I have had it with Roon, their lack of support, their user forum, and it's users...

[miguelito]

On 7/4/2021 at 3:59 PM, AudioDoctor said:

The Roon forum is a religion and anyone disagreeing with them is a witch to be burned.

I don't think this is true at all. But to support your point, no feature requests of mine or any other I have seen on the Roon forums, have ever made it into Roon. Ever. And my requests are both quite popular and relatively easy to implement.

[miguelito]

On 7/4/2021 at 11:44 PM, kennyb123 said:

I think it speaks very poorly about Roon the company that they allow toxic individuals to control the dialog there.  I’m guessing leadership at Roon may actually be happy that the toxic individuals are chasing off any mention of Roon sound quality not measuring up.

I don't think this is the case. Moderators do moderate and suppress people going off the rails. 

 

Having said that, I don't think the Roon team has a real interest in listening to their customers seriously. It feels like all they care about is being bought out by a large firm, and to be honest that's the only way Roon the company would really make a lot of money.

 

However, with the advent of Apple lossless and Spotify lossless (soon) and the unlikely event of integration into Roon (Spotify already said no, Apple unclear) it might be the case that neither Tidal, Qobuz, nor Roon will be around much longer.

[miguelito]

On 7/8/2021 at 12:49 PM, Pappy Boyington said:

The problem I was having that caused them to say they would remote into my system and log its activity to see what was going on, it has stopped happening. So... they probably saw the problem, fixed it, and decided to keep their mouths shut about it after blaming everything they could on my end.

My impression is Roon is pinging its servers ALL THE TIME. In my opinion this is horrible software architecture, but I cannot explain the lags every now and then any other way. I have a very fast internet connection and Roon core and dCS Rossini DAC are wired with gigabit ethernet.

 

Also to someone else's point, yes Roon sometimes decides to go berzerk and use a lot of CPU for some time. Maybe it's doing some database work, who knows.

 

For the record, I have been a lifetime Roon subscriber since July 2015, so I have seen every iteration of this software up close. I find it great in some aspects, but software architecture is complete crap in my opinion.

[miguelito]

14 hours ago, charlesphoto said:

I know you've said this before, and it's almost like you want it to happen, but I just don't see those millions of thirteen year old Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X fans abandoning Qobuz and Roon

I don't want it to happen, but I fear it will.

 

Tidal has (purportedly) 3m users, Qobuz has say 200k. Roon has about 100k. So a small fraction of Tidal and Qobuz users are Roon users, which means by and large the vast majority of those users use the native apps. For those users, switching to Apple Music is not a big change, and at 1/2 the cost at least (I actually get Apple Music free with my phone plan).

 

So when you do that math you realize Tidal and Qobuz are at high risk of losing a large number of subscribers. If Tidal and Qobuz fold, and without Apple Music integration in Roon, Roon will be much less useful to me, frankly.

[miguelito]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Roon could just offer it’s own native streaming service, rebranded from a white label service. 

Ok that's very interesting.

[miguelito]

4 minutes ago, rn701 said:

I'm thinking roon could acquire qobuz at this point.

I think there are a LOT more nuances to this. Qobuz surely has a lot of venture funding with expectations of performance, it is almost certainly not as simple as buying the firm.

[miguelito]

14 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Much more likely to happen is Roon getting acquired by a company that already has a streaming service. 

Surely what Roon had wanted all along. Question is at what valuation... I am sure the Roon team dreams with being acquired by Apple or similar.

 

I don't think this is likely to happen. The reasons:

1- Has only 100k users

2- Is a complex piece of software, and most potential users have already tried it and stayed on or dropped it

3- Is tied to your local network - no streaming client in your mobile device, and the complexity of the database precludes any changes to this that does not involve putting your machine in the cloud somehow

4- Is too complex to be used effectively on a phone screen anyway

 

So frankly I don't see Roon being bought by another service.

 

Let me add that, in my humble opinion, what Roon does is interesting but not a secret sauce. If a streaming service like Apple or Spotify would want to largely replicate its functionality, it would likely not be such a huge development effort. In my estimation, any of these services have the following priorities at the top of their lists:

1- Follow all of the user's choices in the app (Spotify masterfully figured how to do it with Spotify Connect)

2- Allow for mobile service

 

Buying Roon would render a platform that obviously does none of these things, and changing it to incorporate these features is a MAJOR rewrite. So again, no dice in my opinion.

[miguelito]

36 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Here's one option - https://www.7digital.com/music-platform-as-a-service/

 

 

This is quite interesting.

 

If I were Roon, other than looking for a sugar daddy, I would create a slimmed down version of the app that can rely on a slimmed down version of the db and would do this bit with 7digital. You could offer the "cheap" service or buy into the "big" version.

[miguelito]

7 hours ago, R1200CL said:

That’s a horrible prediction.  I think you’re wrong. 

Reality can be horrible. Frankly, I don't see much future to Tidal or Qobuz to be honest given Apple and Spotify. 

 

As a side note, I agree with Darko to hi res doesn't matter much. DEAD is a bit of a strong word, I would say more like unimportant.

[miguelito]

8 minutes ago, hopkins said:

You can push the argument further and claim that CD quality is of no importance either "to the masses". I would bet that 99% of streaming services users can't tell the difference with MP3 given the equipment they are using, or simply don't care. 

I think many people listening carefully would be able to tell between lossy and lossless CD quality. CD to higher is much harder.

 

Listening carefully is key here - most people are not really paying attention or are patient to decide. It takes more than 10 seconds of listening to assess any sound differences.

[miguelito]

14 hours ago, hopkins said:

Even for people who care about sound quality, digital audio is often a let down. Reasonably priced audio equipment don't necessarily provide much benefit, things get really complex quickly. If you had 500$ to spend on a stereo equipment, would you really spend it on a DAC and streamer, or simply get a basic amp and a decent set of speakers to use with your phone? 

To be honest, $500 is not enough to try and figure it out. I would prob consider a $350 headphone and a $150 dongle DAC if I really cared.

[miguelito]

8 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Wow

It is so pathetic really, to be honest. 1TB is not only a really small amount, but to many people (most in the Roon sphere?) it is too small! So sad.

[miguelito]

5 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

I see Apple and Qobuz chasing entirely different markets.

Hmmm... As long as Apple has the albums I care about, what is the difference? And you're assuming Qobuz will be around...

[miguelito]

7 hours ago, Jud said:

 

 

Very nice. One rig I like is:

iPhone -> Camera Connection Kit -> Dragonfly Red -> Fiio FH5 IEMs. About $500.

 

Also, I replaced the stock cable as one of its MMCX connectors became lose for: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZQC9MZB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and it's remarkably good and nicely made.