How much is Roon worth? What investments should it displace?

No, you think the concept is fundamentally flawed. Obviously many businesses have chosen to do the exact same thing that Roon is doing. SiruisXM is just one prominent example.

You are making a diagnosis of a patient without examining him. If you are the professional you claim to be, you would know that is just plain improper to do.

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You’re new here, but we do not brag about our career and financial status.

And referring to other forum members like this is unacceptable.

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Mods have Moderated some posts. Please stop talking about each other. No one cares.

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No one knows Roon economic model for today or the future. They could be independently wealthy, they may or may not have significant investors, we do t know how much their cloud servers and storage cost, we don’t know their partnership deals, the cost of benefits, whether developers are employees or contract.

It’s fine to abstractly debate consumer behavior and subscriptions but it is not directly applicable to Roon. We don’t know their sets of strategic, customer, marketing, tactical, and financial decisions and drivers.

The OP posted about the challenges of meta data in electronic music.

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This OP resonated with me. My experience:

  1. End Feb: Had used iTunes for many years. Wanted better mobile control. iTunes Remote from iPhone/AppleWatch/iPad not doing it for me.

  2. Download Roon, try it. Using iPad as interface, Roon core on laptop. Very unwieldy trying to navigate my music (swipe sideways 20 times within a genre to find something…?). Read Roon’s AMG review of an album. Very opinionated. Look at metadata. Jimi Hendrix’s “Highway Chile” has Bob Dylan as a songwriting credit. My thoughts: “Huh, pay $120/year or $500 for this???” Cancel trial.

  3. March: Go back to iTunes. Felt even more horrible after Roon visuals. Try Audirvana. Mobile control from iPad feeling lacking. Try Roon again (my wife signed up for a trial). This time, use Audirvana to navigate my library and decide on what album I want to listen to, then use Roon to play it. My thoughts: “Hmm, this is a better experience…”

  4. March: continue to use free trial. Using DSP from iPad very liberating for me (instead of constantly going over and fiddling with multiple subwoofers). Experience Roon Radio, very nice (both with Tidal/Qobuz and within my own collection). Find myself listening to music much more, presumably because of Roon mobile interface (nothing else had changed in my setup). Begin to appreciate the ability to read about the album/artist right there in the same software. Begin to think that the appealing visual element of Roon adds to my enjoyment of the auditory experience.

  5. Mid-March, near end of free trial: Question to myself [and this is the part that I thought was similar to ideas expressed in the OP]: How much is this augmenting my music listening experience and enjoyment of music? Five times more than Audirvana? As much as a subwoofer that I added? Yes, and yes.

  6. At end of free trial: pay for lifetime membership.

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What investments should it displace?
Hifi rule number one. If Hifi requires compromise or sacrifice in any other area of your life, you have your priorities wrong.
Hifi rule number two. Do what you are comfortable with. I personally hated the idea of stumping up a hundred notes annually.

When I was able to find the means to pay for lifetime without violating rule number one I did. And I did so on the basis of what was in front of me at that time. Not Roon’s potential, though I can’t deny the wait for ROCK was tough because I didn’t like Windows. As for the wisdom in Roon offering a lifetime option, I am glad they did, and as of this moment I have invested in Roon to the tune of 6 years revenue up front. The time when I become a burden to Roon as a none paying, entitled hanger on are still a good few years down the road!

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Very cool question/concept. I’m going to put my own little take/off-shoot on it, and look at it through the lense of who WOULDN’T I recommend Roon too. Roon isn’t for everyone. It isn’t the best place to make your first $500 investment (or $120 a year) if you’re just getting going. So, with that as my mindset, here’s a list of criteria I think should probably be met/be in place before someone should consider allocating $500 (or $120-per) towards getting Roon. I don’t think I’d recommend Roon to someone that doesn’t already:

  1. have at least one “quality” transistor (speakers or headphones), even if it’s entry-priced as long as it’s known to “hit well above it’s price-point”… looking at my own audio journey and gear, I’m thinking to myself about my Sennheiser HD-6XX headphones ($200) and my EMP Tek r5Bi bookshelve speakers (I’m pretty sure they were only $225 when I bought them 5-7 years ago)…
  2. Adequate amplification for the above “quality speaker or headphone”. It doesn’t have to be high end or premium, it just has to be up to the task (impedance, sensitivity, voltage, etc)… I use a $500 Schiit Jotunheim DAC/AMP with said Sennheiser’s ($725 total for headphones, DAC/AMP, and USB cable), and for years I used an affordable (old and out-dated when I bought it) Pioneer AVR I bought on a Woot sale for $140… $425ish, total, for the speakers, the AVR, some speaker cable, and Chromecast Audio to get my music to and through it…
  3. Has some higher-quality-digital files (preferably CD-quality over high-bitrate MP3/AAC), and/or subscriptions to either Tidal or Qobuz…

Without those 3 things? I don’t think Roon adds enough value to justify the cost. IMO, money should instead to allocated to getting those 3 things to a place where they’re “Roon Ready” (apologize for the Pun).

With those things in hand, Roon begins to really be able to add value, in terms of how you organize, control, and enjoy your music as you listen to it… I’ve had the lifetime subscription for about 4 months now, and it’s literally the best $500 I’ve spent on “audio” in a while… I’m a huge fan. I understand why it took me so long to do it, but I sure am glad I finally got to a place where I decided I could/should take the plunge… really great software.

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At 68 years of age, I now have over 2,500 CD’s ripped native resolution to an SSD, connected to a tiny sub $300 Intel NUC running Roon ROCK, all connected to my router via ethernet. I just sit back with a laptop or iPhone and pull up whatever I want to hear. With two Sonos arranged around the house I can Airplay to my main system and everywhere else. For that and my Roon lifetime license I can do that as long as I last. If there isn’t a lot of value in this then I guess I am just easy to please.

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So at least 33 years to go then…

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That sounds like a recommendation to someone that has the same needs as yourself. There will be people that love the interface or the flexibility over the best sound possible.

I also think they need to have been down the other software journeys a bit, been frustrated by upnp, played with jriver or the like, used the manufacturers own software etc in order to see the UI and technical connection advantages.
Also, not sure that the people who know every track they have and it’s provenance are a good audience :slight_smile:

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lifetime subscription in 2015 is about investing in the future of Roon. Not in 2019.

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Roon can do a buyback…I have two licenses.

Haven’t been through the whole thread so apologies if this repeats points already made but here’s a few thoughts about Roon ‘Value’ that are relevant to me.

  • I wish the free trial had been a bit longer but even so it was immediately obvious to me that Roon was an absolute revelation simply in terms of Music Management. It is worth it to me purely for that, it has completely transformed how I feel about digital music.

  • Moving out 450 CDs allowed me to remove a set of shelves (rented apartment so couldn’t wall mount). I live in the centre of a European city with the associated rents - freeing up some wall space makes a significant difference to the available useable space. The monetary value of having that extra space is actually significant, indeed my partner who teaches has been able to set up a small wall leaning desk for home working in that space.

I know this won’t be relevant to most people here but when people discuss the physical media vs. digital debate one aspect people often overlook is the horrific housing situation that most people under 40 face - having space for physical media is simply not an option for huge numbers of people.

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Storage for 3000 cd’s, this:

shelfstore_cds

or this:

boxnuc7i7bnh-3bd3589746124f0ba020d5c60640252d

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Both.

10 chars.

I have decent other music sources in my system, such as my Linn LP12/Ekos/Adikt vinyl front-end, and my Denon DCD-A100 SACD player. I also have thousands of LP’s, and SACD’s to go with them too.
But since getting a Nucleus/Roon, I’ve hardly used my other sources. And I don’t really want to either.
I think this says it all!

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Agreed. I have 12’ x 3’ custom cabinetry made to store my CDs. They have been ripped for playback through my Nucleus. Unfortunately I don’t know what to do with the discs!

I did the storage calculation, disk space vs. shelf space. This was two years ago, since then disk has gone down and real estate has gone up.

I have three racks for my CD and SACD disks. Until I snagged a Roon Nucleus Plus server, USB to my PS Audio DirectStream DAC, I’d say the sound quality of playing those disks was superior. But now that I’ve got that server and a Qobuz subscription, I’ve yet to buy any more disks, as the Nucleus Plus and the DirectStream DAC really play well together.