Sure there are
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Obviously you donât have much experience with Arcam/JBLâs QA & customer support âŚ
Will Harman collect information on the brands themselves? Not merely user data or listening patterns which in itself assists in user profiling. It would allow them the profile competitors in the market. Unlike Bluesound which licences itâs OS to other brands and these brands have entered into agreements with Bluesound about what is shared and what is not. Roon requires both a server (Core) and an Internet connection, the data it collects goes far beyond what Bluesound does or is capable of. Bluesound only phones home to check for updates.
Maybe its the end of the beginningâŚ
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Or just the beginning.
I see no advantage to the user with this acquisition. I am a lifetime member.
Who? Harman? 
They donât even have product registration for their high end systems âŚ
Obviously Roon can do what they want with their own business, if in their view this is the best way forward then thats up to them. Its also up to each subscriber if they like the direction and choose accordingly. A matter of waiting to see how it all works out I suppose.
On a more immediate problem, I took advantage of the black Friday deals and bought a Wiim Pro Plus, banking on it being Roon ready in the next month or two. Now I suppose there is a chance that may never happen. Should I therefore cancel my order (not dispatched yet)?
Any thoughts?
not what this is about
Maybe, but I do not see it that way.
Roon was purchased for itâs Intellectual Property Rights which includes itâs Eco System of Hardware Partners which happens to be big contributors to the Roon framework of things that are in place.
âMD
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I take this news with a lot of skepticism about the future of Roon, but Iâm very happy for the Roon team. Theyâve done an amazing job and I hope theyâve gotten properly rewarded. What an awesome piece of software and what an awesome community they have built around it. I hope both the Roon team and us the Roon community/users get to enjoy this for a long time!
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Iâve a lot of Arcam gear over the years, and not needed to use their customer support.
An advantage is that Roon still exists. We have no idea how close they were to ending existence as a company, not saying that was about to happen, but continuing as status quo was not sustainable.
EDIT: owners typically donât sell because they âwantâ to, there is usually a burning business need that matches the seller and a buyer
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That is an important point. Remember the old business adage: âNo margin, no mission.â
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For now at least. I could see Harman going the Bluesound route and licensing off in the same way and being hardware based. Cant see the current model being a worthwhile investment for them, sub numbers are tiny in the grand scheme of things and are not going to drastically increase in the West even with this acquisition its just a limited market. I can see this help expanding elsewhere into the East which is what we have seen with the addition of KKBOX but again numbers will never be huge as complicated software just isnt what the majority of people want. Might help Dannys vision of a core less Roon quicker than we think. Imbedding the core tech in hardware you make and sell makes sense and stops their reliance on other 3rd parties, I believe Harman was using DTS Play-fi for its streaming needs so thats likely to change and upset them.
I would be surprised if the current no licensing for vendors continues forever it just doesnât seem like the thing any big business would do, they will want to recoup as much as they can and that is likely where it will step on Blusounds shoes and go licensing out hardware solutions. as do Mconnect and StreamUnlimited and DTS-Play-Fi.
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I would concur with your assessment, I have always seen the BluOs being built into the price of the hardware as the Roon lifetime subscription equivalent.
How Harman will chose to deal with the line item in the long term liability column that is Roon âlifetimeâ subscriptions will be quite interesting. Iâm betting that the Harman accounting staff was less than chuffed about this issue.
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Itâs the most obvious evolution, a Bluesound type solution. Harman has the skills to develop hardware from the brands they own, but not software. And why should they do so, when a solution already exists that allows them to be ahead of the game without much effort? In that case, whatâs the future for lifetime licenses, which wonât pay anything? Perhaps a special price on Harman-JBL-Arcam Streamer? 
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How about âŚ
Roon becomes the OS for the Harman family of productsâ no Harman no Roon
Conspiracy Theory Rules OK 
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It is always interesting to talk about what the future might bring. Iâm as guilty of that as anyone. In a prior professional life, I worked on lots of âmerger and acquisitionâ deals involving all size companies, including startups. Some of these are household names today. My âtruthâ from this experience, is that nobody knows in the beginning how things will ultimately shake out. All the parties to the deal have ideas and plans of course (otherwise nobody would do the deal), but there are so many unknowns that two years down the road often looks very different from what was planned. This is particularly true in the high-tech, fast-changing world.
What gives me comfort is the thought that my ability to access music in the way I desire is so much better today than it was 5 years ago, or 10 years ago, or 40 years ago. So change has been very good for my music consumption.
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Hereâs exactly the point! The writing has been on the wall and becoming clearer daily. Devices that are all in one streamers with local libraries support are more prevalent and higher quality almost monthly it seems. HiFi Rose, Eversolo, Lumin of course and the list goes on. Products like Roon and AudirvÄna are in a shrinking market, demographics donât lie.
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