The future of Roon for non-streaming users?

I agree with ctbarr last paragraph 100%. I have nearly 18,000 CDs loaded and really have no need for streaming. So far with what I’ve seen in the initial announcements for 1.8 and the list of issues and desires, I’m going to try to stay with 1.7 as long as I can. I don’t really see anything that I need. Besides, I’m 70+ yrs old and like to keep things simple if possible.

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Okay. Couple of comments here On the one hand, I’ve spent a lot more on my audio system (not going to get into a discussion about who has bragging rights) but if someone has spent 15k on gear, they care enough to have a valid opinion. On the other hand, it’s a shame to waste to waste good gear on Spotify.

Yeah, I don’t think that follows. It just means they had 15k to spend on gear. For some people, that’s chickenfeed. And other people are just idiots. Neither case necessarily means that they have a valid opinion.

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Good gear can make Spotify sound something approaching acceptable, but also highlights the limitations. Tidal it is not, though. And I’m constantly amazed at how good some of my old iTunes AAC albums sound on a bit more than 15k gear (although we’re talking Canadian pesos here).

The more I use Roon 1.8 the more I am liking it. I have over 3000 albums - almost entirely Classical. I also stream using Qobuz, but I mostly prefer my own collection. I had concerns that some features I used regularly had disappeared. But I am now finding the new search facilities are proving to be much superior (it could be that they existed in 1.7 but I was unaware of them - and it took the change to break the habits of a lifetime). The one I particularly useful is organising my albums by title and then using the focus for the composer - this not only picks up the albums where the composer is the sole or main contributor but also albums where the composer is subsidiary contributor. I even identified an album that I had mistitled and a few duplicates (that I had named slightly differently) of which I was unaware.

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Yeah, @Simon_Worrall over-interpreted my post.

It’s true that anyone can have a valid opinion, but the cost of a system is not a support for a valid opinion.

Agree with this, at least for now. :neutral_face:

This (above) is all good. Your personal preferences. No worries.

No problem with personal preferences for lossless, but to say “it’s a shame to waste to waste good gear on Spotify” …

… if I swapped out your lossless files on your hard drive and replaced them in Spotify’s Ogg Vorbis format and let’s pretend you never looked at the Roon signal path to tell you the format, I doubt you would notice anything had changed :wink:

The problem is trying to pull off something cheeky like this (without you ever knowing) would be tricky for me to do :grinning:

So, I have listened to the same piece on Spotify and in hi-res (more than once), and there is a difference. Spotify sounds somewhat lifeless and there’s a hint of pre-echo at times. You’re probably right I wouldn’t know if you swapped my files - I would just enjoy the music less and not know why. So why compromise? After all, it’s not like we have to ratio bandwidth and storage like we did in the past (which is why folks started using lossy compression in the first place).

I don’t want to bang on too much because personal preference is fine. Sh!t even I choose Qobuz and Tidal when I’m in ‘critical listening mode’ because it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside…

But I think you missed a key part of what I wrote… which was you not knowing that something had changed… but as I said, it’s not a practical prank to pull off.

I agreed I wouldn’t know if you did this. As I said, I would just enjoy the music less.

I don’t think you would notice anything had changed at all to be honest.

Let’s see if we can get your wife or kids to pull off this experiment ! :grinning:

So if there’s no difference, I guess everyone should just listen to Spotify. Perhaps we can get Roon to drop Tidal and Qobuz and add Spotify instead. It would be interesting to see the reaction.

Let’s just agree to disagree.

FYI, my wife knows that messing with my music is a recipe for divorce.:slightly_smiling_face:

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Its a bit like wine tasting. Some notice the difference between Lidl wine and Chateau Lafite. Some dont. And thats ok :grinning:

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Although not streaming I m going to chime in here.

I bought a used usb HDD from ebay and it was chock o block full of metal albums! Score I thought.
Until I found they were all WMA files.
So then I converted all to FLAC files ( 24 hours plus for program to finish this)
But they are still quite inferior to an original FLAC version of the same album to my ears.
So if anyone pulled a switcheroo with these files I know I would hear the difference.

Spotify lossy vs Qobuz hires?

I would HOPE I could tell the difference but who knows?

I don’t agree that Roon needs to stick with servicing customers at the higher end of the audiophile market. The way roon software works makes it’s very compatible with what ‘lower’ end users may want too. What I mean, is that it’s not all about high quality audio, features like multi-room and combining local/streaming libraries have universal appeal. We don’t want a race to the bottom where the focus on audio quality is abandoned but that would seem counterproductive also.

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I agree with you Nathan that Roon is more than high end audio. The features you talk about (and others) make it a great experience.

However, you can get Tidal for just $10 more a month than Spotify. If you can’t afford that, you probably can’t afford Roon either.

For years I refused to even look at Roon due to its cost…and I consider myself semi high end Audiophool.

But I eventually capitulated and gave the 14 day free trial a whirl and became hooked…lol.

I still think the cost is off-putting to a lot of casual users who are quite happy with Spotify and are never even going to look at Roon.

Yes I think you are right, it’s not that the capabilities of roon will fail to appeal to a broader audience. It’s just that most people resent spending more than the minimum amount possible to listen to music.

Roon is for users that listen to digital music sources and care enough about sound quality that they are willing to spend more money and deal with more complex systems to get improved sound quality. That market consists mostly of audiophiles and that isn’t going to change much, which is why Roon will always service a niche market.

If Roon is going have a shot at growing, they have to try to get younger people that are accustomed to streaming and gain an interest in higher resolution music. There probably isn’t much growth potential in attracting new users that have digital music collections numbering in the thousands of albums that have not already tried Roon. Due to the aging demographic of the audiophile market, the market with people that own big digital music collections is probably not growing much. Roon has to aim young to expand. I am a member of the aging demographic, by the way.

I love Roon and I think that Roon offers a lot value to users in the audiophile market whether they are streaming via Tidal or Roon or own collections of ripped/downloaded music. I look at Roon as a cost effective means of getting good quality sound throughout the house using disparate hardware on top of providing an outstanding user interface and user experience. Of course, it takes time and effort to make Roon work in three different rooms with different systems like I have done. Many young people just don’t want to deal with that, which is why the simplicity of playing LP’s appeals to them. I just hope that Roon can stay in business.

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