Article: Roon 1.7 With Valence Is Released

[firedog]

1 hour ago, misterspense said:

Upped the lifetime membership to 699???? 🤨 For getting a bit better recommendations, and easier liveradio? To be honest, with Roon 1.6 liveradio was not optimal, you needed to add the URL by hand. Dor instance Euphony, Volumio and LMS have selectable stations, no need to search for the URL's yourself. And they dare to ask 200 euro more for this added functionality???

 

30 minutes ago, 4est said:

Although I subscribe to Roon, I have balked at the lifetime price tag in hopes of a different solution. It is not that the $500 is that much, but in that the features Roon offered aren't enough. The search engine is a bit tweaky and you have to be VERY specific with spelling and such. The Roon radio is(was?) simply awful compared to the likes of Spotify and many others. Oh sure there is some artist info and if you take the time to click about the "followed by" or "influenced by" you can find some nice stuff, but even still, Amazon seems to sorta have that down as well in the "you might also like". My primary reason for using Roon is the streaming>HQPlayer DSD integration. Roon was already over priced, and this seems like a money grab for function they should have included before.

 

Roon said straight out at their forum that the $500 lifetime was/is a money loser for them and not a sustainable economic model; they used it at the beginning  to get a cash injection that prevented them from needing more loans or investment. Acc'd to them, they want to end it totally but haven't done so...yet. 

 

The large increase in  the "lifetime" price is actually designed to discourage people from becoming lifetime subscribers. Money grab? Note that they haven't upped the yearly subscription fee, which is what they want people to subscribe to. They will, at some point in the not distant future get rid of the lifetime option. 

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/lifetime-price-increase-499-699/84339/2

 

BTW, the search,  internet radio, and some other functions are all much improved in this version.  I don't have any issue with the subscription model, as they are continually improving the software and giving us something for our money (of course, I'm a long time "lifetime" subscriber, so I'm getting Roon for "free" already😁...). 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, 4est said:

Are we to feel sympathetic that they cannot figure out how to make a profit despite their software being 5x the price of something like Audirvana or most other player programs?

No, and no one is asking you to. You are free to think the price is sky high and not worth it; that doesn't change the reality that the "lifetime" model is a bad one for Roon, no matter what you think. 

 

Just use one of the other programs if you think Roon is too expensive. 

 

There's lots of stuff - from audio to alcohol to liquor to watches to clothes  and furniture - that are all non essetial luxury items - that I don't buy because I think they are too expensive. I buy a less expensive alternative and am happy with it. 

 

Why should software be any different? 

 

[firedog]

16 minutes ago, 4est said:

I never said it should be different. I simply stated that I didn't find a lot of value added for the price increase. This is a discussion forum and I have expressed my dislike for the reasoning behind a price increase as a present user. Are you suggesting then that I do not have the right to let my opinion be known in a forum where Roon seems to monitor, and others might see this and consider creating alternatives?

No, and I never wrote or implied that. 

[firedog]

4 hours ago, frederick184 said:

Upgraded to 1.7 last night.  All went well until I tried to play music, then I got "playback was interrupted because a track failed to load".  I went to the account page to find "error retrieving account information".  I created another core on my laptop and my credentials worked just fine and I could play music, just not from my server core.

 

I opened a ticket with Roon support, but I can tell it's going to be a lengthy process.  Yes, I did reboot my server.

 

Colin

Did you try removing the account info so your account isn't registered and  then re-entering the info and re-registering?

[firedog]

On 11/23/2019 at 11:21 PM, DancingSea said:

 

I write this not as a criticism of Roon, but rather out of software economics curiosity.  All the other players in this space, A+, Amarra, HQP, etc have not taken the subscription route.  These charge for a license for a given rendition, have free minor updates along the way, and then offer major, optional updates for an additional fee.  With Audirvana I paid $74 for 2.6 and paid another $40 to upgrade to 3.5 about 2 years later.

 

The question is why are Roon’s financial needs so much greater than the other software players?  Why is a $500, and now $700 for a lifetime license, not sustainable for Roon? Is it because Roon is a larger company compared to the one man bands of A+ and HQP, thus have more mouths to feed?  Following the A+ pattern I described above of a 2 year upgrade cycle, it would take approximately 30 years to equal a total of $674 paid to Damien.

 

I use Roon everyday.  Roon is a premium product and when combined with HQP, makes an outstanding system.  I understand Roon wants to maximize their profit and will charge what the market will bear.  I understand that a continual stream of annual fees will make Roon more money.  But I don’t understand how a $700 lifetime license fee is specifically unsustainable, or even $500.

 

Roon does seem to have a corporate structure of VP’s, COO’s, CFO’s etc.  While HQP and Audirvana have a corporate structure of perhaps a few house pets.  And maybe that’s the ultimate difference of why Roon needs more money, to pay the big salaries?

 

It’s an interesting strategic quandary.  The low price to get more folks in the tent vs a significantly higher price to get more from fewer.  I like Valence and appreciate Roon’s move to incorporate Pandora like recommendations, and the new radio features are interesting, but how much more can really be done to improve Roon in a major way?  And it seems they will one day have to move to monthly billing.  But isn’t $10/ month about the ceiling for album sorting software?  How could they charge more?  Seems they need a lot more customers and not yet higher prices.

I don't know the details of the economics, but clearly Roon, with it's use of metadata data bases and full integration of streaming services into the UI and the user's library, has a lot of expenses - both royalty payments and server costs - that most of the other playback softwares don't have. Those are ongoing expenses, not one off charges, that have to be covered. So the economics of a program like Roon are quite different. 

[firedog]

I use all the various functions of Roon extensively: DSP, convolution, volume levelling, EQ, display to monitor, etc. It also has the best UI integration of streaming services there is. It does all that in one interface  and playback to multiroom, and gives me almost no problems - unlike many other SW packages that I have to mess with quite a bit to get them to do what I want and they are less convenient and don't have as useful a UI. 

 

I have zero issues with the price. You get what you pay for. 

 

If you don't need most of it's functions, then maybe it isn't for you. 

[firedog]

6 hours ago, DancingSea said:

 

I do think Roon is drastically overpriced.  I also own a lifetime Roon membership, which I also think is overpriced.  And I exclusively listen to music via Roon/ HQP4, and I think HQP4 is overpriced as well.  It's possible to think something is overpriced and yet still own, use and respect it.  Price is one thing, performance is another.  How one correlates the two is entirely individual, there is no right or wrong.

You are obviously free to think things are overpriced, but your opinion isn't really based on anything other than your personal idea of money and value. 

Roon has stated that the lifetime subscription will stop being offered in the not distant future as it is not a viable economic propostion. Miska will tell you that he's not getting rich off of HQP, and has other work that he does to support himself.  

If your idea of fair pricing was applied, apparently both products would cease to exist.