I think that consistency should not be overrated.
The situations are very different. (You don’t complain about inconsistency in evaluations for recruiting a goalie and a striker…)
Wrt the devices, there is a consistent principle that the capabilities you get depend on the endpoint you buy. Maximum sample rate, DSD support, MQA etc. – you get what you pay for. In some cases, Roon can partially or fully compensate for a hardware limitation (MQA…), in some cases not. Cross-device sync is one of those. The partial support is not unreasonable: if you want sync, you probably want it in some rooms, for party scenarios, not necessarily in bedrooms and headphones, and then you have to choose appropriate hardware for that. Roon offers a multi-vendor solution based on RAAT, but there are other walled gardens that work ok within themselves. Seems reasonable to me. Especially since some of those walled gardens may be bought for other reasons (“Hey, Google…”) which cannot be met by a PSAudio DSjr + UltraRendu/Mytek Brooklyn combo.
So that is the reason it isn’t bad to allow non-RAAT devices in. But why is it good? Why should we cheer? I think even more important than the current installed base is the low cost. Roon requires certain hardware support, and removing cost from that pre-req removes barriers for Roon to get customers. Those of us here who are hardcore audiophiles and consider DACs in the thousands and speakers in the tens of thousands – we are a tiny minority. I think this is a brilliant strategy: support the high end at the best level, but eliminate barriers to entry. (The same applies to the technical expertise issue: support the tech-savvy tinkerers and DIY guys, but offer turnkey solutions.)
Ok, what about the streaming services? This is a more subtle argument. I think that the conflict is that both sides, Roon and Spotify for example, consider their user interface, and the database and algorithms that underlie it, as the primary value proposition. And related to that is the customer relationship. I have no insider knowledge, but based on general business experience i assume that Spotify absolutely cannot accept being disintermediated from their customer. Their user interface is not just the face of the service, in their minds it is the service. They have said so: the value we offer to our customers is not the music, it is Spotify. (People have snickered at that, but it is their view, and it is not unreasonable.) Consider Tidal: I love Tidal, during the last year I have added 100 Tidal albums per month to my library, but I never use Tidal. I don’t use their app, I don’t use any of the value props, the recommendations, playlists, sharing, whatever, don’t even know what they offer. Tidal is an anonymous pipe of music for me. A great one, but without identity, personality. Without customer relationship. (Like my internet provider: all of those guys are frantically trying to find value-added services, but the truth is, they are a commodity, a dumb pipe.) Any commodity like that is replaceable, the only saving grace is if they have a practical monopoly (Tidal, Comcast…).
And similarly, Roon doesn’t want to lose the central value of the user interface, navigation, metadata, all that stuff. That is the essence of Roon. It is not the only value, they have done a brilliant job on many other functions, but it is the essence.
So that is a central tension. Roon wants music piped into their identity, Spotify wants outlets for their identity.
Roon doesn’t want to become just a dumb pipe for distributing other people’s music, Spotify doesn’t want to become just a dumb pipe feeding into other people’s experience.
So I see the reasons for the different attitudes. Not inconsistent, because of different circumstances.
(That said, I have clamored for Roon providing a virtual audio device functionality in addition to the core functionality, I think it would be good for Roon to do that, it doesn’t undermine the essence. But this is Roon’s business decision, and it is not trivial.)
(A side note: how important is the user interface? There is a brilliant analyst called Ben Thompson, runs a subscription site called stratechery.com, he has made a great observation. We have Clayton Christensen’s famous business/tech theory called the Innovator’s Dilemma, which basically says that leading companies get killed by newcomers undermining them from below, with new technology that is cheaper and initially “good enough”, the incumbent’s product is better but not better enough to justify the price differential. A brilliant insight with very wide applicability. But Thompson has pointed out that Apple’s strength is that they recognized that this doesn’t apply to user interface. There is no such thing as a user interface that is better than it needs to be. So a newcomer can attack an incumbent from the top, with better-user-interface-but-more-expensive, and not just from underneath with good-enough-but-cheaper. And today, Apple has fairly small unit share but massive profit share in the phone/pocket computer market. Why didn’t this apply to PCs? Why couldn’t the Mac beat Windows on that basis? Because in the corporate market, the users are not the buyers. It seems clear to me that Roon is clearly in the user-is-buyer market, where user interface wins. As are AppleTV and Chromecast, with minimalistic user interface and great ease of use.)
