Why aren't all your friends using Roon?

Sure. CD revenue has dropped more than half, and is less than streaming revenue.

Such articles come out in Q1 every year. Will be interesting to see how much it has dropped this year.

Yes, they are. Vinyl has found a new audience among the hipsters, but its mainstream appeal is limited. Hi-Fi is dead for all but enthusiasts too (whom Roon is targeting), but the question was why not all my friends were using Roon.

The simple answer is that most people don’t care about owning their music, they don’t care about sound quality, and they wouldn’t pay for music playback software.

I would though (and did), but Roon’s current limitations pushed me away.

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Yes, you would. Roon would still be the one and only album, track, and artist browser for the entire music collection (with less cross-linking features, but I personally would not care). More important, Roon’s excellent signal path architecture would still shine: RAAT endpoints, DSP, HQplayer integration…

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Exactly you name it. But nobody is interested from where all that data comes from. This is Roon‘s business. As user I would like to do all the browsing in the database that is independent of my subcriptions and when I want to listen to my selection Roon goes and gets it where I ask to search for or where I have set in my preferences (e.g. the highest quality I have access). Roon has plenty of time to identify the streams that I have listed in the playqueue. I could influence the playqueue to curate and select which of the found streams I‘m in the mood to listen to. With this I mean to choose which version when more than one was found. In case Roon cannot identify a version that I have permission to hear at my current location it skips to next.

I do not know from where you have these numbers. As Roon user you should at least have Tidal subscribed (I would if I could receive it with the basic quality I need, i.e. play the track without interruptions). So, I subscribe what works. This is Qobuz, then I get from my phone contract Napster, from my ISP Spotify. In addition I can stream from Youtube, and more generally from many free services in internet. I‘m very sure that the demographic that subscribes Tidal alone is much smaller than the demographic that subscribes 1 or more services other than Tidal. Only Tidal subscribers are now the de facto demographic you potentially give the possibility to listen on Roon endpoints more than their locally stored library.
It‘s you to choose the demographic for your product, but my impression is a broader offer of what can be played on endpoints through Roon would broaden the userbase.

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Darn, I’m afraid I missed that when I signed up for Roon. Will I be suspended? :wink: But seriously: I have zero streaming services subscriptions. Had Spotify Premium for free with my telco provider (convenient for outside) but this stopped when I switched. I have my own music and choose to own music. Streaming services can be convenient to discover new music, but I find this community a much better place for this. And there’s already so much new music, I don’t need a streaming service. :grinning:

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No, nothing you missed! Roon works perfectly with a local library with tons of music. But, most of my friends don‘t have this extensive library and with all what is available through subscriptions they have no incentive to do the hassle of collecting. With a tiny library of 10-20 albums Roon experience is close to nothing. And nobody of the younger generation is anymore in need to download or ‚own‘ music to share with his friends.
And I‘m afraid that guys like you are getting fewer, hopefully not suspended, but who knows. No new startup company will create a business model based on downloaded or ripped music. Established enterprises go towards streaming, see ECM, not streaming only as for now.

I was joking, but you’re right, my kind is almost extinct! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I‘m more of your kind than you might think.
However, the current limitations of Roon, but the elsewhere not available UX of Roon, costs me a fortune for downloads from Qobuz. Only that I‘m able to listen to the best quality possible I‘m still buying, after having read recommendations in this and other forums, and after having listened to it through a streaming service. Maybe that last part you still do in record shops or at friend‘s places. The freely offered 30 seconds listening to a track are not sufficient for me to make a purchase decision and I buy albums and not tracks.

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Most of my friends are happy with mp3 or mqa, or some lossy codec.
They get up to 5 years of spotify or apple for the price of a roon membership.
That is why they have no interest in buying Roon.

When mentioning roon to friends, family, collegues, etc…, I am usually getting the same answer. Almost nobody has a local library. Even pointing out that ripping your collection is not that difficult, answer is meeeehhhh…, don’t want to. Second is that Tidal is not that known as people might think. I would say that in 7 out of 10 cases, I need to explain what Tidal is. After that I try to explain the integration of Tidal, but already have lost the battle getting the answer I use Spotify which sounds perfect, so why roon?

Even adding streaming services, other membership options will not change the influx in a too drastic way. Roon is a niche product, which does what it says on the tin and very good I might add. But is only interesting for a diminishing crowd.

Usually after these moments, I feel like a dinosaur, a dying breed, that cares about owning music and sound quality. I am happy to be a fellow roonie for lifetime. Hope that roon will be there for a long time.

Sadly agree 100% to all said here :disappointed_relieved:

Roon is not and I don’t think will ever will be for the average or typical casual musical listener it is more for the collector/hobbyist who is serious about his/her music and wants to increase their connection with it. Many people will never be interested in a product like Roon and that’s OK.

I don’t see Roon as a mass market product that wants to be everyone’s music player, there are already many such players out there and trying to be them and compete with them is a waste of time and effort IMHO. There is nothing to be made in that market unless you make money with the streaming service or adverts or an online store etc. or hardware that is part of it. Roon needs to concentrate on what distinghes it from those products and provide a quality product to those who are interested in something more.

Another target market Roon is focused on apart from the collector is home integration. A growing area but not for everyone either, at least not yet.

A product does not need to target or appeal to everyone but it does need to do a great job of appealing to those it is targeting.

Quite. For me, it is the experience - and why roon has to work on keeping their advantage there. There are plenty players out there and they set a pretty low bar - so one of the challenges is not being complacent. Seth Godin mentioned roon favourably in his blog a while back - but the article can equally be a warning going forward (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2016/04/our-software-must-get-better.html).

Something that seems to be a trend with folks buying habits today - and going forward - is generally a lack of brand loyalty. The subscription buying pattern allows for easy switching between providers. Where roon is strong in this regard is the diversity of roon ready devices - and that it spans from a humble Pi to a high end output. Where roon may struggle in this regard is the connectivity to streaming partners - folks are liable to change to whatever the new thing is. What roon can offer in this regard is a “sticky” experience. There is no shortage of data, but more data doesn’t mean smarter decisions. Often it is quite the opposite. And roon is able to leverage metadata to help us find the good data. Sure - a lot of player now have bios. Album credits. But roon can give a cohesive experience to the user. Given users will change their streaming suppliers - it would be great if roon could read your favourites and playlists from one streaming partner, and when the user changes to another, they can still access those favourites and playlists against their new chosen provider. Make the changes seamless and invisible to the user, while giving them a fantastic experience.

Hopefully roon can stay relevant and can grow. There are opportunities for growth, and plenty risks too.

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You should ask Sonos that question: I would be surprised if they aren’t tracking those numbers.

Here’s what my Sonos controller’s services screen look like:

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1 user with N streaming services? Yeah - I have Tidal, Spotify and Apple Music at the moment. Agreed with Danny that is a small use case. But it would be great for Roon to be my go-to to integrate them.

1 user switching between N streaming services? I can see that happening more. What streaming services can do to be sticky is tools to manage user libraries so that leaving a service feels painful. Maybe that is why Roon is a threat to them and their models. But if Roon could allow that switching…

It is not about 1 user using multiple streaming services. It is about supporting streaming services other than Tidal.
My friends, on the whole, use Spotify. Guess what the biggest roadblock is to switch to Roon?

I know Roon had a bad experience with Spotify, but the lack of it is still hampering their style.

“a bad experience” is misunderstanding the problem… they are unwilling to work with anyone (except the grandfathered Sonos integration) in a non-SpotifyConnect manner.

of course, they support everything and everyone … with the lowest common menu based experience. That’s not an interesting space for us.

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That’s a little harsh, but I see your viewpoint. My 15 year-old daughter and my technophobe wife fly through Sonos (I am not allowed to change/touch anything).

I am amazed how often I listen to music from each of the services, starting with a top-level search in the Sonos app.

That’s not an interesting space for us.

@danny: What is your space? Seriously.

The tidal integration is no better or richer than say apple music as an example. If you lose friends on the local library feature or lossless quality of Tidal, Roon then has absolutely no advantage to the various streamer apps. In fact it’s far less in some cases like Apple’s music videos and social sharing features.

How Roon can attract the low quality streaming potential users is good question. Or maybe they just don’t.