Great! Hopefully Tidal will lower the price of its HiFi tier now.
I expect they may if Spotify support MQA.
If Spotify supports MQA, Tidal is history…
@sean for me only in the case Roon will support Spotify … which is questionable as far as i can remember there was will to integrate into Roon, but never done as there were some issues I can’t recall specifically
Ooohhhh that’s great great great news!!! I’ll switch back immediately if they stream 1411 kbps…
It looks like they’re testing several pricing schemes with a variety of other perks. This certainly bodes well (though not always for the artists).
So we may have a moral choice, do we want just cheap or do we value the Artist?
I know what my choice will be.
The vast majority of my music consumption still primarily involves the purchase of CDs 
“vinyls”. Someone shoot whoever wrote that. 
They refused to let us release. They were giving us OKs and thumbs up for months, but after seeing a working integration, they pulled the plug and said we can not release what we had. They insisted that their customers not leave their own Spotify app. Their reasoning was that it was an important aspect of their business that they own the user experience.
Given that our entire value proposition is an alternative user experience, you can see how this led to them rejecting us.
It’s been a while however, so maybe they have changed their minds. Not holding my breath, but we are going to try again.
Obviously getting this done would be awesome for everyone involved. Please don’t flood me with +1s, we already know many of you would love this.
seems like a sad and shortsighted view. I know they have direct play on sonos etc, but plenty of people interact with it via the aggregated view in the sonos experience. I’d think that comparatively the listening audience through Roon would be quite small to the direct base and would not detract from their brand experience … also much like Tidal today the mobile experience would still be direct and just fine.
I’m absolutely certain that it is true with respect to MY music consumption. I think I’ve been misquoted (rather, the quote is correct, but your response is to a statement I did not make).
My Roon library comprises about 94% CD rips, 5% SACD rips, and 1% everything else (HD Tracks, BandCamp, etc). I’m currently exploring a free trial of Tidal, but don’t plan to subscribe at this stage.
I think my own consumption is 75% Tidal and 25% rips. I have 1800 CDs, but I purchased only 2-3 last year. I used to purchase 50+ a year.
If I misquoted you, I’m very sorry. It has been a long day.
Maybe they can be enticed with the idea they would likely get many Tidal customers to switch to Spotify. I don’t think the Roon customer base would ever find the Spotify user interface compelling enough to abandon using Roon as a way to interact with streaming music. It would seem like an opportunity for more market share and no detriment to their existing customer base.
The only way this is going to work is if they like Roon and want to use it themselves enough to do want this.
They just announced they have 50million users. We are an insignificant blip to them.
No worries. I know that I am very much in the minority with respect to how most of the world consumes music.
I’ve had trouble finding a DAC/streamer solution that outperforms my Audio Research CD5 spinning polycarbonate. Given how much DAC technology is purported to have improved over the past decade, I ripped my whole CD collection and assumed it would be trivial to find a modern DAC that would fully satisfy. I’ve audiotioned the Yggdrasil, Ayre QB-9, and PS Directstream Jr for extended periods at home (and several more in stores), but the quest to top the CD5 for 16/44.1 material continues. All alternatives seem to be missing that last dash of humanity and natural timbre, despite other improvements. Admittedly, this situation leaves all potential performance gains from high resolution files on the table, but it’s hard to justify spending a few thousand dollars on a DAC that only performs better for 5% of my collection.
I’m sure I’ll find the ideal DAC someday (holding out high hopes for the new ARC DAC-9), but until then Roon will continue streaming to a few other RPi Hat based systems around the house.
Hi Jim,
I’ve been working for years on my computer based system willing to equal or outperform my Wadia CD system. Finally a couple of months ago I achieved extremely satisfying results. After testing many DAC’s like the Ayre and PS Directstream I gave a chance to a Wadia 321 because it was on 50% disccount and that’s the one. I also tested dedicated rippers but the best results came ripping with dbPoweramp in AIFF and WAV files with a Solid State MacBook Air and a SuperDrive used on battery only when ripping. My main system is based on a HD MacMini that will soon be changed for a SS MacMini. The jitter problem is over and I am able to enjoy ANY CD I own. I use Tidal mainly for discover new music but a ripped CD easily outperforms even the MQA files. Of course my iTunes files improve when I use Roon. Hope this will help .
Yes, I figured they might see the current Roon user base as insignificant relative to their current subscription base. I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of the streaming market but I think it is curious they are looking at HIFI as a service. To me, that means they are either 1) just experimenting without any real expectations; or 2) they see there is enough of a market for HIFI to provide that service.
If it is a strategic response to market dynamics it could be a reaction to rumors of Apple Music going lossless. Or they might be seeing there is still more growth to come in music streaming and any perceived advantages of their service over others would make it best postured to lead in that market growth. Also, just a few more paid subscribers at the higher tier may be all they need to improve their profit margins. At any rate, this new development seems to suggest there could be a different dynamic in engaging them now vs. before but of course, I have no knowledge of previous discussions so I could be way off…
Have you engaged Apple? May seem farfetched but they could be open to enabling Music as a service… For that matter, reaching out to Amazon or Rhapsody might be interesting also. May get more attention from Spotify if they see action with their competitors?
EDIT: I would also add Microsoft Groove. They are a small player also but seeing more action between Roon and streaming services might raise more attention from the “big guys.”
If Apple ever agrees to Roon integration, I will be floored!
First, Apple wrote the book on owning and tightly controlling their experiences which has been advantageous to them and, some argue, to their customers in a lot of ways.
Second, Apple seems to have pivoted away from niche. Not long ago Apple was into minor channels with their pro applications but aren’t they moving away from those?