Adding more services doesn’t make them better. If.anything it makes them a more fractured experience to use as each service has different levels of features or access. They don’t feel like.one app but just siloed portals.
Bluesound to me was just a horrible mess. I can see their attraction but I prefer the quality of the integration so it appears to be one seamless app.that treats all music the same. If all.I want to do is search and play then they serve this function. 8f you want to control and curate your online collection as it was your own and personalise
how it’s organised have powerful search tools etc they just don’t offer this.
I would love to see more services in Roon but not at the detriment of its UX. They all have to work in the same way and offer the same level of deep dive you get from Tidal or Qobuz. Without this it’s just no point in Roon it’s what makes it stand out and make it very different from others.
Innuos is getting there with how they are doing things, and is the only other one I would consider but it’s no where near the level of Roon.
Thanks for the reminder, Chris……Once upon a time I had a vast MP3 library for which Roon was excellent in combining with Tidal seamlessly. Now, my MP3 stuff is totally redundant, taken over by the streaming services, and the Amazon HD offering is gaining momentum - as expected. I occasionally use my Tidal account with Roon to discover new material, but mostly to learn the history of some of the bands whose music I grew up with. That alone justifies Roon, so my membership doesn’t go to waste……but Roon just isn’t the centre of my music universe any more.
I know its been raised before & the answer has been in the negative. However, Auralic have just announced that their Lightning DS software can now stream music, including hi res, from Amazon Prime, in fact I’m doing it now through my Altair G1.
Posted this in another thread it’s relevant here. Naims head of software talks about Amazon and it’s not easy for hardware vendors and I bet Auralic have gone the easy route which is not a great experience. This level of API really does not work well and shows in the BluOS implementation.
Maybe an option can be to integrate into Roon on a limited basis initially and then expand as Amazon opens up more? Would that help get Roon’s “foot in the door”?
It’s all or nothing with Roon and I agree with this way. The way it works with Tidal and Qobuz are it’s USP changing this stance undermines what make Roon different. Can’t see it happening anyways both ways of integrating Amazon are not what suits Roon it needs more than an APi. I dont want Roon to be an Alexa thank you very much, have one already and it’s a useless piece of junk.
But not at a detriment to their philosophy of how they want streaming to work in their app or they are just like the others. You want basic Amazon you have other eco systems out there that cover this.
I think without support, even on a limited basis, Roon will risk alienating its current customer base and perhaps more importantly, from a commercial perspective, signing up new customers.
But Tidal and or Qobuz could go down the pan tomorrow, at which point Roon would lose a lot of value to people like me, so it makes sense to me for Roon to have as many irons in the streaming fire as possible. I really don’t care where in the cloud my music comes from.