I think I missed your point here, in that you don’t miss Spotify or Apple Music when using Roon. I know what you mean. It works fine without either of them. I also use multiple services. I have Spotify included free with my car’s infotainment system (I also have Tidal and Apple Music apps installed natively on my car’s system, so no need to bluetooth from my iPhone or for Apple CarPlay or Spotify).
However, I have a free trial of Apple Music and I am now certain it sounds better than Tidal (on iPhone with AirPods but also on my audio system at home, where quality was a major consideration as I built it up over the years). With many Alums/tracks I really can’t tell the difference but with some Tidal is far inferior. I then get FOMO when listening to Tidal on Roon, thinking it may sound so much better with Apple Music. It’s an annoyance that is always there.
I use Tidal with Roon, my InnuOS Sense system and Plexamp, due to its integration. I really like Tidal for this. However, contrary to you I do miss Apple Music when using Roon/Plexamp for various reasons…
Quality - Apple Music sometimes sounds considerably better
Classical music discovery and content/library management (for streamed content)
My Family prefer Apple or Spotify over Tidal making the Tidal Family plan less attractive and therefore they are not interested in using Roon.
Cost - Tidal is expensive if you want the HiFi+ features (that are mostly included with Apple), another premium, just for Roon/Plexamp integration. Plus, I don’t really want to pay for 2 services. I could ditch Apple, but I would lose the features that are more important to me than integration with Roon/Plexamp.
Library management, favourites and listening history which affects music discovery. I can’t be bothered to manage/keep more than one in sync - although I have been looking into this with Soundiz.
Basically, Roon/Plexamp not having Apple Music means I need to pay for Roon + Tidal which is Okayish, but I also have more than one streaming library to manage. I am not sure I love Roon enough without Radio Paradise or a better version of ARC to rival Plexamp.
Can you give a few examples? I don’t currently have Apple Music but will be considering getting Apple Classical. My observation about Qobuz, Tidal, and Spotify, is that for any particular record label (such as DGG or Sony Classical), its catalogue will be very much the same across different streaming services. The record label probably offers the same licensing agreements to each streaming service. So the difference may be that Apple carries some record labels that Qobuz doesn’t have.
My guess is that Apple is re-releasing the Primephonic app (rebranded to Apple and with other small updates). This is much easier than directly integrating Primephonic into the Apple Music app.
Classical is most but not all of my music listening, Personally I would prefer to use a single music app that handles everything. Hopefully this is the direction they plan for the future.
You can set a phone as an end point that can be referenced by other control points. I.e. I can attach speakers to the phone, go to my pc and use my pc to send music to the phone for playback. You have to make sure the phone is set to public not private. It is the first option under the phone’s device settings.
First, I listen exclusively to classical (80%) and jazz (20%). So my view is not necessarily representative.
Here’s a scenario I face often. I get Gramophone every month and try to look up 1) the month’s new albums they have reviewed, or 2) the section where they take a single work and review 20 or so recordings of it over the last century and recommend a few for your library. And 3) when listening to BBC Radio 3 programs like Record Review, often I won’t find a mentioned album on Qobuz. Happened this weekend.
I’ve found that Qobuz has say 80% of the new albums and about 50% of the albums in 2).
Apple Music has 100% and probably 80-90% respectively.
My suspicion is that smaller and specialist (like historical recordings) labels know that they have better reach through Apple and thus are more willing to invest their scarce resources on that platform.
Here are some examples of albums available in Apple Music but not on Qobuz (and all and more available on classical-only service Idagio):
the entire SOMM Recordings catalogue; same for Orfeo, CPO etc.;
search for Dame Ethel Smyth on Q, you’ll get 3 albums! AM has around 12-15;
albums like Carolin Widman playing Enescu Violin Concerto on NDR or Messiaën Quator pour la fin du temps are not available at all on Q; and
Trio Klengel isn’t listed as an artist on Q. (Although if you know their names and search individually by bakers you can find the albums.)
And many more. These are just the top of my head.
As I mentioned, all the above and others not available on Apple ARE available on Idagio. I always try to plug Idagio when I can.
Why do I still have Qobuz? For newish albums that I want to buy, I get a better deal on high res. That’s it. Otherwise I listen to my local library primarily.
I would think that Apple Music will be a superset of Apple classical when it comes to the catalogue.
I doubt it. Classical search requires much different capabilities that would be overly cumbersome to non-classical listeners if classical-type search were imposed on them. So Apple Classical will remain a separate listening app, although its catalogue will still be available on Music.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the future, Apple decides to monetize Classical separately. Especially since the average classical listener is older and more affluent.
I was thinking maybe you aren’t in the US and it was a regional thing until I looked at your profile. But like @Poseidon77 I was able to easily find most or more of what you listed. Perhaps you aren’t searching correctly? If I type in SOMM on the Qobuz site (via Mac browser) it comes back with 341 albums. You do need to scroll down to ‘labels’ under the search results.
And on the Qobuz app, search of CPO gives nothing about any label CPO or any albums by CPO. See video here.
BTW I’ve also tried both Roon and Qobuz apps on the iPad. Same result.
So please don’t tell me I have to use a desktop. If so, then that’s the stupidest implementation of search that both Qobuz and Roon have put together. I can’t even start on that one…
And given that 75% of the western world uses phones and tablets as their primary window to the internet world
I think you’re right re the Enescu violin concerto. It doesn’t seem to be available on Q, whereas it is on Apple Music. My bad. For CPO and Orfeo, though, Q carries their catalogues.
I’m waiting to see what Apple Music Classical will be like. I hope it will provide booklets (as Primephonic did, and as Idagio and Presto Music do). No booklets would be a real deal breaker for me.
It’s a well known, longstanding issue that Roon doesn’t search for labels outside of your local library. But you know, ARC, ARC, ARC…
As far as Qobuz, I just tried the app on my Pixel 7, and no, it doesn’t seem to have a labels tab in search like there is on desktop. I wonder why that is?
