The recently announced Elac Discovery Roon Server is an interesting development, ie a headless appliance designed to remove the necessity for a computer to run Roon. I wonder if any other manufacturers are looking at that route. I note that it includes a lifetime subscription to Roon. Does that mean that the subscription entitlement will stay with the device rather than the buyer of the device (for example, if it was subsequently sold second hand)?
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Certainly interesting…but I’d wonder about the fact that Music storage is via USB only
For all the known reasons, keeping large spinning [5400-7200rpm] Magnets out of the listening room is always a good idea…both from the point of view of audible noise and even more importantly, RFI / EMI ‘noise’…and running long USB cables to a remote location needs care…interesting nonetheless
As regards the “ownership” question, Enno’s comments below might help clarify some aspects of what is actually included
UPDATE 20th November 2015 Enno Vandermeer of Roon Labs writes: “We’re hoping to clarify the impression out in the world that the Elac DIscovery comes with a lifetime Roon license. Here’s what we’re telling people who email us saying they want to hold off buying Roon because they’re waiting for the Discovery:
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Just to be clear about Elac’s upcoming product, the Discovery is designed to be a self-contained device, and has a built-in limited version of Roon Server installed on it. It won’t have all of Roon’s features like lyrics, DSD and high-resolution formats, or the ability to stream to PCs, AirPlay speakers, and Roon Ready devices from our partners. The license is tied to the device rather than to you as a customer, so it’s not a Roon Lifetime license, either.
The purpose of our partnership with Elac is to provide a simple, turn key version of the Roon experience, but there will always be features in our Annual and Lifetime memberships that are only available by upgrading.
That’s the end of my interest in it then 
I have written at length about this:
Multiple other partners are going to be providing full Roon Server appliances that remove the need for the computer. Most are banging on our door about Linux release, since they need that for their embedded systems. In those configurations, a Roon membership will still be needed, and your current memberships will just work fine.
It’s coming!!!
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Is the Roon Essentials version inside this unit susceptible of firmware upgrades, by either Roon L or through the Discovery’s manufacturer?
Or you buy the unit and stick to Roon Essential as it is for the life/duration of the hardware.
I’ve only had my Discovery for about a month, but my understanding is as follows:
-The current ELAC Discovery will always run only “Roon Essentials” which is a reduced feature version of full Roon. There is no upgrade path, via firmware or otherwise, to full Roon. However, I read that a newer higher end version of the Discovery (Discovery Q, I think) has been announced for later this year and it will supposedly run full Roon (full feature version, membership pricing of your choice, etc.) (I’m considering upgrading to this, myself.)
-Support for the ELAC DIscovery is via ELAC. There is a (relatively sparsely populated) forum on ELAC’s website for Q&A, etc
For what it’s worth, when I first turned on the ELAC and installed Roon Essentials on my Mac, there were downloaded updates to the latest install versions. I was not really paying attention to exactly what was being updated - but there were updates - they were just updates specific to Roon Essentials (rather than full Roon.)
Hope that answers your question.
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Most definitely does. Thank you!!!
Can the Elac Discovery be used as an endpoint player?