Exactly the same path that I went down. In the end, I didn’t like Tidal and the inclusion of MQA was not going to keep me on its own.
Too expensive to continually buy CDs. What about someone that’s just getting started with serious music listening? Are they supposed to rush out and buy hundreds of CDs? I listen to a LOT of music, but focus on a small subset of everything I listen to. I may find an artist that I love and literally wear them out going thru their discography. Can’t do this without streaming services.
I’m new to Roon and deciding if I should stick with it or not.
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Put me in the camp that sees Tidal (or any streaming service) as an opportunity to discover new music - music that if I like it, will ultimately be acquired for my own library.
But (and this is a big one), I don’t trust Tidal, or any other single streaming service, as my primary source of music. I’m a bit of a dinosaur having been thru 78s, 45s, LPs, 8 tracks, cassettes, CDs, more vinyl, and now ripping & digital downloads. I highly value my own music library. Taking the long view, most all music formats go away or are thrown away eventually. I suspect that’ll be true for all my digital music as well - but I’m betting that will far outlast the likes of Tidal or any other service where I don’t actually own the music.
Still, Tidal integrated in Roon serves a valued service. I just personally place a far higher value on my music library and Roon’s ability to manage and play it far better than anything else I’ve tried.
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Funny you should say that. About throwaway music. It’s really a psychological thing, ownership. I’m not quite from the age of 78’s but certainly vinyl, cassettes, CD, HDD based music and I’m sure it will move into cloud storage next. The point is it’s always our music that we feel can’t be taken away from us. There is always that feeling with streaming from 3rd parties, that they can fiddle about with the content and remove stuff we’ve bookmarked.
I’ve recently made a conscious decision to only stream new stuff, early days, but it’s hard not to want to posess it in some way! Maybe Ill get used to it enough to run with it long term.
I think we are of a dying generation however (needing to posess music), newer generations are treating music far more ephemerally than we ever did. For my younger kids they only stream and the older ones certainly have a very small fraction of the sizeable collections of physical music that we had at their ages.
Wait for your kids to grow up and want to have continuous access to the music they associate with their youth, their coming of age, their first love, their (hated and beloved) parents, holidays, whatever… In the end, people change, but we’re also very much alike 
(Yes, I have kids myself 
)
For the last several years, we have seen reports that some of the streaming services may not survive. I haven’t read the financial analysis of Tidal versus Spotify, but I have to assume that Tidal is in a more precarious position since it has a smaller subscriber base as compared with Spotify. I therefore have never been willing to rely primarily on Tidal, or any streaming service, as the source of my library. For those who have put a great effort into creating a Tidal library, it can disappear as fast as a snap of your fingers if Tidal goes under.
By contrast, our own personal libraries based on ripping CDs will last indefinitely as FLAC will be a standard that will last for decades.
I agree with mdconnelly that the value of streaming services is therefore to introduce me to new music, based on my own listening preferences. Others have posted that both Apple Music and Spotify are clearly superior to Tidal in that regard.
And Roon completely fails, as several of us have explained, since it is not integrated into Tidal for that function. Because it is not, the “focus on similar” button is limited to our own libraries, which is completely pointless, since it can’t introduce us to new artists not in our personal libraries. Even then, the “focus on similar” often recommends dissimilar albums in our collections, which is an oxymoron.
As I noted, Roon needs to fix this, and to correct my own post, has the potential to be fabulous when it does so – but is not there at the present time.
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Plus ca change… - by that time we’ll have a direct link to all the music in the world via interface chips in the bases of our skulls all controled by a headup display hardwired to our retinas…roll on!!!
Not a feeling but a certain reality with Netflix in the video world, as they have a well publicised monthly churn of product. It is all just content, licensed for a limited time until sold to the next bidder in both the music and video business: ‘The food of love became the greed of our time…’
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100% agree with you on Netflix. The music streaming is not quite so severe, but it does happen. Overall Ive been more pleasantly surprised with the addition of back catalogue than the removal with Tidal.
Much more worrying the the sword of damacles feeling over the whole business model, not just with Tidal. I think it will take a couple of decades more of stability of the status quo for us to invest in the medium fully as a structure for mentally acquiring music for the long term.
Put me in the collector bracket …
I have been collecting (at least 50 years) a bit like @mdconnelly above, I missed 8 Track though !!
I have no desire to have a library that evaporates at the fortunes of a company. I will and do use Tidal to discover new stuff to subsequently add to my library and to supplement FLAC where my originals are MP3 (UGH there are still a few )
I still leave all my originals in the library and hide them behind the FLAC version
Roon will live on because its doing a unique service , however needing of improvement, at the moment.
Not having to manually curate my library leaves more to for listening HURRAH …
Mike
I agree - music discovery is the big benefit of streaming services and roon limits us to our own libraries and gives recommendations that are not “similar” to what is in focus. If roon could expand as @Sallah_48 said and include new & undiscovered artists then it would be very valuable. But then we’re back to needing a streaming service to really get the value out of roon. If music collectors tend to buy physical music based on their discoveries then even Spotify/Apple Music would work without lossless.
I’m brand spanking new to roon - just started using it this week & can’t decide if I should keep it or not past the trial 
Allan, I agree with you. Roon is a quality stand-alone. I also deeply appreciate the fact that they are constantly tweeking things to improve sound quality - which is one of the chief reasons it exists. I’m not a techie, so I appreciate the Knowledge Base and these forums and the many supportive folk on them. I do subscribe to Tidal and appreciate how well it integrates with Roon - but I will still derive great value from Roon should they not continue.
While, a streaming service is a nice tool for music discovery it is in no way the primary way I discover new music ( really not even in the “discover new music” workflow for me ).
It’s not primary for me either for discovery, but I have discovered a lot of lesser-known artists thanks to Spotify’s recommendation algorithms. I think when a service uses computer programs to recommend music, it can be hit or miss for people depending on their tastes and how much they like to experiment with music. For me, it works well and is, but 1 tool I use. But an important one.
I would agree Daniel.
I find music via other sources, then use streaming to get into it, then look to buy if it really hooks. Although lately I’m trying to moderate this model and stop at the streaming stage.
But I think that’s the point of what’s being said here… there’s so much that could be done to promote related new and existing Tidal content within the Roon software. The fact that we are not using Tidal to discover specifically indicates a hole in functionality which could be filled.
I guess it all starts from where you set out. My 2000 CDs form the backbone of my collection, with about the 500 HD downloads and probably 100 Tidal albums. Roon is fantastic for me; yes, it has failings, but there is nothing better, in my view.
Think so? Do we know where Roon sources its information? (I suspect it’s been shared somewhere, I just don’t know where)
fwiw it looks to me like they pull it from allmusic.com – or Roon and allmusic.com use the same source.
I’ve always figured Roon integrated with Tidal because of the lossless audio, not the metadata.
Yep. Roon doesn’t mean much if you don’t have a library.
Tidal is my library. Without Tidal, Roon doesn’t have any value to me.
The thing I find curious about Roon from a product standpoint is that it serves two audiences, audio nerds and music nerds (obviously with a lot of overlap). For me the music is paramount, and I’d be happy to sacrifice audio quality for a better library. I would buy a lifetime membership if Roon integrated with Apple Music – I don’t see Apple Music going away any time soon, but I also don’t see Apple being interested or willing to integrate with Roon.
I found my way to Roon by way of Sonos. So really what I want is:
- a comprehensive library
- easy playing to Sonos
- discovery
Roon kicks ass at discovery more than anything else I’ve seen.
But it’s 2018, I don’t buy music, I stream it
Roon + Apple Music would be incredible. Roon + Spotify would be fantastic. Roon + Tidal is really good. Roon without streaming would be pointless to me.
Whilst I understand the sentiment I don’t recommend the approach fully. Sure stream, but buy your treasures… one day you may be so pleased you did…
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Absolutely agree. If I find something on Tidal that I like enough for long term, I always buy it if I can. Kind of annoying you cant buy flacs from tidal, but then if those stream services that do sell flacs are anything to go by, then the premium sub discount you get only reduces the price from extortionate to slightly less extortionate.
As for roon - I found roon through looking for a non-computer means of streaming Tidal MQA.
Yes - roon is good for my NAS library, however while I was a bit skeptical about the artist and tracking linking and the vastly extended metadata in that I didn’t think I would use it, I am actually using it a lot and the thing that makes it work for me is linking into the vast library of a streaming service.
I have since discovered other benefits of roon - I have installed it on a NAS, struck the bridge on a raspberry pi and thanks to the great work of some programmers on these forums, my R-PI touch also serves as a new playing screen and basic controller with some harmony integration - its is these latter features along with I think a very well though out technical architecture that also make it a likely keeper.
The things that make it a definite keeper in addition to NAS are tidal with MQA and support for custom URL internet radio as I also have a premium DI.FM subscription and with the increasing move away from vtuner to tuned based services on the part of hardware streamers, this is also a high priority feature for me.
But without tidal? Would I bother? Hmmm - yes it would be a significant loss - Im paying yearly, I am not sure if I would bother to renew without an equivalently good alternative with high quality streaming in roon.
TBH I only got into tidal because I bought a dragonfly for my iPhone and gave the MQA a go on my mac out of curiosity, but TBH there are very few albums in MQA that a) are to my taste, and b) have the production quality to be worth bothering with MQA.
Whilst I don’t know your age bracket, if you’re like me, pushing 60, you will have built up a growing and ever changing library over the years. Eventually, if you’re lucky and keep collecting you will find Roon invaluable. It just happens over time…
Also, youngsters today won’t be troubled by ever changing and incompatible formats. The CD/Flac format is here to stay and the likes of MQA are fully compatible with that. In our day, it was Reel to Reel tape, Vinyl, Cassette, 8 Track, mini disc, then CD and SACD before MP3 came along. Well, most of this is obsolete to the masses and certainly all of it except CD and SACD was Lossy in some way. So we have had to re buy our library’s many times if we wanted to listen to it at all.
Today is a golden age for music lovers but you’re going to have to spend some money on it if you want things to continue. The race to the bottom on price leads nowhere…
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