I have both subscriptions to Spotify and Tidal because I appreciate the Roon features but in terms of ease of use and European content Spotify is far superior. If you live as a man with a wife and children you will soon notice that your technical interest in Roon is not shared and that apart from yourself, all the others prefer Spotify no matter how often you continue to praise Roon. They prefer ease of use to subtle quality benefits for them. What’s more, kids have been getting used to compression and distortion in pop music for years. Tidal is also not a good starting point for starters and lovers of classical music. The search function only works reasonably well if you already knew all the details. I prefer Spotify’s accurate find function and their suggestions.
I know it’s not hifi but Spotify is great for discovering new music and casual listening. Roon would be amazing if it could have Tidal and Spotify alongside local files.
As far as I know, Spotify already shot Roon down. They’re retaining control of their platform (and it’s valuable user data) and focusing on Spotify Connect as their only integration to worry about. They’re the market leader, so they don’t have to play well with others…
And Apple is almost certainly a no-go, as iTunes conflicts with Roon as the same type of software as a library manager (and they don’t integrate with anyone except Sonos, and their Sonos integration is very, very poor.)
Deezer (which also has HiFi) is probably the best bet for a third integration…they’re worth leaning on a bit. Roon has said they would like to, but it’s Deezer that so far has not approved it. They seem into working with partners more than any other service though, so they’re a real possibility, but it’s apparently Deezer we need to convince, not Roon.
On the other hand, Spotify’s dreadful, dreadful radio really could have benefited from Roon. It’s truly awful.
During my trial membership I asked about the same thing. I’ll include an excerpt of the response. Let Spotify know you value a Roon/Spotify partnership.
"We are always willing to work with additional streaming services, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that this is a a “two way street”. Meaning, that while we may express interest in working with a company like Spotify for example, Spotify has to express the same interest in working with us.
Unfortunately we can’t support Spotify because they’re keen on keeping their ecosystem closed and any potential integration with Roon requires a bit more then just the API because we look the streaming services music in a very comprehensive way — not every company likes that.
If you would like to see Spotify work with us I would strongly recommend letting them know so they can see that there is a demand for that type of integration among their user base. We’ll continue to do whatever we can to help, but there is nothing more convincing than customer feedback :-)"
I agree, we all know that anybody using Roon is an audiophile but if Tidals interface was as good it would be perfection. Usually I discover more and most music on Spotify which is great in the kitchen and then i retire to the living room to listen to it properly. Why not ad the functionality? Indeed some 320kpbs tracks are indistinguishable from FLAC and im a DSD/MQA head.
I’ve been using an app called soundiz which lets you quickly convert playlists from Spotify to Tidal. I agree spotify is such a better music discovery platform. I get most all my new stuff there and then have to get it going in Roon for a good listen. I have been quickly transferring my discover weekly to Roon with Soundiz which is nice because the difference in streaming vial spotify connect vs Roon in my DCS Rossini is pretty big.
+1 for keep reaching out to Deezer. I think it would be an excellent option to have.
I can’t imagine Spotify, Apple, Google/Youtube, Amazon Music are worth pursuing.
What about the specialist Classical streaming sites? PrimePhonic and Idagio are the ones I’ve come across. I don’t know much about those sites but I wonder if they would ‘add value’ in terms of additional content?
I don’t know if there are other genre specific (Jazz?) services as well?
I’d imagine specialist sites would see the potential for synergy.
+1 on this. the more the integrations the better.many times we face situation where some music is only available on spotify or apple music.
it would be great to stay in same app roon and just use it for all.
netflix is a great example they have integration and app build on every platform every device.
roon should do the same and its good for the customers and as well for the longetivity of the roon product as well.
I don’t see how this is any different than the integration that other providers have with Sonos. Sonos has integrations for just about everything. Agree with the other comments on not being hifi, but it would be nice to have deeper integration… even Sonos has Apple Music.
Perhaps I am oversimplifying things, but short of licensing fees or some legal issue, I don’t see why this can’t happen.
Spotify has a larger catalog. I got to see the difference for myself as I transferred my Spotify playlists to Tidal in preparation for Roon. I lost lots of tracks during the transfer because of their unavailability in Tidal.
Also Spotify is just more convenient because it’s more mainstream. For example, I used to share tracks with my coworkers from Spotify. Now I can’t share because none of these people have Tidal.
Blockquote What does Spotify have that isn’t available at Tidal or Qobuz and hopefully soon Deezer ?
I have a Qobuz Sublime annual subscription (and a Roon lifetime subscription). I love Qobuz. The sound quality is excellent. The UI is very good. The web player doesn’t require a bunch of DRM, which means it works well for me on my work computer. And it integrates with Roon. And the library is much bigger and better than it was when I first signed up. My point being: I’m a huge fan.
But the Qobuz library is definitely smaller than Tidal’s and Spotify’s (and Google Play Music’s and Apple Music’s, etc etc etc). I say this as someone who just cancelled a (month to month) Tidal subscription 2-3 weeks ago and picked up a Spotify free trial, and has had a Google Play Music sub for years now (RIP; YouTube Music sucks).
In terms of catalogue size, I don’t know what Spotify has that Tidal doesn’t. But I know what Spotify works with or integrates with that Tidal doesn’t (Google Assistant, which my kids love, and my car, a Tesla, that I love), and when away from home and unable to use Roon, I find Spotify’s native UI for both their mobile and desktop apps to be (considerably) better than Tidal’s. And the price is lower too. And Spotify is a quality Podcast player too. There’s a lot to like about Spotify. If it integrated with Roon too it’d be great news for avid Roon lovers such as myself.
Unfortunately, Qobuz is not available in a lot of places (Canada, for example), so we are left with Tidal - for better or worse.
Understanding their fidelity limitations, the thing that I really enjoy about Spotify is their algorithms. Their weekly Discover playlist is worth the price alone in terms of uncovering music that I like based on my past listening.
No - Qobuz is not available in most places. There are about 195 countries in the world today - Qobuz is officially only available in 12 countries:
Austria
Belgium
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Spain
Switzerland
United Kingdom
USA
I don’t think that’s much of a list…Luxembourg not much more than half a mill people & Belgium under 12 mill amongst a number of bigger countries. Not a single country in the Asia Paciifc.
Anyway, if you really want to use Qobuz a VPN works as a number of users here have said (of course that’s likely an extra cost) & doesn’t negate the fact that officially (according to Qobuz terms of service) you must live in the country where you register.
As for Spotfy, I’m sure Roon would love to be able to add them as a streaming service, but they can’t. After all, much of the younger generation use Spotify and would hardly use the two services available here, hence the largely older crowd that subscribes to Roon.
People tend to make assumptions that Roon don’t add or try to add Spotify and perhaps other services due to lower quality streams. I don’t believe that at all. Quite frankly they just can’t. It would be a crazy business decision to have such options but knock them back, possibly losing an equal number of users to the current total.
Roon don’t add Spotify as there is no way to integrate it in the same way as the others. Roon don’t want different ways of services interacting for good reason. Spotify only allows basic Web API for access to the library and user accounts nothing deep enough for Roon integration. All other APIs are for apps on devices to play via the Spotify app in the background and get info or via connect to devices that support it. None of these gives the Roon experience so you might as well just use their app and connect.
Thank you for your helpful explanation. I personally don’t have an issue with that. I was just responding to someone who mentioned that if you didn’t like Tidal you could use Qobuz instead, but that’s not an option for many people. (I won’t use a VPN to access content not licensed to be distributed in my country).
