Roon Labs detail RoonReady partnerships

I think you make a good point about Elac and limited/differentiated capabilities, but I suspect that point has been absorbed within Roon and we won’t be seeing many similar arrangements. I have no special knowledge about that, it’s just a guess.

As a certified card carrying fanboy it’s pretty hard to be objective about RAAT. I think the thing that makes it a natural successor to existing protocols and inherently attractive to hardware manufacturers is that it gives control of timing to the clock in the end device. Will that be enough to make people move from Sonos to Roon ? Maybe. Sonos is a closed pond. RAAT hopes to be an ocean.

Don’t let me be misunderstood…
I like Roon and support the project (three licenses and counting) but I am not sure it will be a giddy success that changes the way normal folk think about their music libraries. In the limited world of people who have and care about music libraries I see Airplay and Songcast as being a natural surrender by Roon to accept other protocols than RAAT. UPnP is such a dog that I can understand Roon not wanting to support it, but it is where the majority of the hifi market have gone for their streaming solutions.
Hence my view that Roon is really only going to be known by and bought by computer audiophiles - users of HQP, J River, Amarra and their like. The equivocal support of Auralic and Aurrender was striking to me as they are fully in the same computer audiophile space. That was a wake up call to me that even in the core market the adoption of Roon is something of a knife fight.
To be successful with an appliance solution, Roon is likely to need its own playback devices so that it looks like Sonos and Bluesound but with nicer software. I do not think that can happen through open partnerships: the buyer wants a single purchase and support solution for appliance and playback that are tightly integrated (less parameterisation). That will create volume that Roon is unlikely to find in the computer audiophile niche but conflicts with trying to get other endpoint vendors to support RAAT when it has its own integrated RAAT endpoints.
We shall see. The software is good and may become great but the hardware solution is still patchy in both the computer audiophile niche and for the appliance business.

Whew, three licenses is pretty good credentials !

I have to confess that despite (or maybe because of ?) my enthusiasm, no one in or amongst my family or friends feels the same way.

I understand there are about thirty manufacturers in various stages of Roon Readiness. I think they are like the first spray of rocks before an avalanche, but time will tell.

I’m going to “ditto” that. Same here. And that includes some audiophiles. And I think I know why…

Outside a love of audio, interest in Roon appears to depend on possessing a digital music collection (that automatically excludes some of my friends and family), AND have an interest in interacting it outside of the limits imposed by a portable music player. Among my friends and family, that takes out the remainder. Among them I alone both have a nice FLAC collection, AND want to sit in front of a hifi and listen to music.

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Interesting and echos my experience as well. Those I’ve shown Roon to that are in it for the love of the music seem to really appreciate what Roon has accomplished. But I know far more self-professed audiophiles that are tech geeks at heart. I’ve certainly spent a good bit of time in that camp, so I understand the compelling draw. But, for me, it really is all about the music.

Off topic, but I have shown Roon to a couple of musician friends who are immediately fascinated by it. One, in fact, asked if there was a way to link to sheet music as well as, or instead of just lyrics. He stores most of his sheet music on an iPad now. Being able to access that within Roon would be way cool I would think.

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I guess a lot depends on what happens with Hi Res audio. Personally, I find it amazing that mp3 ever took off, but I guess it does show that portability trumped quality for the average music listener.

If Hi Res takes off as it could well do if marketed properly, then Roon appliances (or frankly hi res streamers in general) will sell to a much broader market than audiophiles.

I personally think that Hi Res streaming services, like TIDAL for instance, will be ubiquitous in the next 5 years. No one will stream mp3 (unless free). This includes mobile - trials of 5G services are already planned with talk of being able to download a full HD movie in 1 second with reliability as rock solid as a wired 1Gb connection today. Some 5G services will actually be live in 2018 for special events like the Olympics. Throw in storage getting to TB sizes in small mobile devices and pretty soon the need to compress audio becomes a moot point.

When all this amazing bandwidth is available, how do you think consumers are going to show off their shiny new devices (mobile or otherwise) and how do you think marketers will market them? I reckon it will all be about ‘no compromise’ quality and even if consumers don’t need it, they’ll buy into it. That is what consumers do.

I think quality is going to remain an issue for the music business: you have to have plenty of it before you can appreciate its value. This is also true with quality restaurants, clothes, people. I am not sure that the mass of the public will have the opportunity to experience plenty of quality music. If they were to have the opportunity and come to appreciate the detailing and grandeur of quality music playback, then can they afford a quality playback system. If they can afford it, where can they buy it nowadays? You do not trip over high-end dealers by accident anymore. If Sonos, Beat and Bluesound or iPhone plus strap-on amp/DAC and headphones are your aspirational music system, then I doubt that most of those people will pay the premium for CD quality, let alone HiRes, music.
I think Roon is not dependent on HiRes. It is a great jukebox player for people who have libraries and enjoy digging into them: MP3 or anything else. It is better (as an interactive player) than J River, iTunes or anything else. HiRes, bit perfect mumbo jumbo is icing on the cake for audiophiles. The problem is the annual fee to pay for all that data - that is a lot for consumer software nowadays but not for computer audiophiles. Similar to Photoshop? You have to need it to appreciate it to afford it.

@PNCD you raise some interesting points.

I think the RoonReady partnerships will be great for Roon - it seems like there are quite a few people stuck with control points and players they dislike because they’re the only things that work with their hardware. Roon will change that.

Things aren’t quite that simple I guess - people who’s kit becomes ‘RoonReady’ can’t just swap to Roon by downloading from the App Store or whatever - they need to setup a computer server, as well as paying ongoing fees to use it (unless buying the lifetime upfront).

I actually do think there’s a market for hardware server appliances. A lot of people don’t have any interest in dealing with computers, and a lot don’t want one near their music systems, and so I think Roon would be more attractive to a whole host of people outside it’s current user base (of what I’d call predominantly the ‘obsessive audiophiles’ group at the moment) if there were an easier solution to getting up and running. But as with everything, uptake will be based on so many things like - design/pricing/marketing/simplicity/reliability/compatibility. I think the Elac ‘solution’ was quite confusing personally….

For Roon to change the world (assuming world domination is actually their goal ;)) I think a parallel strategy might be required. Although RoonReady expansion will be great, I don’t think it will be the catalyst for mass take-up - IMO that would come from embracing mobile and/or offering a cheaper (or free) ‘light’ type solution to get people hooked and show their friends. That would probability also require the removal of the ‘home’ server requirement. I’m guessing neither are trivial for Roon.

I dont think you need an expensive hifi to like listening to music, or for Roon to be an asset for that matter. I don’t personally think using Beats headphones implies anything about your music quality aspirations either - its most likely a simple combination of finances, and the ability to listen to music out of then house and enjoy it without obsessing. I actually often like the sound of my £12 bluetooth adapter on the end of the iphone cable in my car stereo, more than I like my home hifi…. For me music is partly a certain (cheaper) sound I grew up with, and partly what I can get from my hifi now. I think audiophiles obsess about these things too much (myself too of late). In any event I’d still like to use Roon in my car on my iPhone, rather than the Tidal ap or iTunes.

Right now I don’t think Sonos users are going to be jumping to Roon because of RAAT. Sonos have been really clever - they make streaming and multi-room music an absolute doddle - you buy the hardware and hook it up via an ipad or whatever and it pretty much does everything else for you, and you’re up and running in no time. I think the Roon offering would need to be more complete (i.e. a system someone can buy that gives them everything they need ‘out of the box’ including speakers), and become far simpler to setup to compete there. But RoonReady is a good start.
Personally I think the Roon guys should have tabled things like HQ Player until after they’d fully established RoonReady and RoonSpeakers etc, as they’ve effectively delayed their own product to satsify the desires of a load of whinging, audiophiles ;);), so we now have network endpoints for an integrated HQ player before Roon’s own, which doesn’t seem right - but it looks like all will be well in the end.

It would actually be interesting to know where Roon place themselves - is their aim ‘high-end’ audio only, or are they looking further afield? Where do they see themselves a few years down the line after RoonReady is established?

Good points, Steve
First of all, let’s see how RoonReady is accepted by high end firms. If it can establish itself as the premier software solution to complement the rich capabilities of the individual vendor hardware solutions then that would validate Roon and its strategy. No there yet: Roon adopting Songcast but does Linn adopt RAAT?; Auralic Aries but not Auralic Mini; no Aurrender; no news from Naim despite their moving into a broader more appliance market with Mu-so.
To be in the appliance business then you have to control everything: hardware, software, updating, compatibilities, etc. That is what Sooloos did in the high end space in order to support the complexity. My guess is that you need the same approach to the appliance space: it is not a computer, it does not crash, it plays every time you press play, nothing looks like a computer, it is not a computer… It can’t just be a server because the odds are that most users will not know how to link their various end-points unless it is “Press the server Link button. While it is flashing orange, press the Link button on your player. When both Server and Player buttons are green you can start playing your music”… To me “appliance” and Sonos or equivalences. Appliance server with no player/network solution makes the server not an appliance - it cannot plug and play on its own. You think an appliance server-only strategy would make a big difference and that may be true - we already see turn key music servers from SGC, Sonore, Antipodes. I just think that is a market that serves the computer audiophile and does not really breach into the broader market, where appliance means the whole experience.
I agree with you that expensive HiFi is not needed to enjoy music - I think it is a requirement to appreciate the value of HiRes music, which was the point of the Jayramusic’s post. His view (I think) was that HiRes music was going to be the ocean that floats Roon’s boat. I think Roon will be successful on having great software and service - working so far! Maybe a part of that is that they are pragmatic: we believe RAAT is best but we can integrate Airplay, Songcast as well. I think there has to be a lower subscription, maybe limited on size of library or number of non-MP3 files. Tidal integration is great, for computer audiophiles. No general user will want Roon’s interface wrapper around Tidal and pay over $100 for the pleasure of it. Ultimately, Roon’s success, in my opinion, will depend on what happens with the music industry. If the industry sells itself as a manufacturer of disposable hit songs then a library manager becomes near redundant: people only want what it is now and what is about to be now. If Jay Z and others are able to convince consumers to value albums and respect a body of work by an artist then Roon is well positioned to be the library manager, at a lower cost because you need to catch the consumers early before they develop bad habits!
I talk to much so I will sign off and not waste more of everyone’s time in a hijacked post!

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It occurs to me that there are a number of very decent hifi products in the world that are effectively ‘Roon Ready’ but are totally off the radar in terms of ‘Roon Partners’, ‘Roon Certified’ etc.

To give one example, Computer Audio Design’s ‘CAD CAT’. This is a very high quality music server, but also it is essentially a very carefully audio optimised Windows 8 PC. This is just one example, I can think of a few more Windows based machines on the specialist market. (Plus the SOtM sMS-100SQ Windows Eddition, which is on the Roon list) What I am thinking is that if something runs Windows 8, is it not de facto ‘Roon Ready’ (assuming no specialist tweaks to Windows restricting performance) It’s a subtle point, I am currently running a Hewlet Packard PC, this runs Roon 100% perfectly, although HP are unlikely to make it onto the Roon Ready / Partners list, but specialised products like the CAD CAT and others are a little different in being purpose built audio machines. Any thoughts?