So MacOS will be $0 per month instead of $0 for an up-front purchase? 
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I thought the future was Google Chromebooks - minimal OS running locally?!
Basically we’ve gone full circle - back to dumb terminals. I’m waiting for the punchcard to become fashionable again 
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We aren’t ready to do monthly yet, but when we have a proper mobile offering (@Soren_Siim_Nielsen’s #1). We will surely offer #2. Both together make sense to us, separate, they don’t. The product still fits a small niche until #1 is done, and thus priced more like a tool or component of your audio system, and not as an “app”.
@anon55914447 has also been speaking about this for ages, and both he and @Soren_Siim_Nielsen have always been right. But not just yet.
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If you think that you’re not paying a fee for MacOS, then I have this bridge that you might be interested in… 
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Danny, I think you are all spot on regarding the future wan support. I was pondering about Roon (and user experience) these past few days and I think that an even wider mass market appeal can be achieved by vertical integration.
A niche customer (such as myself) will be happy with what currently offered by Roon as well as the tweaking for setting up high SQ end points.
My latest issues with Bluesound multiroom sync made me think of the wider market appeal if Roon ‘controlled’ the hardware endpoints. Any updates to RAAT are immediately rolled out with software Roon Bridge updates which ensures my system works perfectly. I have 3 zones like that and they are flawless. Roon ready end points do not necessarily update in line with the roon bridge because it is up to the manufacturer (e.g. Bluesound).
I am not suggesting Roon becomes something like sonos but if could become Sonos +++ with: scalability, open architecture as well as ease of setup (like Sonos) and multiroom sync reliability. All positive for the technophobe (wider market).
It all depends on the target segment I guess.
Sorry for rambling
I’m mostly pretty happy with Roon as it is. Of course I hope for some new features (such as Deezer, Bandcamp and Soundcloud support) and I’m not against features that I’m not gonna use. Even though I would probably use the WAN thingie every now and then, if there ever was one, I can’t see it really bringing in too many new users.
I might be wrong of course, but I can’t see why a regular Joe would go for Roon instead of for example Subsonic. It’s free with a premium subscription for $1 a month. Well, remains to be seen I guess.
If I’m paying a fee for MacOS, it’s an entirely different model from the subscription one we’re talking about here. I don’t see Apple moving to MacOS or iOS subscriptions any time soon.
(BTW, I really like that bridge. How much are you asking?)
You are paying but it’s more like the traditional streamer model. It’s tied to the hardware.
I doubt Apple will go for the subscription model either. They’re using the software to sell hardware.
iCloud.
Apple Music
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Obviously additional services cost extra, but MacOS or iOS will not go monthly paid.
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Have you tried disentangling iCloud storage of photo’s and documents and leaving them on the Mac, Apparently the original item is now the one on iCloud and it deletes the ones on the local machine if you disconnect. Pretty sure that’s forced subscription.
No, it’s not; that’s not how iCloud works with Photos and iCloud documents…
Photos allows you the option to store all of your photos on as many of your computers and your devices as you want - if/when you cancel your iCloud subscription, the photos are still on those devices [they only “disappear” if you have the option to “optimize local storage” selected].
Likewise, it’s a similar situation with files / documents stored in iCloud - just make sure one of your MacOS computers has the [default setting] checked to have all documents stored locally… again, your files will still be there after removing/cancelling the iCloud account.
[Also, don’t forget that the first 5GB of iCloud is free, so you actually have to delete your account…if you stop paying for extra storage space, you still keep the 5GB].
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I have an LG V20 that sounds amazing when streaming TIDAL or playing local FLAC via the USB Audio Player Pro app. Sadly, it is unreliable and sounds pretty terrible when playing music via the Roon app. I think if there was a Roon Bridge app for Android (perhaps there is, I’ve not checked), that might work well. Something to run in the background with no UI that takes over the audio output on the phone. I’m not even sure this sort of thing is possible on Android though…hmm…
As for billing, I agree that adding a monthly subscription option would lower the barriers to entry for some folks. The value proposition makes a lot more sense when people start to see Roon as a whole-house audio solution rather than just another media player or library management tool.
Interresting. Im not getting “bit perfect” either when listening via Roon through my Fiio android player. I wouldn’t say it sounds terrible but the android thing seems to cloud everything. S’like when playing via 3rd party apps on the fiio, what are they up to with the extra layer of android in the middle. It’s just not clear.
This is correct. Roon app, as most apps, cannot use the alternative DAC in ”exclusive mode” unfortunately. I havent tried with an external DAC but it should work, however be routed through Androids kernel mixer so to speak.
My XDP-100R does the same, but it sounds very nice with mobile Roon even so. It uses the extra DaC but routes audio through Android mixer so no exclusive mode, hence 48khz as default.
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Because most people just stream their music nowadays. There’s no point in using Roon for them, especially since it doesn’t support the popular streaming services.
Exactly, and it will remain like this as long as Roon does not want to revise their path wanting only to integrate streaming services that regularly deliver to Roon their full database. Roon needs to revise this approach. One database is way sufficient for them to offer the service they want. Anyway the streaming services offer almost all the same content and the differences are getting smaller. Roon could implement API‘s from other services to search and stream content the user has subscribed and quit with an error message when the content is not available due to missing subscription or unavailability in the geographical zone. It‘s already like this, even with Tidal. Where a track is not available on Tidal due to whatever restriction Roon is unable to stream it. This can be a National property rights issue, a reception issue, or a censorship issue. The user experience could be so much higher when the user could stream from his/her 5 subscribed services the track or version variations of this track that a fault tolerant search system collects from all subscribed services and of course also from the local library. Lots to do for the Roon team
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but then you couldn’t do much of the Roon functionality:
- see other performances for the same composition
- deep search by the same connections Roon gives you
- list the compositions of a composer
- see all albums where an artist was a producer on
- get links in the bio/review/relationship/bandmembership/etc, but only for music you are actually capable of seeing/playing
…or the dozens of other things that TIDAL’s client/API/backend cant do, but Roon can.
yes, we could implement that API, but then we’d be no better of an experience than a barebones music app… why would you pay for Roon then?
a user subscribed to multiple streaming services is a pretty small demographic, don’t you think? maybe 10k people worldwide? 100k? can’t really make a business around that small of a total market size.
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Wouldn’t that mean that the CD industry, not to mention vinyl or hi-end equipment manufacturers, are in dire straits?
I’ve never read any forecasts to that effect.
Example articles, please.
Spot on as usual. Roon needs to keep striving to be more than and not just “me too” as so many people seem to want it to be. Glad that that you see this clearly.
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