I’d prefer to have a representative from Harman Intl. offer us the same assurances that our lifetime subscription will remain intact.
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Congratulations Roon team.
The passion and creativity of a small independent minded team is what made Roon special. It has been a product with endless innovation and surprises. What happens when there are too many cooks in the kitchen? Add the pressures from investors; investors that share none of the passion or creativity.
I hope Roon doesn’t change much and will still be the software I love. I’m a Lifetime subscriber, I hear all the promises of no changes for us, but then again these are just someone words. Promises from some stranger that will make the best business decisions to benefit their business plans.
Good luck to us all. Long live Roon.
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Good for Roon. My question is WHY Harman-Samsung are interested in Roon. Roon revenues are less than a drop in the bucket for SAMSUNG. So, again, why? I am afraid the answer will not be the best of all of us, Roon users. I do not want to spoil the party here but allow me to be dubious of Samsung intentions. What is the idea, and strategy, in buying a small company and then leaving it alone? Not going to happen. Samsung is either doing this to get Roon’s IP and make its products work better than others with Roon or…any ideas?
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Typically, when a company makes an acquisition, this company has to honor existing contracts. With that it is unlikely, that Harman can simply cancel lifetime agreements. They certainly can stop offering new subscriptions at any time.
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One party inevitably loses in the M&A world. I just don’t know what “lose” will look like in this case.
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Esp. Qobuz vis-a-vis GDPR requirements.
There are quite a few examples of companies finding paths out of “lifetime”, “unlimited”, and similar. One example that comes to mind is how Google handled “custom domains”. When they rolled it out years ago, before they commercialized the offering and targeted businesses with it, they told early adopters that it would always be free. Over time, they started applying restrictions to the free accounts, such as limiting the number of email addresses to five, putting quotas on storage, limiting new features to paying accounts. Over time, it was a pretty effective strategy to get people to either convert to paid or to walk away from it altogether.
We can’t anticipate how this will play out but if Harman decides, at some future date, that they really don’t like lifetime subs, they have options other than outright turning it off.
I have a question as this worries me, I’m a lifetime Roon owner.
How much control does the original founders of Roon hold after this acquisition? and if they have any succession plan?
It could happen that Samsung or Harman might exploit Roon or its branding to better sell their own products in mass market, or turn Roon into a mass-market software that focuses on features instead of what its current philisophy already is (sound quality being a high priority). I understand businesses are aimed at making the most profit they can, and that’d make them want to compete with Spotify/Apple Music instead of this niche market that most of Roon’s users are in.
Mark Levinson seems to be the only brand that Harman owns that caters to serious audiophiles, however they probably can do that because it’s ultra highend, so staying niche is fine. For Roon, I can only see two ways, either it becomes an even higher end and more expensive music player, or they target the mass-market, that means audiophiles (and we know we’re the minority) are going to be left behind.
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Congratulations, Roon! I hope this is a positive experience for all of you. You’ve made a terrific product, and you’ve grown a committed user base. I hope that this is a lucrative moment for you but, even it it isn’t a massive windfall, I respect you tremendously for making a choice that is likely to keep your folks employed and will guarantee that the lights will stay on for the moment. But I sincerely hope it’s much better than just that.
I have a lifetime subscription and my wife and I were planning on gifting one to our 22 year old son for the holidays. We want him to just have it and use it - there’s some other stuff in the package including a NUC/ROCK and a pair of speakers and he’s super excited. The announcement today accelerated our plans and I paid for his lifetime sub just in case anything changes in the near future. I’m betting, with my wallet, that all of this will work out well for everyone involved and that Roon will be around for years to come.
The structure described in the announcement, in which Roon operates independently, is a very good outcome for you folks. It sets you up to have autonomy and will hopefully lead to partners continuing to be positive about working with you even though you live in the Samsung/Harman larger organization. I’m personally very happy to see this since my investments are in devices made by companies that could be categorized as competitors.
Whatever happens, you have my respect and appreciation for making a great product and I hope the future is very positive for all of you.
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A guarantee of a lifetime of what exactly is promised? A frozen version via a legacy website with no updates or proper support (well that’s not anything new actually)
This should be a very interesting transition. I hope it’s better than what I fear could happen.
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Come on people. Just continue to use and enjoy Roon as long as it meets your needs better than any alternative you might have. If it ever ceases to do that, then move on to something different. It’s not the end of the world if your Roon lifetime license becomes worthless sometime in the future. It’s sunk money anyway since it can’t be sold or transferred. Stop worrying and get your money’s worth of listening enjoyment.
EDIT: Reading some of the responses here, you would think Roon just announced they are shutting down and scrapping the product.
EDIT2: The value of our lifetime Roon license(s) has nothing to do with when we bought them or how much we paid. Since they can’t be sold or transferred, their monetary value now is $ zero. The only value they have going forward is the value you place on listening to your music using Roon as long as that’s still possible, without paying further monthly or annual subscription prices.
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Well said Jim! I struggle to understand that some of the comments above were written by adults!
Roon is an awesome tool to enjoy music listening with and while it still fulfills that requirement let’s enjoy it to the fullest extent.
None of us knows what the future will bring.
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I agree … we should be positive about the future. It is in their interests to look after this community as there is a commercial benefit of doing so.
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Congratulations to all at Roon. You fully deserve the rewards for years of imaginative hard work.
Jim F has read my mind regarding acceptance of whatever happens going forward. Having a heart attack over imagined problems is never a good idea. Remember the unfounded fears over 2.0.
In the meantime, rather than crashing and burning, the existing team with additional funding have the scope to offer an even better service.
The key will be to increase turnover, presumably by expanding the customer base and also selling more hardware.
Interesting times.
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Maybe the old owners have no idea either, no solid plan is forthcoming, this leads to speculation. The loyal customers are the ones who put the owners in the position of making a deal that appeals financially to them. Treating the customer like a mushroom is nothing new in the merger acquisition business world these days.
Be real interested to hear everyone’s thoughts in 12 months from now huh? Should be good 
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Ok, this is unexpected, but knowing Roon as a very reliable brand, I have confidence in a good outcome. I and many other lifetime members will soon receive an email confirming that nothing, NEVER anything will change, so I’m not worried. And with a larger company it is easier to bring a Roon Core that has a better price/quality than the current one. Congratulations!
As a Multi Lifer why do they still need your CC Number ?
Annuals are auto deducted at anniversary but there is no further transaction for you ?
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Theres 'an Apple Music app in the Play Store that runs on my phone ? I admit I haven’t tried it for a while
I jumped onboard with lifetime end of last year just before the price increase.
I don’t regret it, and I’ve been using Roon enough to justify my purchase, but despite the statements from Roon management, I’ve got a bad feeling about this for the future.
This is the announcement of the purchase, this is the moment everyone is smiling and congratulating each other and assuring everything is fine, but once the dust has settled, I doubt anyone can guarantee that a large economic group as Harman is not changing their mind at any time.
I believe it’s not unreasonable to assume that future developments of the platform will be more and more dictated by quick profit rather than sustained growth while listening to the feedback of the subscribers.
Nevertheless, I’m already in for what’s to come, so I might as well try to be hopeful it’s for the best.
Time will tell.
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Well, I do think this is bad news on the users’ side.
Being independent from hardware manufacturers was roon’s strength.
But now, it’s not.
No wonder Harman or Samsung will request a feature specific to their products, not to mention adding an extra one that only works with them.
Yeah, time will tell.