computer audiophile/music lover – owner of large amount of files, adjuncting with streaming
hifi system owner, that went to dealer to buy/setup
custom install owner, where we are the music distribution system in the home.
Nucleus helps us expand event further in #2 and #3, and a proper mobile offering will let us expand further.
in my message, doing a me-too interface that is boring at best is not interesting. its not our space because i’d rather go do something else than make boring product.
I think they should not focus on that group and reading answers from danny they do not. That is fine and actually makes the most sense.
The current majority of music “listeners”, use one of the streaming services. The max they are willing to spend is 10 €/£/$. That is the reaction after telling that I spend 20 on Tidal. That group will never pay also for roon on top of the streaming service they use. Even got a question once if roon was including the streaming subscription. Saying no, was meeted with a “that’s crazy”.
Let roon focus their effort on users that are passionate about music, that do actually own music, that own decent gear to know the difference and do not mind to spend some money on their passion.
Agreed, it’s a waste of time trying to sell something to people who do not qualify themselves to buy into it.
Things change for people over time and a day will come where some of these people will want the Roon offering. At that point, you don’t have to sell it, they will buy it.
There are enough people who do want Roon now wether they know it or not, and that’s where the focus should be as I see things.
Build it and they will come.
I fit into your space (#1, #3), and am nevertheless an advocate for other streaming services besides Tidal. Not a contradiction at all.
I still do not understand why including further high-res streaming services would lead to a me-too menu based user interface. Today, Roon is doing a very good job in unifying two technically different sources into one consistent and rich interface:
1.) My local files, which lives in a large directory tree containing different formats. I can simply throw everything into that tree (ripped CDs, purchases from various services), so the consistency regarding naming and metadata information is not at a high level, but nevertheless Roon manages it to provide me a superior view onto that collection. As far as I know, this rich information is gathered from the AllMusic database (at least they are mentioned in the credits, and some spot checks deliver the same results).
2.) My Tidal favorites. But the metadata for my Tidal favorites obviously does not come from Tidal itself, but from the very same AllMusic database. (After some other spot checks, Tidal seems to get their metadata from AllMusic, too; at least there must be a common service somewhere…)
That’s where the question arises, why can’t there be a third, fourth, or fifth source of information without sacrificing interface consistency? Even more so than that it worked so well for the two very different sources today. In my naive imagination, the rich user experience comes from a common music database in the cloud which is completely independent from the audio content, and the actual audio content that is sent over the cables to my loudspeakers is just a link to somewhere, either to a file in my directory structure, or an URL to a streaming service, but not exclusively Tidal.
We need a good name for this, maybe “personal metadata” - play counts, favorites, etc about Our Music. This is a behind the scenes feature that does not get enough recognition.
EDIT: I had 8+ years of this on JRiver, now gone. I migrated to Spotify and have multiple years of it there. Now I am cautiously building up Oersonal Metdata in Roon. Spotify currently does a lot more with it, and Spotify captures this data when I am mobile and at work and on travel and at Home. I feel stuck as I want to use Roon but then my personal metadata is spread out, including Playlists.
Agree, while globally we might be small %, within Roon target audience we are increasing- multi service streaming. I understand technical limitations but don’t agree that the user interest is not there.
Maybe.
Other players can stream different streaming services, so I doubt Roon would not be able to do so. The rich metadata is not from the streaming services, but from services like AllMusic, and Roon already can utilize this. But, of course, I am not in the business, so I could easily be wrong.
Unfortunately, Roon does not clearly state the situation. I have read several opinions about this topic, some of them are my personal understanding between the lines.
1.) “Roon cannot integrate other streaming services because these streaming services do not cooperate.”
Then this is a matter of fact. Would be a pity, but I could finally stop keeping on at the Roonies.
2.) “Roon is not able to integrate other streaming services because it is not as easy to keep the experience at a high level as stubborn community members like Kevin_Ketterle claim it to be.”
Also a valid and acceptable statement. I am also a professional software developer, and I know the feeling far too well when customers constantly underestimate things that are supposed to be easy.
3.) “Roon does not want to think about it right now because there are lots of other things to do which are much more valuable for the future of the product.” - or - “Qobuz (or any other non-Tidal service) integration is only desired by a small but noisy minority; in fact the vast majority is absolutely fine with Tidal alone.”
Accepted. Roon is Roon’s product and I am confident that they have the competence to decide about priorities to their (and our) best, and that they know the big picture. This would be my favorite answer, because I could patiently wait for the christmas version, and then for the next christmas version, and then… No need to have this on a public roadmap, this discussion has been done already and I am fine with that.
4.) “Roon does not want to think about it generally because it does not match with the product or company philosophy.”
Not my favorite answer, but acceptable nevertheless. Roon is Roon’s product and they are allowed to decide of their own sake.
Which of the four variants would characterize Roon’s stance best? Maybe a combination? A clear statement would draw many discussions here unnecessary.
It’s basically (1) as far as I can see. @danny commented on what Roon requires from a streaming service provider here, and TIDAL seems to be the only provider who has played ball thus far.
The metadata from a streaming service is also only the starting point for what Roon does to build its metadata model. That model is a key USP for Roon.
There was another streaming opoortunity mentioned in the past by danny I believe. The provided api wouldn’t have allowed Roon to deliver the rich experience and tight integration they wanted so it was passed on.
Spotify won’t work on any integration other than Spotify Connect. Sonos was grandfathered in from ages ago.
The rest won’t give us what we need to do a great integration, so it’ll just be a me too integration. Not interesting. I’m telling you the API alone that these services provide is not enough to do what we do.
Last week my girlfriend noted: you are the only person I know who still buys CDs! She is right, I don’t know of any either. Let’s face it, Roon is of no interest to people who do not have a personal musical collection, it is just complete overkill. You can argue about different services, mobile access, etc., I doubt that will make it more appealing to the “masses”.
Any thoughts at Roon to facilitate the integration of streaming services as an extension? This would need some additions, I guess, in the Roon API to give an input into the Roon signal path. The community could then program some, as you call it ‚me too‘ implementations that would maybe make one or the other happy.
What are people’s favourite feature of the various streaming services?
My dad likes Spotify, because it offers him a weekly playlist based on his listening habits.
I think Roon could eventually do this and any other feature that people may like about the other services. I don’t think they need to add every streaming service to Roon to achieve these features. Roon has the basic information from Tidal, they know what we like to listen to, so they should be able to do anything with that information.