Does Roon and/or HiFi have a medium to longer term future?
I found this article interesting as it shows the same age distribution as the “age” thread here in the forum.
Younger adults want to interact with their world, ranging from participating in sports, to dating apps, to video gaming to going to clubs. They do not seek a sedentary and passive existence. They attend class, work their career and then seek to discharge at night and on weekends. Spotify and AirPods meet their needs and enable them to engage in an active lifestyle and are cost-contained.
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From a position of being in a minority of a minority of a minority of a minority (appreciation and enthusiasm for and love of what most people would see (and usually dismiss) as ‘specialist’ music - and by its (to them) obscurity not really worthy of much attention or support (e.g. Renaissance (Flemish and Tudor) choral polyphony, Classical chamber music, Bach cantatas, Serialism) music… what most people call ‘classical’ (in my view inaccurately: the ‘Classical’ period was from the birth of Haydn to the death of Schubert) music, I just have to cling fervently to the hope that the noisy, ephemeral, reductive ‘discharging’ of the rest won’t swamp such minorities entirely.
That’s not an easy position to be in. It’s got worse over my seventy years. I wish I could look at such degradation with equanimity.
Fortunately, Roon seems to cater for all-comers.
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Roon is a niche product for a minority audience. The biggest challenge they face comes if they start believing that they are not a niche product for a minority audience.
The future of Roon will be ok as look as they don’t introduce lots of new “features” and then neglect core functionality. Hang on…
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The rest of my family and friends are not interested in hi-res audio. Only my 72 year old dad plans to buy a new turntable and dust off his old vinyl collection. He has sold his CD collection years ago, but kept his vinyl. But he has 0 interest in streaming music. He rather listens to Internet radio.
The rest are just happy with their Spotify, earbuds and soundbar setups.
I’m the only one who has invested heavily the last year to get myself a nice, hopefully, long lasting setup. Combination of Roon, my Cambridge Audio equipment, JBL speakers, my own collection of music and streaming. As I like great quality sound.
I’m part of this niche Roon audience. However the rest of my family and friends are not.
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In the future 15minutes woke city we don’t need a car, so how can Harman survive? Selling earbuds?
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Probably. Seems nowadays they are focussing solely on smart speakers and soundbars. My Cambridge set has replaced my old Harman Kardon 5.1 amplifier and DVD player. But I haven’t seen HK amplifiers for many years now.
The only HK equipment I still have are my 2 Citation One smart speakers which I’ve bought as a duo pair. One in the kitchen, the other on my balcony when it’s nice weather.
My affordable equipment doesn’t do it justice. I’m happy with the elites enjoying their money, but I don’t otherwise belong to the gearhead set. Being a contrarian, I think Roon would do well to position themselves as a mid-market product that will enable regular folk a transition away from, say, the CD. (New music is often released as a collection of singles and only graduates to an album if the demand is there).
It’s not just gearheads. There’s loads of competition for the humble record, and while people still consume music, there are scores of other tribes that didn’t exist prior.
Isn’t the point that HI is doing the exact opposite by acquiring RoonLabs… diversifying?
My old Harman Kardon setup, which was pretty cheap, lasted me for about 20 years.
I have been putting money aside for a long time before starting my upgrades. My current set isn’t exactly cheap, but there are far more expensive things available. Which are out of my budget, and I am not interested in that stuff. My current equipment sounds perfect to me. And hopefully they will last for years to come. 
I see myself more as a midmarket kind. Not the most expensive equipment, but it sounds great. And Roon fits my needs perfectly fine.
However I am not certain Roon would be as great for me if I was only into streaming and didn’t have an extensive local collection of music. It would be a tough sell for me. My guess would be that most people nowadays, especially the younger generations, are less in to collecting physical media and are happy with just their Spotify.
I guess so.
Thanks for the reply. I think midmarket is the way to go too, not so cheap to be valueless, and obviously there is always the flagrantly expensive. I think we all value the music and want to do it justice.
When I say it is an easy transition to fully digital, I’m really trying to convince myself. My collection is still (mostly) derived from physical, and I’m not certain that something hasn’t been lost with internet consumption of music. But I have no talent as a musician (I can sing a little) so this is the model that we have right now.
Roon helps a little with playback, a little more with making something of these FLACs, and a little more again with discovery. All worthy, and my modest system (probably like a lot of others) is just great… given that I own them outright! I don’t think I’d go back to a model that didn’t let one discover easily. Is it too easy, though… the commitment to a narrower range of records was the previous model, and that probably was cool too.
Hope that made sense… apologies for the ramble.
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Whatever “audiophilia” is, it should not be equated with hi-res or analog media. If most audiophiles define themselves by the above, then maybe this generational shift is not that bad after all.
“Virtualization” in one form or another is the future. I’m looking forward to it. (I still have a 7.1 sound system in my living, but it’s probably my last, and I hope it was the last time I had to run speaker wire.)
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I’ve bought a Samsung soundbar set this summer so I can have both 5.1 and Dolby Atmos while watching movies on either my 4k TV or 4k BluRay player. Main soundbar, 2 satellite speakers and a subwoofer all wirelessly connecting to each other.
Great for watching movies but when it comes to playing music, my stereo hi-fi can’t be beat 
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I think it can. It will probably not become mainstream in my lifetime, but I think music will move from stereo to “immersive”. We’ll be able to choose where to put the virtual orchestra or band inside the house, choose the acoustics, and be able to freely move around it while listening. It may require some kind of “headphones”, but those will not cover our ears or be intrusive in any way. No more room correction, just a virtual room.
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This article was discussed here too:
https://community.roonlabs.com/t/it-s-not-looking-good-audiophiles-may-soon-be-gone/281713
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This will be news to thriving, innovative, moderate cost audio companies like Schiit that seem to have no difficulty in finding customers.
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Interesting discussion. There’s also another *phile market, the surround sound field. How many consumers will pay an extra for proper surround sound in their living rooms in the future? Gear like that needs even more room in maybe shrinking spaces.
Everything is getting more expensive. Will the future generation be even able to afford such equipment? And as we know you could spend millions for audio gear. And you’d need time, patience and a sense for having pleasure while listening (not just hearing) to great music that “deserves” this higher effort.
And don’t forget about the negative effect of frequent use of headphones or in-ears to the ears. Once having tortured your ears there’s rather no sense in buying *phile gear at all. Even if you’d really like to. Non reversible damage to yourself.
All this is already a niche, and it would be interesting to see how it will develop over the next few decades. But I’m not so pessimistic. Maybe we focus too much on the average music consumers we see. Though, we know we’re talking about a niche… And I myself didn’t even know or care that there is something like good or exceptional audio until my late thirties
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Just a point of clarification:
harman/kardon did not acquire Roon Labs; Harman International did. The former is just one brand/company owned by the latter.
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Interesting topic. I’m 86 years old and have an ultra traditional living room music system. Streamer and DAC, CD player, SACD player, turntable, tube amp and preamp, Quad speakers. I have another two channel system almost as good for TV. I also have a darn good audio system at my desktop and at my husband’s desktop. I don’t know anyone like me in my family circle, nor my friend circle. However, I do belong to an audio club where everyone is more or less like me. Almost all of us are between 60 and 70, a few younger, not that many older. It’s the same gray haired crowd at the symphony and at the opera. I don’t know who will become the audiophiles of the future. Maybe they have to get old first.
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I started my Hifi journey at 19 so not sure age had got anything to do with it. But I think we are a dying breed.
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