Universal Music Group-owned Deutsche Grammophon, which claims to be the world’s oldest record label, just launched its own high-res classical music streaming service.
Called STAGE+, the service is described by Deutsche Grammophon in a press release as “ground-breaking”. The label calls it the “latest milestone in classical music’s digital development”.
According to the STAGE+ website, a subscription for the service will cost EUR €14.90 per month, or €149 per year.
So I hope this doesn’t mean that they start withdrawing releases from other services, or making future releases STAGE+ exclusives. The video streaming market’s a nightmare because of the battle over exclusive content. That said, label based streaming services haven’t been spectacularly successful so far.
I hope they don’t start withdrawing releases from other services either. That would not be good.
I notice that they have a shop where releases (but apparently not digital downloads) can be purchased, that’s the good news. The bad news is that I see they are asking €17.99 for the CD of Hilary Hahn’s Eclipse. I can buy the CD-quality download from the Qobuz store for €15.99, or even better, the Hi-Res version for €9.59 with my Sublime subscription…
We already get exclusives with some streaming services on some content so it’s a possibility. I predicted years ago that the film studios would start to do this and it happened. So I can see music eventually going the same way. I hope
It doesn’t though.
What would you do if you were CEO of DG?
I’m actually very surprised that the labels haven’t purchased a platform like Tidal for this purpose.
As much as I’d hate to see it, it’s a very attractive prospect for the labels (whether they buy a platform or start their own).
Reminds me about Disney+ and Netflix 
That is normal business practice. As the manufacturer, they need to charge full retail price for physical CDs. They must not compete against their vendors and retailers; otherwise it discourages shops from selling their products.
Understood - I was meaning that since I rip my CDs for Roon, I’m better off simply buying the digital downloads in the first place.
Get Dudamel to brush his hair.
Then go for lunch.
I am looking at getting Roon, and this was one of my questions. I am aware that Roon can work with Tidal and Spotify, but what about newly announced streaming services like DG and lesser known services like Idagio? What about Youtube music?
Roon can integrate the Tidal and Qobuz streaming services; it does not integrate Spotify. While Danny (Roon Labs COO) has said that they are talking with other services, he won’t say which ones, and will not commit to timescales.
Wow, that’s a surprise. There is a clear overlap with the offers of the Digital Concert Hall (digitalconcerthall.com).
Appsand websites look very similar and and they have the exact same pricing. Maybe they will go together in the future?
Roon wont add services that wont allow the full integration they have with Tidal and Qobuz which goes far beyond what other apps do it’s not just using the api. Roon have full copies of their databases so it allows the way they can merge it totally with your own files and edit metadata and how it’s all grouped. No other app can this.
YouTube music I imagine won’t allow what Roon want much like the other big players have refused to allow Roon access. Spotify don’t allow any integration these days only Spotify connect. Idagio maybe but I doubt they have the resources to give Roon what they need. I think it’s been talked about before but nothing came of it. The service have it want to work with Roon as much a Roon wants to work with them.
Depends on the data, but I would not assume that everyone who occasionally wants to listen to a symphony will sign up to yet another service just for that.
I hope Roon will support this service. I like the shows in Atmos, but if I play only audio I would prefer it to be played by my Roon endpoint.
The same data requirements from a service supplier. These currently prevent Roon from integrating the Big 5.
I wouldn’t hold my breath , but start looking at other ways of piping the stream to your hi fi maybe