The yearly subscription remains the same price. You signed up for one year. If you wanted a lifetime guaranteed price you should have signed up for the lifetime subscription.
Why should somebody who is a couple of weeks into their trial benefit over someone who has committed to a year ?
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Interesting I dropped Roon as it didnât function with my Innuos/Naim setup, otherwise after a few trials I was very into it.
Price rise, well at least a statement thatâs honest, than the usual BS.
Very interesting now Android mobile support is mentioned, is that finally for on to go?
Slightly off topic but if I was to run Roon core on my laptop obviously it would need to be powered on all the time but would it need to be connected to my network via a cable or is wireless fine?
I would imagine that the biggest time for purchasing lifetime is in the first 30 days. Certainly I went life before my trial had ended.
As Danny explained they didnât want a deluge of lifetimes and are only keeping it to suit hardware vendors who âsellâ a lifetime licence with their product.
I can realise your disappointment but I think the explanation is clear.
.sjb
Incidentally, last time I trialled and cancelled they contacted me for feedback, and also offering an extension if I needed it. If someone gets to the end of the 30 day trial and is still unsure whether or not it is for them, they could do worse than contact Roon and ask for an extension of the trial rather than having to pay a yearâs subscription before being sure. (But if they accede, I imagine it would only be once, and not ad infinitum!)
I run Roon on a MacBook Pro and when I can be bothered, I use it with a wired Ethernet connection. If I use it over WiFi, it still works fine though.
With the Roon app running, I can log out of the computer, and it still runs.
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Not too much disappointment as I like Roon and I am impressed by the latest update. I donât mind paying for a good product and do understand the pricing/cash flow reasons given, just I was busy with other stuff and needed longer to assess, taking a punt on a year first seemed a good way to go.
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The laptop running the Roon Core software need not run all the time â just when you want to listen to music. You could boot it up, play music, and when done turn it off. It only need index your library once.
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Is it still advantageous to have it connected via Ethernet?
No, nothing in this regard, they just improved the performance of Android app for audio playback itâs still gimped to system audio though. I was hoping for DAC support but alas not yet.
Itâs better to have the core wired if you can as if your WiFi is not particularly good throughput then over WiFi Roon can struggle as it needs to pull everything through the server and out to the audio endpoints and this can eat away at WiFi bandwidth especially if only using 2ghz.
I was one day into my trial when the lifetime price increased. I contacted Roon Labs and they honoured the old lifetime price as per Dannyâs statement on the Roon community forum. 
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Itâs the lifetime sub they donât regard as good for long term business.
the lifetime subscription is not healthy for our future. It never was healthy; it was just a way to feed our hungry business early on.
I do think itâs rather surprising despite the explanations that they didnât offer a window for longer term annual subscribers to go for lifetime.
$499 or $699 are quite large outlays for most people on a relatively immature software platform (the concept of a product like Roon rather than Roon itself) which is quite dependent on other subscription services, or at least likely to be increasingly so in the future.
If Tidal and/or Qobuz went under it would be quite a significant loss of Roon functionality - for me as I tend to rely on it more for streaming services (Qobuz) more than serving local audio for which I could use my NAS/Asset/Minim etc.
In the grand scheme of hi-fi things itâs not that expensive but the output of the application is reliant on either your purchased media or services you subscribe to at your cost, not included with a Roon licence. Iâve not used internet radio on it so canât comment on that.
I suspect most of us who took annual subscriptions were either unsure if it worked well enough for a lifetime subscription, and would have reviewed options at renewal time, or felt that the business model is potentially rather fragile - in my view the average consumer will have little interest buying something like Roon if they only use free Spotify or similar.
I wonder in the future if Roon might evolve to become a storefront for Tidal/Qobuz/Spotify etc with access to these services included in the Roon subscription - Iâd imagine this might work for both Roon and streaming services.
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Yeah I know, my muddled mind with this damned cold. I meant the lifetime but time I noticed it was passed them time I could edit it.
I just couldnât afford to outlay all that at once and after first year thought that annual was a better model for me and since then Roons changed a lot and I donât regret still paying annually, if it helps them I am more for it to.
In wanting to rely on annual subscription are really trusting that their product is so captivating that people will be happy to spend that sort of money annually and indefinitely. It a lot of money compared to many alternatives, but clearly at the moment they have some USPs that appeal to quite a few people so it works. What happens if a competitor offers similar at half the price, or a one-off purchase not much more than Roonâs annual subscription?
I must admit that even with the price hike i would still happily pay it. I took out a lifetime subscription as it was (and still is for me) the best way to interface to my local and streaming files across a number of different playback devices.
Then Roon may lose a lot of business.
There are 2 risks. (1) Roon will not have enough cash coming in to sustain development. (2) Something better will come along and take the customer base.
Moving the business model further to monthly subscriptions helps de-risk (1).
The only think that de-risks (2) is continued development and improvements, which requires cash flow and thus supported by monthly subscription income.
Roonâs business model is NOT, âletâs get as many lifetime subscriptions as we can, bank the cash, let the product go to pot and let the customers piss off.â If one DID want that business model, lifetime subscriptions would be the better play.
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