Whoosh!
(wow this forum is so tight, it does not allow me to write just whoosh!)
Prophetic Words of wisdom from Winston
This may well be.
Successful Companies donât shoot the golden goose.
However, many canât resist the urge to tamper and attempt to make even more money
I would not be so negative. Roon was not aquired by a hedge fond. 
Harman Kardon has quite a lot of brands which still operates âindependentlyâ and doing their thing (or maybe a little bit differenet thing now) as they did before they were aquired by Harman, like JBL, Revel, AKG, Arcam, Mark Levison etc.
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This is a tactical purchase from Samsung.
Thereâs little money in it for them.
Roons annual turnover is nothing for a company like Samsung.
Samsung want exclusivity from IOS.
Then again, roon is very niche. However, bundling free with their phones etc is a good way of introducing people to it along with the many benefits.
Samsung will take a very long view with Roon. Very long.
Another reason to buy roon is to keep other companies out.
Samsung have so much money that the little they have spent on roon is meaningless to them.
I would say that the acquisition is about positioning.
Over time when they have phone users hooked on it they can then start to tamper with quality.
Letâs face it, phone users donât care about quality. Phones arenât hifi. Quite the reverse
Consequently they can slowly tamper and downgrade quality without enough people realising or caring.
Proper hifi users are an absolute minority today. Over time I expect us to be marginalised and squeezed.
Things will change over time. Quality will inexorably drop as maintaining quality cuts profits.
Multinational companies are clever and incredibly manipulative.
Sadly todayâs younger consumers are oblivious and love to play follow the leader.
And thatâs exactly the strategy will adopt with roon.
The major problem for Samsung is that roon is an endpoint. People today want everything on demand. Quantity over quality.
Samsung are going to have to deal with this. To do so would require a significant shift in the service roon offers.
Itâs worked with their phones and TV etc.
In the short term I suspect our listening experiences are safe.
In the long term the outlook is potentially bleak for those who have proper hifi and value quality.
I donât know what they sell in the UK, but their catalog runs the gamut: from inexpensive mass market stuff to very high end stuff. Sometimes in the same brand, such as JBL, which has both.
Revel speakers are the opposite of mass market - a very high end, well respected brand.
Hi, sorry Iâm a hifi freak so JBL and Revel are not high end in Europe: very mid range. Talk Martin Logan and such and we are in tune.
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Iâd say thereâd be some interesting conversations taking place in the boardrooms of Tidal and Qobuz right now. Tidal having to transition out of MQA has cost them a lot of money and theyâre not on the other side of it yet. Qobuz perhaps not so much but theyâve both got to now consider their future with Roon. Perhaps it might be good for them perhaps not but trying to anticipate what direction Samsung is likely to take Roon is another commercial risk they have to deal with.
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Lifetime was contracted. They could offer a buyout as many mobile phone coâs did with unprofitable plans but dont hold your breath and enjoy the product for the forseeable future.
So what that statement means?
Software updates will be free always
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In pc gaming thatâs called a microtransaction.
Some may call them rip offs where you pay again for something youâve already paid for.
I think we can expect the same from roon at some point.
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I donât have a huge problem with this, I had far more problem with the original team sending us into the cloud and forcing always on Internet as a requirement to play our own files without thinking to ask any of us.
Maybe Harman could do us all a favour and embrace âcloud repatriationâ, itâs trending with enterprises these days you know. Huh, huh? Please?
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Welcome to Europe! We value data protection and implement it. Just ask Meta, Google, Amazon and even Microsoft.
Data protection is a fundamental right in the EU and I think itâs good that itâs being brought up here, because with a paid service, whether as a subscription or a lifetime licence, I expect that my data wonât be sold to maximise profits. If it is, then the EU taxpayer will be happy. This can cost up to 4% of a yearâs turnover in the EU!
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Call me skeptical about where this goes for Roon - Harman has as many failures as they do successes and their orientation is more a big shareholder money-making machine and not a loving/caring guardian of a unique UI/operating system. I have used Roon since Sooloos was first introduced and I am pretty invested in the product - both personally and professionally. Could Roon use an influx of capital to beef up their service/support system - absolutely. Same could be said about the deathly slow âRoon Readyâ certification process. I know of two manufacturers that have been waiting months and months to get their products âReadyâ, but of course now that this announcement has been made, I can see what is driving the likely âintentionalâ bottleneck. I wish the best for Roon and its founders with all the impending changes, but we have seen this movie too many times not to remember the likely endingâŚ
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I would imagine they would not want to rock the boat by making existing âLifetimeâ subscribers pay a monthly charge again. Very bad PR. Not impossible though, some companies do seem to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
If they feel that it isnât a sustainable option long term, Iâd imagine theyâd withdraw it as an option so the % of lifetime users remains as is and actually drops as % of the customer base as they bring in more and more new users. All hypothetical of course!
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I think you might not grasp the concept of a âstartup.â If itâs not sold, the company could face the risk of dissolution, potentially leading to the loss of everything youâve built up to this point.
By going through with this, they can advance more rapidly and attract new customers. I genuinely see this as a significant positive for us.
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Again, I donât know what models you know about.
Some of the ones in the States meet every definition of hi-end - unless you just reject equipment b/c of the brand name and not b/c of their performance.
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I guess âhigh endâ is not well defined. In a world that contains domestic speakers costing tens and hundreds of thousands, a 10K speaker like some Revel models are not the high end if the term is understood literally.
On the other hand, it probably is in the world that most people experience 
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And Martin Logan is top shelf? Must be a different line up than Iâve ever seen. Best Buy speakers in the states.
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Thatâs exactly what Virgin Active did, they bought out a gym chain, Health & Raquets club that had offered lifetime membership, they simply scrapped it
Mr Branston did Mr Mandela a favour rescuing a dying gym chain
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