Roon could probably do that also, if they wanted.
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My preliminary take on Spotifiyâs announcement is that Spotifyâs AI is vastly superior to anything else out in the market.
With redbook quality, Iâll probably go with Spotify over Roon just because of the superior AI. The moral trade-off is that Spotify pays less to the artists than Qobuz does. I might buy more new vinyl from new artists to make up some of that loss.
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At this moment we donât know much about the quality of Spotify Hifi. In the announcement is only mentioned CD quality. Qobuz goes to 192kHz at 24 bits. If Spotify ends with cd quality (44.1kHz at 16 bits), I think Qobuz/Roon is the ideal combination. I agree with the better AI of Spotify, but in the end the sound quality is more important I think.
Itâs a trade-off and itâs a personal preference. And to be honest, I rarely pay attention to the bitrate. Whenever I think I hear a difference between CD quality and higher resolutions, it turns out Iâm listening to a different mastering. Personally - strictly my opinion, mind - I think I can live without higher than redbook resolutions.
Anything to take (as much as possible of ) the PITA out of music streaming.
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There are many people who use Roon for whom this isnât a problem - as in itâs not a PITA to stream.
I never understood the calculation of the artistsâ remuneration, each service pays royalties corresponding to approximately 70%. It is likely that Qobuz will produce fewer plays with longer songs: classical and jazz, which artificially increases the remuneration per song. What is certain is that a young artist is more likely to be discovered on Spotify than on Qobuz and that the financial contribution to the recording industry of Spotify is far above other services.
This is where we differ in opinion 
Itâs all relative anyway.
I originally got roon in order to work with HQPlayer, since it canât play ALAC files. Then I added Tidal and finally switched to Qobuz. But ditched HQPlayer a while back.
So now my main use is sending Qobuz to my headphone setup and occasionally to other parts of the house. Qobuz app is not that great, so hated switching to it when I was at work. Thought roon was going to have mobile solution a year or two ago.
Spotify lossless will basically solve all my needs. Same great app home and work or anywhere. Can steam to headphone setup and other parts of the house. Has better discover features and few other features roon does not. Family plan includes kids app, which my son already loves.
As far as hires vs cd quality, itâs not that big of a difference. You can really only tell when going back and forth and mostly if hires is using a better master. So itâs a trade off of having a much larger library vs access to hires. And maybe Spotify will eventually introduce hires. Seems hifi tier is direct response to Amazon. I can see Apple adding cd or hires this year saying that waited for fast enough cell networks to handle it.
I still think roon serves a need for a lot of people but I donât want to stick with them if I can find a better solution for my needs. Plus since Iâm a lifer, I can always check back and see what progress has been made.
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The funny thing at least for me is the ones that potentially could hear the difference do not care and those that canât due to age make a fuss to it. Somehow, I confess to be of the latter kind 
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I canât wait to ditch Tidal in favour of Spotify - I currently have a subscription to both, but only use Tidal in my main hifi system where I have managed to convince myself that I can actually hear the difference in stream quality.
While Tidalâs integration with Roon is handy for me there, Roonâs value to me is in managing my large library of music saved on a NAS. That said, I find Roon overly expensive for what it is and would certainly be open to finding another solution for my local library.
Either way, Spotifyâs HiFi tier announcement can only be bad news for Roon (unlikely to be fatal, but certainly bad news)
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The Qobuz apps being"not that great" is a huge understatement and why I will not subscribe to them.
Even if you canât hear above a certain range, your hearing within that range should still be good and that where most of music lies. Saying most music not much more than 10khz and tops out around 12khz.
I canât hear at least 16khz or over. But I can still easily make out differences in soundstage, timing, harshness, and overall ease of the music. Listening to Spotify now is less engaging than same Qobuz track thru roon into same streamer and setup. Hires sometimes just gives slight more natural sound to vocals.
Think itâs less about age than what equipment you have. If you have a nice headphone setup or speaker setup, it deserves at least lossless. Also, seems crazy with todayâs advanced technology that people are listening to worse quality than when cdâs came out in 1982.
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Yes, crazy to me, too! In 1983 as 15 year old I saw by chance one of the first CD players, a Toshiba model in the exposition window of a Hi-Fi store with a price tag wrongly put at 1/3 of the price at the time, 600 instead of 1800 Swiss francs. I was jobbing as environmental gardener in front of that window and knew immediately for what I was working for. Two weeks later the CD player was in my bedroom. Already then, apparently not many were interested in hi-fi equipment as nobody else saw or realized that there was a golden egg exhibited.
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I like Qobuz a lot. Having it supported by Roon is great. I like Tidal also because often I can find stuff I cannot find it Qobuz. I have not used Spotify for some time now since subscribing to Qobuz. But my experience was that I could find even more stuff in Spotify that I could not find in either Tidal or Qobuz. It would be really nice for Roon and Spotify to play together on this game once CD quality streaming is available. To me, having the library that works best for me (not necessary the largest) is more important than HiRes as long as it is at least CD quality.
Once I started using Spotify, I realized what Qobuz is missing. They donât have any personalized recommendations at all. They also donât break down their genres as far as Spotify or Tidal.
For working out or driving, I like just clicking on one of the daily playlists from Spotify. For most part I havenât had to skip many songs.
And since I now was finding more holes in Qobuz, I decided to go back to Tidal while I wait for Spotify lossless. I decided MQA isnât as big of a deal as I made it out to be but still want to ditch Tidal for Spotify later.
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On carplay in my car when i go to use tidal or qobuz i get nothing but a black screen for the most part. Both are unusable in my car.
Spotify in Carplay is flawless and so is Radio Paradise in flac!
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If not being a âweirdoâ was a requirement for being in my music collection then it would be a very small and dull collection.
I also respect the music that Billie Eilish makes and the creativity in it. Add to this the quality production in her music - check the high dynamic range in âBad Guyâ. I donât care what age or gender she is, nor her hair colour.
And hence her being on Spotify is no problem, I wonât use that platform anyway for other reasons.
Also if anyone was upset by the her green hair color, itâs now blonde. But if I guess if hair color is an issue, that would rule out most 80âs bands and punk music in general.
But Spotify is personalized to your artists and albums. You wonât have a certain genre shoved down your throat. And all these streaming services have very similar catalogs but some slightly favoring certain genres over other. Qobuz seems a little thin on indie compared to Tidal and Spotify.
I like that Qobuz does seem to favor audiophiles but not every audiophile is into classical music. I want high quality regardless of the genre.
Qobuz only works in CarPlay if you have downloaded music, Iâve reported this to them but no progress.
I actually tried to get a refund because of the missing functionality and although Qobuz did not respond PayPal did provide a refund.
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