lifetime for use when away from home. I will probably do the Audirvana Studio 30 day free trial to see how it sounds. If it is significantly better than 3.5, I might do the first year for $50, but I can’t see paying $70 per year after that.
Lifetime Roon is my at home music player. There is nothing about Roon that I don’t like.
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Unfortunately, for the most of it it’s the economics of “more profit for less investment”, and not the economics of sustainability. There are a lot of standalone software houses still (successfully) around, see Affinity (or Corel) vs. Photoshop for example.
If I understand the Affinity model it matches the Corel model (which I’m familiar with). Both of these software packages are free upgrades until the next major release. Major releases require a paid upgrade. My experience with Corel is their major release cadence is once a year. How is that not a subscription hiding behind an upgrade fee?
In some cases I believe that the subscription model it’s the only way, especially for the service/software combination, as Roon is for example. My problem with that is that I personally care more about the software in this case than the service, since I can get that service in many other forms (Audirvana included).
First, you can use the software without being forced to update (in decent limits). And second, it makes the company more open to real development, since they really need to offer you something for that money (again in decent limits). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
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Subscriptions are just another way of charging and paying for a service or product. It’s like renting a car instead of buying it. It’s no big deal to me. What matters is the overall price and is it worth it.
This.
I have reluctantly gone to subscription for roon, MS office, adobe, etc. And renting v buying music and movies. No big deal.
What IF Audirvana sounded better? Is SQ more important to you, or is the interface. pick one… 
[quote=“rrwwss52, post:123, topic:61175, full:true”]
What IF Audirvana sounded better? Is SQ more important to you, or is the interface. pick one…
Do we only have two to pick from?
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You can select whichever you prefer. I use several different programs. There are some great options. Aurender has great SQ and a decent interface (Conductor). Bryston MPD sounds great but the interface (Manic Moose) is awful. Audirvana works great SQ wise and the interface is good. Even JRMC is a good vehicle for music listening. With respect to interface, Roons rules them all, but SQ wise, the other options are competitive, and in my system, better.
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Well, since I have already paid for Roon, I would keep it, of course. Then, it becomes a question of how much better does Audirvana Studio sound vs Roon. I would pay the $70 per year for Audirvana Studio if it sounded appreciably better than Roon. I could even drop Tidal or Qobuz to come out ahead. SQ is what matters to me.
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Studio is not out yet, so nobody can really comment on it’s new interface yet…
What IF Audirvana sounded better? Is SQ more important to you, or is the interface. pick one… 
@dabassgoesboomboom Hypothetical at this point, but it does reflect a choice. SQ or interface?
Sound quality matters to me more than interface. I doubt Studio wll out perform Roon’s interface, but we’ll have to wait and see on that. Maybe I’ll be surprised.
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I used a Dev Tool ,Resharper, many years ago , they decided the subscription route maybe 10 years ago , even worse they offered a perpetual license dating back to the START of your last subscribed year so you lost a years updates if you backed out - I backed out - I must admit mainly because I retired and stopped actively developing . That too was exceedingly unpopular, and quite revolutionary at the time
They are still in business running that system , without my help I may add . I am sure they are worried about that !!
When I first got the e-mail from Audirvana and I saw purple on black, I cracked up! The layout of the two apps is extremely similar. Audirvana wins points for not have a white window bar (in dark mode) and I like that it displays track info and a heart next to the album on the bottom left of the screen. Both of which have been long time Requests to Roon. I still can’t tell if they decided to go with artist images, or how they will present genres but if their metadata is as good as Roon’s and it is stable. I think Audirvana studio is a real competitor to Roon for people not using separate servers. This is also an opportunity they missed and that is going to not be too good for them. No headless server option is shooting themselves in the foot in my opinion. While I think Audirvana sounds better than Roon does on a Mac, Roon on the NUC server still sounds the best