Last time I tried Roon to be honest I thought it was a mess. Technically it was strong but the software- the daily interaction- was a mess. It was too confusing and felt half baked and kept changing all the time. It seemed like it was being designed by commitee. I just didn’t get the hype.
And it was over priced.
Fast forward to yesterday and I downloaded the demo and I am blown away. All the niggles and confusion seem to have gone away and it’s now incredibly intuitive, user friendly and minimalist… but also powerful.
It was probably always powerful it just wasn’t easy to discover that fact. But now, wow, I get it.
I may consider subscribing. (but it’s still over priced )
But is Roon still messing around with the interface? In which case I’m out. The interface is just about perfect imo.
(still does that annoying thing of sending out an email saying “Security Alert” everytime you do anything which is inexplicable and a sever case of The Boy Who Cried Wolf as I set my spam filter to reject them every time)
Last week I tried to leave Roon because it’s overpriced (notably when you pay in USD in a country where the exchange rate goes up) but it took me a day with Jplay (3 times cheaper where I live) to come back (LOL). So, yeah, Roon is pretty good.
Why would you pay for a Lifetime membership when you can pay monthly?
It’s only £12 per month which is less than 40 p per day the same as Qobuz?
When you consider the benefits of having quality sound, new music discovery & huge library of music it seems to offer outstanding value to me.
Some people spend hundreds on coffee, junk food etc a month -seems great value to me but just my opinion of course.
Same reason I’d buy a car/house instead of lease/rent, i guess.*
I bought lifetime about five years ago, so it’s paid for.
*Was going to use the “buy music instead of stream” analogy, but that’s different… streaming allows you to find new music you didn’t know about and add unlimited albums to your library. So that argument is less valid. I do both, for what it’s worth.
I spend more on music in a year than I ever could on a lifetime subscription, even at the current rate.
Roon unquestionably provides more value to more people than most of those things, and even at lifetime, it’s a pittance compared to how much I’ve spent on my hardware, so what’s to complain about? Even with its flaws — and it has a few for me and more for others — it’s a bargain.
Fair enough-I would rather put the money towards a holiday or Hi Fi upgrade etc as £12pm seems logical to me.
I recently decided to buy a quality Panasonic Blu Ray player as I had just upgraded my centre speaker which made a huge difference however after 2 months sold it as 95% of the time it was sitting there gathering dust.
Thankfully it sold in 2 days and I barely lost any money.
I’ve recently returned to Roon as I’m testing a new server and have to say it sounds very good compared to both Squeeze and JPlay who usually have the edge albeit the gap has reduced
I think I live in the low end of our hobby’s many atmospheric layers. My current main system would probably cost about $25K in today’s terms, but there are many, many, many people who have systems that cost two-to-three times that much, and a pretty large handful that are worth an order of magnitude more. What I am saying is that the audiophile hobby skews wealthy, and Roon is the top-of-the-line software within that hobby, and by that standard (if only by that standard), it’s a pittance.
One more thing: I understand that there are many people who are not in the high end of the hobby who find Roon’s price to be excessive. But there are people on these very forums who are of means who complain about the pricing…Plus, let’s remember, music equipment and software are luxuries, and part of a hobby, and all hobbies have a spectrum of participants, from high end to low end. Think about Rod Stewart’s involvement with model trains, for instance.
Audio nerds are a goofy bunch. If we’re on this forum, there’s an assumption we are hobbyists (instead of casual listeners) who place a high value on music and sound and gear and libraries, etc… So i guess the assumption is that it’s worth it.
Just some people can’t spend 25k on a music playback system. They use Raspberry Pi’s and a couple of self powered loudspeakers but they still are music lovers and Roon still is the only thing on the market that seems to have a clue about music organization.
Also, I see you as potentially on a life journey (like many of us) to become one of the dedicated hobbyists who will wind up spending more than the average bear!
You’re a good guy - and THANK YOU for making this thread. You are right about how good it really is, and when some of us in here get to a point where we complain (I am included from time to time), it’s very refreshing to have a fresh perspective like yours on how good it really is.
Hello, I bought the lifetime license for €499 in 2019! I have never regretted the purchase! Roon totally convinced me back then. I would have even accepted a higher price back then!
)
