I just ordered a Matrix mini-i Pro 3 and I plan to go lifetime when my monthly expires. Looks like I’m all in.
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I understand your frustration but… 2 months ago you decided to renew your annual subscription rather than upgrade to lifetime. The only thing Roon has done is announce a pricing increase effective January 1st.
If it were me, I’d be equally annoyed, but mostly with myself for not opting into lifetime a long time ago.
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I only found Roon a few months ago. At first, I didn’t understand the value if I was using streaming services… why add another UI? I originally signed up for a trial and let it end without signing up.
Since then, I realized I wanted to have local music files through CD rips and purchased Hi-Res music. There is actually quite a lof of music I know and love that can’t be listened to via the streaming services. Some things you can only get via physical CD or vinyl.
Based on that realization, I signed up for Roon Monthly to test it again. It’s been maybe 3 months and I realized how good it is (even if only streaming through it too). I was going to wait until after the holidays to get the Lifetime Sub, but then saw the email about the price going up.
So, I made it a Xmas present for me now. 
To me, lifetime makes sense.
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Sorry @KBSmidt your last post had me chuckling to myself out loud!
You went from dissing Roon and expressing your wish to leave to buying a lifetime in the space of twelve posts.
Great turnaround thanks in some part to @Mikael_Ollars 
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I did the same. I was about to leave and I bought lifetime in less than a week. There’s nothing else like Roon.
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I suspect this rush of lifetime subscribers will cause the Roon actuaries to reevaluate any future lifetime offerings.
Lifetime is a sugar rush that Roon seems, as yet, unable to abandon.
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I imagine it won’t be around much longer. Look at Plex, lifetime Plex Pass is under $200 and they’ve had the option for so long that they have been branching out into alternate revenue streams such as adding ad supported streaming video that ends up alienating their core userbase. I think Roon Labs is smart enough to know when enough is enough before it is too late and they end up like Plex and looking for new revenue streams.
I think when it comes to price increases people need to realize that Roon is really a database application on top of a music player. You are paying for metadata and the discovery and recommendations that come along with that. The ability to easily discover new music based on one’s own tastes in a way that is straightforward and intuitive. If more people looked at Roon as a database application with all of the complexity involved in such an application and less like a music player I think the pricing and value proposition would make more sense to people who are skeptical. The idea of wanting to listen to music but not knowing what to listen to is solved by Roon, but it’s because Roon is essentially a music database with a player built in that allows for this. Something like LMS still leaves the listener lost at times because the same connections aren’t there.
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@oneofmany great! 
I dissed ROCK and the 25% price increase not Roon as such. IME Roon is superb but comes at a price to pay - lots of $$$.
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Good points, @mackid1993 - and I think there’s more, because you often see people comparing Roon to some random Windows software you run on a laptop. I suspect that some use Roon that way, but its greater strength is to work as an appliance with streaming endpoints around the house. Or in case you don’t agree with my “greater strength” assessment, at least it’s a large chunk of functionality in Roon that doesn’t have many competitors, let alone equals.
This understanding does not necessarily make things easier – it assigns greater value to Roon, but it also increases the buy-in for a larger installation. Anyway… life-time subscription purchased this morning. No doubt in my mind that’s the best value going forward.
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But every streaming service runs on a database and Tidal do all that for £10 a month including the music.
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If Tidal alone suits your needs, then that’s great. The reality is that Tidal alone cannot do a whole range of things that Roon can do. It comes down to whether or not Roon’s additional features are worth paying for. It’s also a reality that Roon’s competitors cannot do a whole range of things that Roon can do. Again, all of this is dependent upon the features that you need/want.
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Yep I would completely agree with that, I just used Tidal as an example that everything in today’s world is database driven.
But it all comes down to the functionality and ease of use you require.
If Roon could cost in at £10 or under then a streaming service plus Roon would be £20 which is what we were all paying for Tidal and Qobuz not that long ago which would make it great value.
Which is why I think it would be a better value proposition if you could buy it as a package with your preferred streaming service but people don’t see that.
Roon is recommended only if you need all its functions, because you pay for all those functions very expensive, I still haven’t made a decision whether to buy for life before the upload or continue with AS, if I don’t do it before January 1st I won’t. I will never do, and for now I am not convinced to pay all that money when I do not need arc, or multiroom and it consumes almost all the resources of my system, I like it more than AS but it seems to me that it is like paying a truck to carry my 2 suitcases.
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Then go well friend, and enjoy the music.
For my use case, the metadata means nothing to me, as I have no interest in it. What I do like is the multi room functions, and to play my collections of music.
I’m in two minds about going for Life…
Right now I have Tidal which helps explore new artists, if it wasn’t for tidal, I wouldn’t have much use for Roon. But, I like that I can organise my own music and stream it all around the house easily. With my own music I’m obviously not going to explore new music. But, I think I may dig out my other old boxes of CDs and start to get them all ripped in to Roon. I may even get back into buying old/new CD’s.
I disagree. I don’t think I use even 35% of all Roon’s functions, but I like it and I use it as I need, and think it is great value for what it does and what it is capable of.
I would bet 90% of Excel users only use 5% of its capability, same for Word, but it is still well worth having, and MS Office used to cost £450 per release per user.
Horses for courses.
People who use Roon have probably spent loads of money on hardware, and a Roon subscription of any type simply pales into insignificance.
As for Roon consuming all the resources on your machine, it must be an old, small, slow machine. The controller apps use next to nothing on my PC, Laptop, iPad and Android phone, and my ROCK runs on a tiny little Intel NUC.
Horses for courses I guess.
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I use only Tidal as source. At home I bash Roon to death, on the go I stick with UAPP(and seems that would be the case till ARC start fitting my needs). One thing people kinda ignore or neglect is the educational benefit of having Roon with all the metadata suggestions etc. For me this worth more than the lifetime sub itself, but that’s my opinion. Nevertheless I think it’s a great product and community is awesome.
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My computer is mac mini M1 8GB,not an old computer, if i need a mac mini to use roon it is even more expensive.
I just need a player that manages my audio files (flac, ape, dsd), that integrates tidal, that’s done by AS, roon doesn’t, but roon has recommendations and metadata and a lot of features I don’t care about like arc and multiroom, that’s why I have not decided on roon, because in my opinion that is not worth twice the price
I think @Edmund_Comber meant audio hardware.
Of course, if you don’t need the features of Roon, don’t pay for it. It’s worth it for those who do. (I for one don’t care for multiroom and DSP, but the database features are indispensable. Good that we have choices)
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