There is no problem. Roon is a high resolution music management system that works with your local library, Tidal, and Qobuz. It does what it’s designed to do. My kids and grandkids use Spotify with their iPhones and earbuds because that does what they want. It’s all good.
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I think most of the users in this community want to see Roon excel and do well. My concern is what will Roon look like if they lose Tidal and/or Qobuz? Tidal was just acquired by Square ( makes zero sense from a business perspective) and who knows what Dorsey has in mind. Qobuz seems to be promoting heavily and I’m guessing they’re not growing like the hoped to. Roon will have a problem if they can’t integrate streaming.
We could start a streaming service I guess 
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Is Tidal out of business yet?
not even close – but everyone seems to like to think so
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@danny. Obviously Tidal is not out of business. Just got sold to Square. Dorsey didn’t buy it as a hobby. Is going to figure out a way to interface it into square or Twitter. I can’t see it being a net positive for Roon.
Roon is obviously dependent on streaming services. I currently subscribe to Tidal but I must admit that MQA is turning me off - it seems unnecessary and I don’t have an MQA dac, so rightly or wrongly I’d rather move on from Tidal.
But here in Australia we don’t yet have Qobuz, so no alternatives. It looks like we’ll get it soon but, for me at least, even that would leave my interest in Roon entirely dependent on Qobuz staying in business and delivering what I want.
And Spotify and Amazon are pretty big spanners in the works. They are very unlikely to ever be incorporated into Roon but will offer highly competitive products.
I really enjoy Roon and what it provides. I considered a lifetime subscription a couple of years ago but at the moment I’m glad I didn’t go for it. I’m sure Roon has a master plan to navigate the streaming world over the next couple of years but from where I’m standing it’s all looking a little wobbly.
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You don’t miss anything. I have an MQA DAC and I don’t even hear any advantage with MQA audio.
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I just posted in another thread about a possible alternative to full Spotify integration…
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Spotify will release CD quality streaming later this year. Even with premium at 320kbits connected through microrendu with SpotifyConnect the sound quality is impossible for me to hear any improvement from Roon and Quboz. Once they deliver CD quality most of the arguments disappear.
As someone’s daughter said what’s with all the trouble. No one is buying new music any longer. Have you been to a Record Bar lately 
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Just cancelled my auto renew after 4 years of roon being a pain in my side.
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I too am looking forward to Spotify HiFi but I don’t think it could ever replace Roon. It sucks that it can never integrate into Roon, if that’s what you mean?
I genuinely do not understand the (vocal) part of this community that claims/appears to use Roon without local media…
That’s not to say I don’t stream. I’ve got several active (paid) music streaming subscriptions, including Tidal, Qobuz, and Spotify… but if all I did was streaming alone, I don’t think I’d have Roon… most of Roon’s biggest advantages, to me at least, are:
- All the cool things it can do with my local media
- And how it can present that local media (and do all those cool things) side-by-side (integrated) with two giant streaming music catalogues within the same GUI/eco-system, and I can mix-and-match sources (local files/tidal/qobuz) within playlists and queues etc…
I think without knowing that lots of Roon users are here because of local media wants and needs (in addition to everyone’s desire to stream)… and I think many of us still buy music. But maybe you’re right and I’m wrong about that…
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@Timothy_King . my issue isn’t how Roon is currently construction w/ Qobuz and Tidal. Concerned when those streaming service cease to exist. Huge user of Roon Radio. With the streamers I’m just shuffling my local library
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An integrated music experience to read artist bios, link through to other musicians, organize a streaming library, Discover new music, control multiple devices across the house, DSP if desired…
I don’t understand how you can not understand? 
I guess I just don’t think their demise is as eminent as some on here seem confident that it is… Tidal and Qobuz do a lot of things right for us, the Roon/audiophile community, that currently Apple Music doesn’t. There’s more to it than just having CD-quality (bitrate) files… so far Apple doesn’t offer everything else that matters (to me) that Tidal and Qobuz do…
I’ve never seen their financials, either. So I have no way of knowing how much they are or aren’t struggling and are or aren’t on life support… some seem confident they are, but I’m just not so sure…
So Apple has lossless? That’s great! Good news for us, the enthusiast community. Options/choice are a good thing…but I can’t be the only enthusiast on here with more than 1 active paid streaming music sub… in fact, I think I’ve currently got 5?
- Qobuz is my personal favorite/“best for me”
- Tidal helps fill in a few gaps in catalogue for me within Roon… and also occassionally gives me access to a few modern features/“radios”/curated playlists that come in handy.
- Spotify integrates with my car’s infotainment system. And my family loves it (and it’s pretty cool/good, I’ll admit it).
- Youtube music comes “for free” with Youtube Premium. Youtube music sucks though. RIP Google Play Music.
- I paid for a SiriusXM lifetime subscription 11 or 12 years ago… mostly for a couple of talk shows and sports shows/coverage that I like(d), it was rarely about the music (for me). But they do have lots of music options… and I have a lifetime sub to it/them…
So yea, that’s 5 I currently pay for. Roon is for enthusiasts. Music lovers and audiophiles… 5 is a lot, but some here act like 2 is outrageous…and it just seems like peanuts, to me at least, compared to all the money I have sunk into speakers/amps/headphones/endpoints/hard drives/CDs/Roon etc…
Point is, I have no problem with people being interested in what Apple is doing. But without Roon integration, and without a host of Roon-esque power-user features, this doesn’t seem (to me) to be a Tidal/Qobuz/Roon replacement, but rather the thing you get some use out of when you’re on the go and not Roon-ing…
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I pay for five as well, for similarly different reasons; I’d like to get it down to three, and maybe i will once Spotify goes lossless:
- Qobuz for its catalog, sound quality, and roon integration
- Tidal, for MQA (i’m a fan)
- Apple Music for CarPlay integration, and now lossless in the car
- Spotify, mostly for its ubiquity and sharing with others
- Radio Paradise for MQA streaming, and CarPlay
Qobuz and Tidal are not integrated with Siri, which make them non-starters in the vehicle. Spotify is, but the sound quality is excreable, so I keep Apple Music for the car, except when I’m listening to Radio Paradise, which sounds amazing, and the music choices are so good. I pay for it via donations. I wish there were a jazz and classical equivalent.
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Actually, Spotify does not have a larger library. Qobuz, Tidal, Apple, Amazon and Spotify all have 70+ million tracks. The difference is the genres they are strong in, or weak in.
If streaming was my concern, I never would have subscribed to Roon. To me, Roon is 95% about library management, and 5% about streaming.
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Roon for me is about the integration of local store and streaming services music libraries into a single integrated and managed music library. Access to one or more external streaming services within Roon is a must for me, and I expect also for very many others.
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