In the Are you An Audiophile thread we see many forum members explaining why they are
Who can afford to spend megabucks on a hobby , not many in real terms.
The mass of music listening is the Cellphone EarBud brigade. I would love to see stats for that
Spotify is free for low MP3 but in most cases that surfices
How many listeners can really differentiate between MP3, FLAC , hi res ? Just the fortunate few who have high end equipment. Ironically the younger generation have the best hearing and lowest budget in the main
Witness the age spread of Roon membership
In the end price will out, Amazon, Apple and Google will crush the opposition as @Craig_Palmer outlines
I doubt they are even considering Roon to get a portion of 100k users
I have no axe to grind as Iām in South Africa where we have noAmazon coverage
Well suppose the link had 24/192 optical output. I could hook that to my chord Hugo 2 and get excellent sound quality. I could then control that remotely with iPhone or iPad or voice command.
Pay Amazon $12 a month for larger library and get a Echo link for couple hundred. Thatās wouldnāt be a bad solution. And if not lifetime member, donāt have to pay roon membership on top.
Iām already a lifetime member and very happy with roon/Qobuz solution but if other existed, itās tempting.
Why do you say itās a gimmick? I have Bluesound Pulse Flex and Echo Dot right next to each other in my kitchen. Sound quality of the Flex is so much better than the Dot. Yet, nobody uses the Flex except me. The Dot is just so much more convenient to control. Just today, I was doing the dishes and decided I wanted some music. Do I stop and go walk across the room to push one of the pre-sets on the Flex or worse look for my cell phone to launch the app? Nope, I just kept washing the dishes and told Alex to play my music. No gimmick thereā¦ just convenience.
One manās convenience is another manās gimmick I suppose. I know it is catching on and people enjoy it. Thatās fine with me but I wonder how much convenience we really need to be happy. A philosophical point there
I agree though that convenience always seems to win. As Bob Stuart was quoted āIn the war between SACD and DVD, `the iPod MP3 wonā.
Craig, wrt your second bullet, Sprint already owns 20% of Tidal, and when/if the TMobile merger goes through, TM will own that 20%. Tidal is building its own version of Spotify Connect. TM could choose to preload on all their devices; add in a major commitment to 5G, and you have a market game changer.
At least for Tidal.
I remain a Qobuz fan, but after CES, Iām convinced theyāll always remain a niche player. Iām skeptical they can survive on that basis.
@woodford - You are right. I agree and should have noted that. Almost assuredly theyāll buy control of Tidal if the merger with T-Mobile is approved and that has the opportunity to greatly expand distribution for Tidal and give them financial stability. And itās less likely that Sprint/T-Mobile develops multi room devices of the sort that would compete with Apple and amazon and that would bode well for Roonās long term access to Tidal metadata.
Thatās fantastic Craig. While I have all 3 music subscriptions along with Roon, Amazon fails to play with many hardware/software providers including Bluesound, Niam, Audirvana etc. Heck they donāt even have basic like exclusive control to pass bit perfect audio. Doubt they are interested in the micro small audiophile community. In their P&L audiophile $$ is rounding off a few decimals. They are after the Apple Music and Spotify market which they have done a decent job of securing.
Thank you nonetheless for your efforts and believing in quality. Appreciate it. Keep us posted.
@woodford - in Node2i I cannot add songs to Amazon Music playlist. It does not even give you that option. Bluesound forums are filled with folks complaining about this issue and bottom line is Amazon is not willing to work towards a resolution. Does it work for you?
Yes, many of us have given up on Amazon HD. Until or unless it is integrated with Roon, it is of no interest to many here. With the Qobuz price reduction ($15 per month or $12.50 per month if you pay annually) Amazon no longer makes sense if you are a Roon user.
Exactly. If you sign up for a new account through the US funnel you can even get in on it if youāre not in the US. Iāve signed up from Germany and pay via PayPal. Comes down to around 13 bucks (ā¬s) a month.
Itād be good if some folks stuck with Qobuz instead of feeding the behemoth.
@Jim_F - I had Qobuz which I cancelled a couple days ago. I loved it - the sound quality and unique music was exceptional. Also I think their catalog is growing and I found everything I searched for. Except Qobuz does not spit out user recommended playlists or songs. Also since Roon does not allow adding music to Qobuz playlist I found it very hard to search for genre of music at the gym/remotely which is mostly hip hop and rap for workouts. I need something that the music service recommends that suits my/user taste. Do you find that to be true or am I doing something incorrectly.
I recall needing a VPN when I signed up for Qobuz a couple years ago when it was only available in France. This time, just a month or two ago, I simply went to the US 15$ a month landing page and signed up, with payment processed via PayPal. The beauty about the latter is that you donāt have the billing address check that standard credit card processing would involve.
I think this should be kept a bit on the down low but feel free to try
