You could, although certainly would take Roon in a different direction… you could add a feature that, basically, created a software based digital pre-amp. This would allow digital “inputs” to be cross-connected to Roon endpoints. The huge benefit here is those digital sources now get the benefit of each endpoints DSP Engine, volume leveling, room correction etc.
In the case of Spotify it would work as follows:
In Roon create a Spotify Connect Input (should be able to create > 1 for family accounts)
That input is configured/pointed at a Roon endpoint (output).
In Spotify I select my Roon Spotify Connect under “Connect to a device” and I hear it on the Roon endpoint.
Playback is all controlled from Spotify but now I’m able to use my superior RAAT based devices. This would work for other services as well. I’m not asking this be a feature but I just wanted to point out that “impossible” should be left to the accounting department while the technologists and engineers I’d expect to constantly be working to find answers (even if those answers never leave the lab).
As a side note… I find Roon’s endpoint management to be one of the best I’ve ever used. In my set-up it is one of the main reasons I committed to lifetime. Based on what I read in these forums it seems to be one of the lesser used features but to me it’s at the core of my Roon experience. Maybe this is why the “digital pre-amp” idea just naturally makes sense to me. Keep up the good work. -A happy Roon user
To me, that sounds like a different product, rather than another embedded option in Roon. Maybe it could be called Roon Advanced Audio Routing Server, or RAAR.
I’ve purchased lifetime services and been burned in the past. At its worst when the company ceases to exist your SaaS powered software becomes useless. At best the SaaS company just leaves you on a legacy version of their platform - ceasing maintenance and roadmap updates - and offers a conversion discount to a completely new product offering that drops the lifetime option. Consumers never think like lawyers but companies and product managers do and this is totally legal. It may piss off a tiny percentage of customers but once you have the momentum its a risk that makes sense. Then there is the likelihood of hostile acquisition.
Personally I’m okay with the annual subscription as I want the Roonlabs team to have the operating income to continue working on the service and have that guaranteed future revenue that SaaS companies use to attract investors. If things go south I can vote with my feet.
The most recent example of giving way too much upfront capital with no supervision occurred in 2017/2018 with the Crypto/ICO mania. Consumers dropped billions into ICO’s with the dreams of various services being created - whether they were fraudulent or not these were someones dream that people bought into. Its 2019 now and we see so many examples of the teams that received this massive funding paying themselves $500k/year and even siphoning off the investment through charge backs to external companies they themselves owned and zero products/services have been delivered.
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
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Seems like Roon is getting market traction, even in this niche, and thus has some reasonable staying power, at least for the foreseeable near-term.
I do worry about the fact that Roon can only spend the lifetime fee once. There are ongoing costs for those users. There may be a time when they’re saddled with a disproportionate number of no-revenue lifetime subscribers when they’ve exhausted their niche, if they cannot develop some mass-market appeal. Doesn’t seem to be a concern for now though.
If/when Roon goes away, unless Roon opens up the software a ton more so that effectively the whole database can be manually edited, I do not think the software will offer a good experience very long. In addition to lack of streaming integration, we’re talking about no artist or album data, no photos, nothing, other than maybe what’s been downloaded locally to the date of “the event.” But I would assume their license to the content would not support it staying locally, indefinitely - don’t know.
Hoping that never happens! Things have to go a certain way, though. Most tech startups are founded with the idea of an exit. Indeed that is necessary if you have investors – they expect the company to sell and for their money to be returned as a multiple. Roon may not have that capital structure, but it’s awfully hard to grow quickly without that type of funding.
You’re assuming that the content providers stay in business too. Too many variables to worry about it really. Every day Roon “just works” is a plus for me.
I think Roon should adopt a pay version apart from yearly and lifetime membership.
Pay version means, users pay for the particular version; say Roon 1.6 and if Roon were to come out a newer versions they just need to pay for an upgrade fee. If they decided not to upgrade they can stick to the older version until support ceases. I think this model does bring additional cash and more sign ups as it is more affordable to many users.
This is like how jriver works…I still upgrade my all platform jriver lic each release, but I seldom use it. Roon just works better for me, but I like to keep up with at least one other option so I have some objectivity.
but requires us to maintain cloud services in a backwards compatible manner forever. Our current way, we only have to make it compatible a few versions back. Same goes for support.
I read something last night that said Roon was sold, and they posted a screenshot of the info. The info said all subscriptions were being cancelled, and the new owners would be offering a monthly subscription…is this true? I have tried to find the article this morning, but I have not been able to.
