Yes the collection and also the work on it is very big. Those who run the marathon distance in sports or want to become Iron Man, invest a lot of time and also money in the right equipment. With the wrong running shoes and without training, no one gets to the finish line faster. Is it work? Is it senseless spending? No it is actually love, joy, fun…
Only when training is complete can the ultimate test of performance be made. What one person sees as big seems very small to another.
Why keep and maintain a few per mille of the music world locally, when everything is available for 10 € monthly?
We affectionately call our investment in time and money a hobby or a way of life that gives meaning. It only cost us the financial and time resources that we gladly invested. It remains not only the quick and cheap consumption and the great forgetting, but the love for the collected unique piece. For some people it is only the one title of a certain album, others see only the album as an artistic work. Few consider the whole life’s work.
Cultural developments only fade after centuries or get lost in millennia. What is a decade of collector or artist passion? A musical epoch perhaps with very few style directions and talents?
An album may still be considered a work of art today, but this art form is often commercially overloaded with a lot of filler material without any artistic effort due to new worldwide marketing techniques, because there are then millions of times not the one dollar, but 10 or more to earn. Who still plays music purely for pleasure? Certainly many millions of musicians live in your home country, but billions of people only let themselves be sprinkled by the radio or television on the side (with a few hundred music titles). At least a few hundred million people have recognized that a paid offer has added value. Very few collect their listening experience or complete it into life’s work. Who does this, binds there its whole life meaningfully.
Valuable memory in the sound picture of your life.
Why not give Roon a chance to make that more perfect? Is there only one way to get there and will it always be flawless? The long breath is needed not only in sports, but is the livelihood of our lives. Breathe!
With the size of a collection and/or many daily listening hours grows after many decades the realization that there are more albums that should not be listened to completely. The compulsion to listen to an LP or cassette completely has already been largely eliminated with the CD.
Impressive listening and buying stories on iTunes, LastFM, Spotify or other data sources show how music is played and bought today. The single download or the hand-picked playlist dominates the scene. Listening to entire albums seems like a relic from the old days. We still like to do that, too. A dogma that this is the only way is disproved.
Filler material in sales is mercilessly devalued by new algorithms. At the same time, this AI pulls out gems from old decades that no radio or TV station or supposed expert has discovered for us yet. This succeeds so frighteningly well and in keeping with personal preferences that one simply has to take a broader view in order not to get caught in a narrow continuous loop.
AI never goes without its own consideration of where the next starting point should be. If you only commit yourself to one genre or artist, you dive much deeper there, you can make better recommendations there, but you remain without your own experience in the entire spectrum of music. Following current music trends over many decades is more arduous. Who doesn’t prefer to continue listening to the music of his youth? Stuck to his classical music, jazz or what really rocks? Hip-hop/rap is that possible?
Enjoying without thoughts and lyrics?
We have many here who can’t really enjoy music until the metadata is right. Roon is making an effort to close that flank. SUCCESSFUL? It’s a field of use that is just being opened up commercially. The marketing slogans are still bigger than the actual results, but it’s actually growing with each passing day. More through communities than individual interests.
We are the niche here with those people who really have the best devices and ears. This is where sound and music experts have interesting discussions and where the old dinosaurs with passion for their own collection still find a home. Here, texts are still read and written. This supposedly great is in reality only an event in the per mille range. The vast majority of people tick differently, hear differently and no longer need all this.
Without effort from developers, data services and community, unfortunately, it’s not all there. It’s not enough to just subscribe to a music service and everything comes to your house automatically and securely. We experience failures, gaps and much that is not yet perfectly designed, even if the marketing statements always sound different. Everything that can be found so far, remains power effort that in the age of computers in large community and many individual achievements with joy together.
I wish all developers, supporters and this community even in the face of setbacks, dead ends, mistakes, gaps…
