Roon will continue , every year we get a thread like this.
Last time I heard the subscription count was around 350k. Its really whether that is enough incoming subs to keep the boat afloat. That and any further , yet unknown, developments with Harman
My biggest worry is Tidal after the recent news , we don’t have Qobuz in South Africa and it seems unlikely we ever will its simply too small a market.
To me the integration of Tidal is key , the ability to see the whole artist discography and literally select from within Roon without it being in your library is probably Roon’s greatest asset. The native Tidal is nowhere near as good , things like the Filter Tool are a good example
Should Tidal go under Roon is then a local library system to me without any access to an artists discography any more. To be honest there are better ways of managing a medium size library if you are forced to manage your own metadata. It’s really a matter of is Roon up to it for local ? There are some missing features that would improve local management like the inevitable Box Set management.
I am an annual subscriber , I missed out of the really cheap lifetime deals early on for similar doubts as I am expressing, so I can decide annually if its worth it
At the moment Roon is safe, Box Sets stay happily in JRiver
I’m also a little disturbed with these development/s, but more because the model of music streaming as a stand-alone, premium service will be shown to be unsustainable. If TIDAL, with (I believe) 5M subscribers and a solid offering of music for many at decent fidelity can’t make it work, then I can’t fathom how qobuz or Spotify could? It would be another drum beat in the march toward oblivion for a record business. It is already challenged even now.
I perhaps need to look at my own choices that have fuelled said challenges. Or I’m stuck with supporting Apple.
JimH at JRiver has avoided adding streaming for exactly this reason. I think it was once bitten twice shy but he could be vindicated.
My worry with Apple is how to connect at any quality to a hi fi system, as it seems at the moment its wireless (Airplay) or by a USB connection from an iDevice. either way the iDevice becomes part of the reproduction chain. There is no indications of “Apple Connect” a la Tidal Connect indeed their marketing at one point was saying that users weren’t interested in Hi Res music (probably accurate). iPhone + EarBuds
In my case I have a one box streamer amp with no USB input (Naim Uniti HE) so I would need some sort of intermediate box
Bit of a mess , not to mention the navigation on Apple Music (or Classical) is not easy
Lets hope for the best but it does seem that Tidal isn’t the money spinner Jack Dorsey thought it was
Apple Music is a pain in the behind if you want it to play hi-res on a hifi.
Either connect a Mac or iPad with an external DAC to your hifi. Or look for one of the handful of streamers running the native Android version of Apple Music such as the Eversolo.
Every other device will connect through AirPlay. Which will limit you to 256 kbit AAC.
My Roon Server is installed on a M1 MacBook Pro with an iFi Zen DAC V2 connected to it. This combination connects to my CXA81. It sounds great. But it isn’t convenient at all. Because I have to turn on the TV and use my Mac’s wireless Logitech keyboard and trackpad combo to control it if I want it to play Apple Music.
A lot of my playback is indeed at this resolution (or thereabouts) and it’s fine. I’ve A/Bed it against lossless with some of my system/s and while I can tell a difference, it’s only on certain recordings that need to emphasize higher frequencies. I’m reasonably fussy, but if I can barely tell a difference a lot of the time I think the Apple narrative is well-informed.
Otherwise it’s dongle-DAC to RCA cable time. It will output lossless but boy is it ugly! The best I can get wirelessly is pretty good performance with an aptX HD and internal DAC setup… anyway I’ll try to avoid that nerd-out.
If emphasizing lossless and hi-res fidelity moves digital content then they probably should go for gold. Gee, these days it seems everything is some remix or another of catalogue, so hi-res by comparison seems a light touch. That is when the fidelity is legitimate and not an up-sample, which I find rather often from a variety of retail sources.
Of course high-end equipment will demonstrate the benefits, but I’m more and more convinced they only can service their niche market. And if Roon is all in with that space, then IMHO it will shrink over time.
My own son, who lives with his partner in their own place wasn’t interested in my old amp, poweramp and speakers for free when I last upgraded.
He’s content with a Spotify family plan.
My brother’s children all use Amazon music through BT or echo speakers.
They all love music but do so as simply as possible and you can get very decent sound through BT these days.
For many people, space is constrained and a speaker setup in a shared space is not ideal.
Not everyone can have a dedicated listening room.
As for soundproofing panels, good luck getting that past the Significant Other.
And I wonder how many people have even heard of headphones amps and know what a DAC is.
I grew up in a world where separate components were the norm, most households had a “stereo”, that’s not the case now, the world is changing in this and many other ways.
One thing I am sure of is that we will have access to great sounding music one way or another.
Get used to it. It happened a long time ago and will happen a far time away from now.
Who remembers playing a record through a big horn in the 30’s of last century? Owning a record player then was a big thing. We came a long way to the set of two speakers most of us have nowadays. We can stream our music (internet or Roon) and most of us also have possibility’s to play older medium (cd, lp, whatever). That’s what it is now.
What will the future bring. Don’t know. Faster data-transfer gives opportunities for higher quality. I hear the difference between Spotify and arc in my car. My girlfriend doesn’t. When I listen with normal headphones every detail is even much clearer. That feeling of “better quality” will be brought much more to personal media like your phone, headphone, car.
For your home situation, smaller speakers with more immersive sound will dominate most houses. Yes, there will be a gap with a full sized speaker. But 90% doesn’t care.
The choices are much more than back then.
In the seventies you could spend a bucketload of money on a two-speaker system and have great sound, or buy a mono radio and listen with less quality. Same goes nowadays. You could spend 300 euros for a nice WiFi-speaker and play whatever you want in your house and fill the room (with not the best so7nd, but he, who cares) or you can spend 3000 euros and have something better.
It is only natural that the more financial suited users are going to be older and therefore take advantage of what is available. That is why there is more of them than the younger crowd.
It has always been this way even since back in the day. One thing is for sure, this niche market keeps growing and is not shrinking albeit not for masses, but that is ok.
It is still a very healthy niche market with a bright future, at least for the rest of my lifetime.
High Res audio is going to become the standard. As new tech like lossless Bluetooth also rolls out “being an audiophile” is going to change in meaning very quickly.
The role of Roon in all that is also set to change. This software, if it wants to still be around in ten years, will have to change substantially, regardless of how old its audience now is.
In the world of tech - audio tech - change is inevitable.
There’s also the fact that Spotify and AirPods are loads better than what nearly everyone had access to a few decades ago. So they cover needs to a higher level
Technologies change, but higher-quality sound has always been a niche pursuit. When I got into “hi-fi” in college back in the late 60s, the vast majority of my peers didn’t care about sound quality and carefully collected records either, they just listened to tinny transistor radios and scratched 45rpms on portable record players. Same during the Walkman era, and the iPod.
The idea that the love for high fidelity gear is dying seems at odds with the staggering amount of new hi-fi devices that are released to the market in all forms and shapes. I suppose someone is buying it. It may be a niche market but high quality gear has always been a niche market. The vast majority of listeners now use Spotify (most have never heard of Tidal, let alone Quobuz), a phone and earpods (or something of the sort). This is not my cup of tea but have to admit that the quality of this kind of mass market gear has never been so good. Even car stereo is now very good. As to Roon, the fact that most new (and vast) quality gear is Roon certified seems to indicate that Roon should be around for a while (though nothing lasts forever).
