“Service Unavailable”
“KKBOX is not available in your country yet”
Why ?
Because KKBOX chose not to be yet, just like Qobuz or Tidal are/were not available everywhere. From the release announcement:
KKBOX integration demonstrates Roon’s dedication to providing its customers with access to the largest and most diverse selection of lossless music and delivers an enhanced music discovery and streaming experience to music lovers in Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
It is possible to create an account for KKBOX with a VPN set to South-Korea. I used a Bunq credit card and paid in Korean dollars, but you don’t need a VPN to sign in and use KKBOX in Roon after this initial setup, and so far, it works great.
Make sure you are not in violation of terms and conditions.
Are there any benefits to having the KKBOX account ?
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I am a master’s student in musicology and cultural studies focusing on Asian pop and jazz music; I found the catalogue of Tidal and Qobuz lacking in their Asian (especially Mandarin) music selection. KKBOX provides comprehensive access to this relatively closed-off area of the music industry with high quality audio files and English metadata.
Another option for accessing this market is Ototoy. Still, I’ve found Roon can have difficulty with finding metadata, and it also requires a VPN or an acquaintance in Japan to be able to purchase from their offerings.
Furthermore, the heavily curated playlists in KKBOX are nothing short of exciting and have really improved my interaction with new releases in the Asian market. They even offer ‘audiophile’ discovery playlists, which are a joy!
My current workflow consists of discovering music on KKBOX and then adding it to my library according to availability in the following order: ‘Highest quality, but if the same quality: Qobuz → Tidal → KKBOX’, without any problems or hiccups. KKBOX has often had the highest quality files in the genre, indicating a more direct line with the Asian-based music distributors.
Overall, I am really happy with this precise use case, even though I realise it is a very niche application, only feasible if you are very interested in Asian music that is not covered by Qobuz and Tidal.
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