I am rediscovering Spotify and it is clearly the best streaming service. The recommendations are very good. The library is particularly rich even for classical music. Spotify connect is perfect and rock solid. The current sound quality is good (lyngdorf with room correction). And now a HiFi proposition, no need for HiRes. What more could you wish for in terms of ease of use, quality and discovery possibilities?
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Because the lossless services that are supported in Roon have wonky apps. Roon serves as a better interface.
Spotifyās app works fine and does a lot of things much better than Roon such as searching, recommendations (discovery) and autogenerated playlists (radio).
Weāll see how lossless Spotify will turn out. If it turns out good, thereās a good chance Iāll be abandoning Roon.
Iāll be getting a lossless mobile solution with a good interface in the bargain.
Itāll still be a trade off, though the plus side of the balance tips in favour of Spotify for me. Spotify Connect is a default standard. Roon isnāt.
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Spotify connect has become a standard and moreover no need for a complicated and sometimes unstable infrastructure. Simpler and more efficient.
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This thread appears to have become an overspill for the āIām not that keen on Roonā threads!
Spotify and Roon are different animals. If all you want is a streaming service then thatās great.
If you want an integrated solution that allows you to create a customised local library out of both streaming services and local files, then Spotify wonāt do.
If you want to use multiple endpoints working from the same central source, incorporating DSP, then Spotify wonāt do.
Iāve no problem at all with Spotify. If itās right for individual users then itās a perfectly good option. Personally I use Roon for more than a streaming endpoint. If thatās all that somebody wants, I wonder why theyāre using Roon in the first place?
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You are right. Spotify Hifi will certainly cause a reassessment of the needs, compared to real use.
Another plus for Spotify is that I can use the same interface at home or away. Been waiting years for roon to build a mobile solution. When I was working at the office, I wasnāt a fan of having to switch back to Qobuz mobile app. Itās way behind roonās interface and Spotify.
Yes, there many things roon offers that Spotify doesnāt. But for most part Iād be able to send Spotify to multiple endpoints through the house, use in the car, and at work. I donāt use DSP, so no loss there. So far, only see loss of album reviews and star ratings as the things I d miss from roon. For most part, my entire local library is already on Spotify. Iām sure thereās a few missing and could always fire up roon to play them again.
In my case because I want lossless streaming to endpoints of my choice. The streaming services that offer lossless streaming donāt provide apps that allow this. Roon makes this possible for Tidal and Qobuz with a somewhat functional interface.
Spotify provides everything I really want, except for the SQ.
Use cases are different and for some of us (maybe more than you might think) Roon is the only somewhat acceptable solution to a problem. Admittedly a first world problem.
I donāt care about streaming local stuff. Most every thing Iāve ripped from my CDās and vinyl is available from streaming services. The really special stuff is all on vinyl anyway and for critical listening it still goes on the turntable. The really special obscure stuff on CD, I stick in the CD player because streaming still doesnāt top my CD player soundwise.
And Iām not that bothered about hi res. In many cases the original redbook master is superior and I honestly canāt tell the difference soundwise. When I do hear a better hi res version, itās probably the mastering thatās superior, not the resolution. This is a personal opinion. Iām not asserting that hi res is inferior to redbook or something in that vein. Iām not opening that can of worms.
Call it what you will: if Spotify lossless does hit the market, itās going to be a game changer for Roon and the smaller streaming providers alike.
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One big downside of Spotify in house playlists is the increasing use of fake artists they contract pay to create lame songs. I donāt have a sure fire way to recognize them but you can tell if they are all average generic names. This happens a lot in Chill, piano, Sleep, relax oriented Spotify playlists
I have no trouble (losslessly) streaming Qobuz to all of my endpoints via UPnP/OpenHome (using Linn Kazoo as a controller). Volumio and moOde (to name a few) also offer Qobuz streaming via their own interfaces.
I agree that Roon offers a much-superior interface. Thatās why I subscribed.
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Before I used Roon I had a number of Raspberry Piās that were set up as UPnP renderers. They could receive Tidal and Qobuz via a 3rd party app (Bubble UPnP in my case).
The ability to stream lossless audio to multiple endpoints already exists. Roon makes things tidier and more effective, but itās not necessary for what you describe.
I donāt deny that, but I still question why people are paying for Roon if solutions already exist that donāt require additional costs. If I didnāt need/want DSP and didnāt enjoy fiddling with metadata, I wouldnāt be paying for Roon. Iād go back to Bubble UPnP and Moode Audio, or use any UPnP capable streaming device.
Honestly, at first I was drawn in by Roonās advertising. The real experience falls very short of the advertising. It did 3 years ago and it still does.
What Roon does well though is provide a stable environment of server, endpoints and remote control. Much less fuss than all other solutions out there. So that in itself is worth the money. For me, that is. For now.
Spotify offers a turnkey solution (well almost, but itās ridiculously easy to configure a raspi as a Spotify Connect endpoint), does away with the need for a separate box running a server AND does the whole search/playlist/radio/playback ensemble better than Roon IMO.
Just waiting for the SQ. Then Iāll put it to the test.
As I said before: use cases vary.
Oh yes: the only DSP I use is volume levelling. Iāve got a remote for my amp so I can do without, but Iām lazy.
So if you told me: āfor $30 a month you can have the entire Spotify catalog in hires FLAC with masters and bit depth that rival Qobuz, but Tidal and Qobuz are going to continue to exist and be Roon integratedā, then Iād probably continue doing what I do nowā¦ lifetime Roon, BestBuy annual Tidal, Annual Qobuz, Spotify family for everyone else to use. And I would wager that a significant number of Roonheads would do the same.
Why? Because Roon provides me a very valuable service (that, admittedly, Iāve already paid for so itās sunk cost, but I think I would do the same if I was annual on Roon). Itās how I find music I love and how I explore connections. The interface is designed for discovery in a number of dimensions, and allows me to wander and learn in a catalog that is not constrained by what I own but centered on it while I listen.
Would I make some compromises in order to get Spotify integrated into Roon? Well, the value of the Spotify data to Roonās algorithms would be phenomenal. Sure if I was king, Spotify would offer Roon a big check, Roon would accept, Spotify would integrate into Roon, invest in it, and share data for all the overlapping or related things they do. They would sell Roon as an upgraded audiophile service to all their subscribers, and instantly make the service worth a metric gajillion tons more. And theyād let other music services like Tidal/Qobuz/bandcamp on if they wanted to be - in order to understand peopleās listening habits even more broadly. And they would build a cloud version, and they would make it all mobile. No more core, or at least a core-less version.
But hereās the issue with that fantasy - as @danny has pointed out, they like their lives. If they bought it, theyād make it a product for a much larger target audience than Roonās and so in a year or 2 or 3, it would almost certainly be diluted. The independence of vision these guys have is the most valuable bulwark against this becoming a purely commercial least common denominator piece of dreck. They like their lives and based on current trends I think they can continue to build it as a niche product.
However, I do want to be clear that Spotify hi-res, which could easily be coming next after Spotify redbook, could and likely should crush Tidal /Qobuz. Thereās just no reason for multiple providers of the same cloud service - unless they do something unique. And then, well not everyone is like me, if the other hi-res streamers went out of biz, some people will drop Roon. And then you have a bad spiral. And Iām sure team Roon is totally aware of this, and knows for which portion of their user base / recurring revenue streaming is the primary usage. And that is a rough spot to be in, because then you are negotiating from a position of weakness and itās not clear your product is viable of the back of just local file listeners - I donāt know how quickly they are being created.
So my wishful thinking is on recordā¦
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It seems to me that Amazon , Apple and Spotify will be the last ones standing in the end , which may come sooner than you think .
It is already rumored that Apple is bringing lossless streaming to their music service .
So where would that leave Roon ? Yeah with no music service . What would Roonās value be then ?
If Apple and Spotify are out of Roon as it appears , the only one left would be Amazon as a possibility.
I never listen to a whole album.
In fact I almost never add a whole album to my library. I listen and only add what cuts I like.
I love all mechanisms for discovering new music in all the Services I have.
Tidal: Has significantly improved Mixes for You, Radio Stations based on an artist or song. They also do a much better job of pushing new albums and songs that match my tastes especially as I have a larger and larger ācollectionā
Qobuz: Has a much weaker and less robust mechanisms for personalized suggestions. But they do have some interesting playlists.
Apple Music: I really only use mobile when stability is important due to connectivity. They do however have a bigger catalogue and I do find new music on their large selection of playlists, a significant number of which update weekly with new cuts that fit the playlist concept. They also have increased Mixes "made for meā and a personalized radio feed based on my ālibraryā
Simply put: playlists. The playlists I listen to daily are on Spotify. Nothing else is even close to the quality of user and artist curated playlists on Spotify.
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Amazon Music does not even offer an API. There are some Alexa Skills, but thatās it. So thatās not even on the table.
If Spotify had licensed AAC, we would be good to go. Unfortunately, Spotify went with Ogg to save bandwidth and to avoid any licensing fees.
When I plug in a USB stick with the same tracks I am listening to on Spotify Connect (direct streaming to the vehicleās app, not using a Bluetooth connection from my phone), but in 44.1/16-bit FLAC, my vehicleās audio system presents a significant uptick in audio quality - itās not subtle.
If Spotify starts streaming Redbook audio to my car, phone, Sonos components in my houseā¦ itās game over for me.
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Out of curiosity, do you know what bitrate Spotify Connect is operating at in your car? The default (IIUC) is 160 kbps. And, yeah, 160kbps Ogg does not sound too goodā¦
Very interesting opinions on what spotify going to cd quality means for us as individuals and the market place.
I do agree with the author who said if spotify goes to hi rez after they implement cd quality, its game over for tidal, qubuz and deezer.
This subject is on every audio forum I visit, and Iām sure on the ones you visit also. What I didnāt realize is how popular spotify is. It seems to get knocked down in our tiny niche market. But, it seems like everyone else not self identifying as an audiophile, uses or at least knows about spotify. The brand recognition seems to be thru the roof.
Another angle, I need to make sure going forward that all my zones have spotify support. Right now my lumin and Google chromecast all work with the free spotify account. My bluesound only works with a paid spotify account.