I bet that the penetration of Spotify on this forum / within Roon license holders is very high. Either the family loves it, or it’s the only AirPlay / Tesla decent experience, or the discovery features are great, or it’s a legacy subscription that has done much beloved playlists, or… etc etc some combination of the above.
I think this is a classic example of the game being largely over in a category. Think Amazon in general merchandise (eg, stuff easy to find in a search box that physically fits in a small parcel)… at least for a while until someone else disrupts or there is an exogenous bump. But Spotify owns the category and is mopping up. And I don’t see right now except for resolution (and integrations) what anyone can offer to differentiate. And the data just gets stronger and stronger as a moat and more expensive to replicate every single second that passes.
I think you will be surprised at the use cases. Some have little or no interest in networking (UPnP/RAAT etc.), high rez, DSP, convolution or other technical features of roon they may already have with other players. The only reason I started using roon was that the UI indented multi-part Classical works out of the box. That was difficult to do or clumsy in other apps like JRiver. 1.8 took that indentation away . . .
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SukieInTheGraveyard
(This one time, at Bandcamp... I spent too much money!)
392
Not at all. I know that there are numerous reasons why people use Roon. My point was that, if a solution can be found to a person’s needs outside of Roon already, why pay for Roon? In your case (and mine) Roon is adding value to your (my) experience.
Further to my original thoughts I’ll likely give it a try. Like a good many of Roon user’s my existing hardware already supports it.
I’ll be particularly interested to see how things like:
iOS Lock Screen playback and volume controls work.
how good their Apple Watch support is, because as a remote it’s near perfect solution for me.
how well ‘Local Files’ work. Hopefully it’s as good as Apple’s iCloud Music Library which I find great for the most part. Having my own personal music collection in the cloud alongside a streaming library is really nice.
Spotify supports Siri voice control on iOS and Homepod, and soon will be able to be the default service, how well does this work, does it work with Connect? ‘Hey Siri, play Steven Wilson’s latest on my main hifi’
Tidal’s CarPlay support is weak, like much of their iOS support. I hear Spotify’s is better, and I want to test that.
With all the negative news flow around Tidal I hope Spotify’s foray in to lossless meets most of my needs. It might just be my hedge against a world where Tidal is no longer an option. Something more likely if as some are speculating Spotify roll lossless in to their existing USD 9.99 Premium plan.
Lol it’s not like The Backstreet Boys were a bad band. I don’t know why we try to compare genres. I could belt out I want it that way in public and I guarantee you’d always find at least one person who knew the lyrics. I consider that to be a form of success. People across the world know the lyrics to that song, it’s crazy. Perhaps not as ‘technically’ talented as a musician like Bob Dylan, but successful and a “great” regardless just on the shear knowability of their songs.
As I’ve been playing with Spotify interface, I can help feeling that roon has moved closer to their interface. The way recommendations are now at the bottom of the track list. The use of circles for artist and some sideways scrolling sections. Even using same library icon. I hadn’t seen that used before 1.8. In guess if works for Spotify, why not use it for roon.
I’ve never played around with Spotify before just because of the lossy library. Only used it for the free playlists to bring into Tidal. But really still don’t know what the user experience is like other than hearing friend say their recommendations are amazing, even after a week of use.
I still think roon needs a lot of work on their recommendations for you page. I listen to one song from Tool and suddenly I’ve got a bunch of metal album recommendations. Think once I’ve dismissed a few it shouldn’t still recommend more. It also seems like it’s been broken for last 2 weeks. Haven’t seen them recommend anything new. End up just going to the Qobuz tab and trying out new releases their.
It supports in the same way as Roon with same end point types, it was quite happily playing on my bedroom Sonos one and also my Sonos connect on my main amp.
Just meant like this. Listening to Jeff Buckley Grace and in 1.7 you see suggestions on the right as you played different tracks. Now in 1.8 after I scroll past all the tracks I get recommendations.
The biggest concern for Roon and their customers is if Spotify takes out both Tidal and Quboz as competitors. Then Roon need to make a decision wether to partner up with Spotify or go it alone supporting just local files.
